In many ways, they're both national treasures. On one hand you have Miss USA, famed for her flawless apple pie good looks and impeccable manners, and on the other hand you have crazy-haired bellowing rich bloke Donald Trump.

Neither Miss USA or Donald Trump appear to have particularly hard jobs - from what we've seen, Donald Trump has to read pre-scripted voice-overs unconvincingly, yell down mobile phones in a limousine and say "you're fired" with an increasing look of weariness on his face. On the other hand Miss USA has to turn up to stuff and wave. However, the current Miss USA Tara Conner would rather do other stuff than just wave - like hang out at bars all the time, have it off with any man she can find and snort so much cocaine that Donald Trump looks sure to fire her in the very near future. Oh, and wakeboarding.

Christmas is starting to do our heads in. Christmas day is still a whole week away, and yet everyone's already become so sentimental that they're letting a nauseatingly cute film about Will Smith hugging his own son top the US weekend box office.

It's strange to see how the US weekend box office reacts against itself sometimes. Last week Mel Gibson's Apocalypto - a couple of hours of blood-splattered violence that managed to out-shock even Saw 3 - was the number one weekend box office movie, and this week The Pursuit Of Happyness - an insufferably twee film about how much Will Smith's love for his son can even overcome obstacles such as being sack, becoming homeless and having the woman from Mission: Impossible II walk out on them both. We'd be happy to describe The Pursuit Of Happyness further, but thinking about it has made us cry vomit out of our arses.

If things went to plan, this time next week you'd have all been unwrapping copies of If I Did It, Here's How It Happened, pulling a strained face and saying "oh, a book describing how OJ Simpson would have murdered his own wife, how did you know?"

But things sometimes don't go the way you expect them to, and that's the case with If I Did It, Here's How it Happened by OJ Simpson. Thanks to some crazy fools thinking that a book written by a man found to be legally liable for the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend describing exactly how he would have brutally murdered them if he had the chance was in bad taste, If I Did It, Here's How It Happened by OJ Simpson will never see the light of day. And thanks to all the fuss that the OJ Simpson Murdering Former Spouses And Their Friends For Dummies caused, the woman in charge of the whole shebang, Judith Regan, has been sacked by Rupert Murdoch.

If you're anything like us you woke up this morning, stumbled to your desk, pointed your bleary eyes at your calender, realised that it's Christmas Day in a week and had a minor panic attack because you haven't bought anything for anyone yet.

Here we are, folks. We're fast approaching the end of 2006, and hecklerspray be getting retrospective on yo' ass.

Regular readers of this site - and if you're not one of them, slap yourself in the face like the mad fool you are - will be aware that we like to set our beloved audience a weekly task: to sum up a crazy topical celebrity story in the style of an ancient Japanese poetry-writer.

We call it the Celebrity Haiku Competition. Just for the sake of simplicity. 

We're going to give the haikus a bit of a rest until 2007 - we wouldn't want to spoil you -  but rest assured that we'll be returning all bright and shiny and happy and (rumour has it) with the added incentive of actual prizes to look forward to. We know - has there ever been anything more exciting in the history of the known universe? We doubt it.

In the meantime, though, let's take a look at some of our favourite Celebrity Haikus of 2006, and the news-based japes that inspired them...

Leona Lewis won X Factor on Saturday, just like everyone knew she would from the first time she opened her mouth, belted out a generic power ballad, burst into tears and squeaked out a handful of personality-devoid platitudes to Kate Thornton.

When Leona Lewis won X Factor, one of three main responses was prompted from the people watching at home. 1) "Thank God for that, at least that swivel-eyed twerp who looks like a demonic ventriloquist's dummy didn't win," 2) "O No I Luvvvvvvv Ray Ur So gawjus Babe UR F2F Lol!!!!!!1!!!!1!!" or 3) "Did I really waste two and a half fucking hours of my precious life actually watching this shit? I feel so... so dirty." Do you really need to ask which of these three responses we were going through as Leona Lewis stammered and sobbed her way to X Factor victory on Saturday? Do you? Really?

It's the week before Christmas, and everything has that magical Christmassy glow to it - the streets are lined with snow, choirs of carol singers have gathered in the town square and Santa's waiting for you to hop up onto his jolly knee.

No, sorry, we got that completely wrong. What we meant was that the streets are lined with boozy puke from a million rubbish company Christmas parties, gangs of monosyllabic happyslappers with homemade knives have gathered in the town square and Santa's being questioned by the police on suspicion of being the Suffolk Strangler. Merry Christmas everyone!

In truth, nothing is more Christmassy than a good old-fashioned race to become Christmas number one. The Christmas number one has a special place in the hearts of the British people, and so over the next few days we'll be taking a closer look at some of the contenders hoping to be named as Christmas number one this coming Sunday before inevitably deciding that Leona Lewis is probably going to get it anyway and we needn't have bothered.

Here are the Christmas Number One betting odds for El Chombo, Andy Abraham featuring Michael Underwood and Eskimo Disco featuring Pingu...

Anyone see Buzzcocks a couple of weeks back? Jamelia and Lilly Allen, that was gonna kick off, eh? Folded is good, Creased is bad etc etc...