The Dark Knight has been having a strange old year.

Firstly, he wakes up one blockbuster-shaped day to find that Memento director Christopher Nolan has only gone and revived his franchise - pulling in Christian Bale (DVDs), Gary Oldman (DVDs) and Liam Neeson (DVDs)  and moulding the most intelligent slice of popcorn entertainment in years.

Things were looking peachy. And then?

Then he gets caught hugging and kissing Robin.

Yeah, we know we're a little late with this one. The V Festival has come and gone; Oasis did their usual pub rock nonsense, The Streets did their Maxwell from Big Brother yapping, and the Kaiser Chiefs played their only song over and over again.

Anyway, there was a V Festival game created where you had to fling a man over the festival gates.

The White Stripes love you. It might not appear that way sometimes, what with the shrieking and the five minute marimba recitals of the Rugrats theme tune. But they do love you. You can see it in the wicked twinkle in Jack's eye, and Meg's oddly seductive drumming technique.

How do the White Stripes show you their love? By releasing one of their best-ever

***LATEST MTV MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS ODDS! CLICK HERE***

There's less than a week before the 2005 MTV Music Video Awards take place in Miami. And that means it's another chance to make some money on the results.

Today we'll be looking at the Best Hip-Hop Video category. Yes, we know we did the Best Rap Video category on Friday and, yes, we thought hip-hop and rap were the same thing too. But according to MTV they're completely different to each other. And MTV is 'street' and we're quite obviously 'not', so we'll have to take their word for it.

So here are the latest odds for the nominees in the Best Hip-Hop Video category, brought to you with Betfair.com.

"He loved explosions."

That's Anita Thompson discussing the memorial ceremony for her late husband, Hunter S Thompson (Books), whose remains were this weekend blasted out of a fist-cannon taller than the Statue Of Liberty.

Hunter S Thompson shot himself in the head six months ago and, according to his wishes, his ashes were packed inside a giant fibreglass gonzo fist on top of a

heckletters has been away for a while, we know. But calm down. Wipe those tears away. We're back now. It's okay. It's okay.

For the initiated, heckletters is our weekly Monday gripefest in which we allow you, dear heckler, the chance to fill in the blanks on a letter already written and send it spiralling off to the celebrity in question.

This week? It's the turn of walking tan-bottle Tara Reid.

Tara has decided that it's time to quit 'acting' (ahem) and "settle down". hecklerspray - of course - has its own thoughts on the subject. Perhaps you might agree with us. If that is the case - and, boy oh boy, we hope it is - then all you have to do is scribble your name on the letter provided.

Excited? Bless you...

Ever noticed how it's always the most preposterous people that have the worst sense of humour?

Slipknot (CDs), a metal band made up of rockers in frightmasks whose stage antics include inhaling the fumes of a liquefied dead bird in a jar until they vomit, are apparently outraged that Burger King might have stolen their image for a series of American commercials.

All this talk about box office slumps has got Hollywood in a great big flap.

Most of this year's multi-million dollar explodoflicks have underperformed at the cinema, but there have been a few rays of light.

Wedding Crashers is undoubtedly the sleeper hit of 2005. Two charismatic stars banter their way through - basically - a girly romantic comedy that's vaguely raunchy and boisterous, and people can't stop watching it.

That trick seems likely to be repeated by another comedy that walks the line between warmhearted and outrageous. Steve Carell - previously most famous for being the newsreader that went "Mer mer bubububu woo woo" in Bruce Almighty and the man who ate a big red candle in Anchorman - now stars in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. And it's number one in this week's US weekend box office charts.