Paul McCartney has chosen to summon up all the energy in his wrinkly little body to call on his fans to boycott McDonald’s. Not because of the deforestation caused by the fast food industry’s mass farming practises, though, or McDonald’s aggressive child-centric marketing, or even the potential health risks inherent in a predominantly fast food diet.

No, Paul McCartney wants everyone to boycott McDonald’s because someone put a photo of Paul McCartney up in a Liverpool branch without asking him first. Come back next week, when Paul McCartney tries to ban abortion because he heard that someone who aborted her pregnancy once hummed three notes from Love Me Do for one and a half seconds in a shower on her own in 1975.

People often give John Lennon all the credit for being the political one in The Beatles, but that overlooks a vast portion of Paul McCartney’s oeuvre. Give Ireland Back To The Irish, for example, was a bloodied warcry for the abolition of crappy Irish-themed funpubs. Hi Hi Hi was an impassioned called for the legalisation of Hi-Tec trainers. And Dance Tonight was a thundering commentary on the uneasy political friendship between Pakistan and India, and not a cacky load of bum wanked out on a mandolin in five minutes like you thought.

Lately, though, Paul McCartney has been flexing his political muscles with a little bit more might than usual. He invoked the wrath of fundamental Islam by playing a concert in Israel recently and, what’s more, he was slightly rude about Gordon Ramsay in a supermarket magazine, too. Paul McCartney has got the fire back in his belly, that’s for sure.

And now Paul McCartney has picked his next target – McDonald’s. As a devout vegetarian, Paul McCartney has long since spoken of the environmental cost of humanity’s passion for meat, but that’s not why he’s angry at McDonald’s. Nor is it because the meagre vegetarian options on sale at McDonald’s all taste like slurry.

No, Paul McCartney has decided to go after McDonald’s because one branch in Liverpool has a picture of him in it. The bastards. Paul McCartney’s serious, too – he wants all his fans to boycott the restaurants, as The Telegraph reports:

The singer was said to be furious after discovering pictures of the Beatles had been placed prominently in a restaurant in his home town. A spokesman for Sir Paul said: “What sort of morons do McDonald’s think Beatles’ fans are. It’s ridiculous and insulting to use images to peddle hamburgers. Fans should boycott Mcdonald’s, and not just in Liverpool.”

It’s good that the spokesman managed to say “Beatles’ fans” and not “fans of Paul McCartney’s solo work,” isn’t it, because that’s the difference between a large percentage of the world’s population and a couple of old ladies with bad hearing who drink at Starbucks more often than they probably should. That would have probably been quite a crappy boycott, to be honest.

Anyway, we think that McDonald’s branches having pictures of their towns’ favourite sons is a brilliant idea – because that way people in Birmingham could eat their burgers under big pictures of UB40, residents of Brentwood could order their Egg McMuffins next to pictures of Chantelle from Big Brother and everyone in Nottingham could utilise the McDonald’s free wifi facility with several giant portraits of Dr Harold Shipman looming at them from every surface.

But still, we should probably do what Paul McCartney says and boycott McDonald’s. Otherwise he might try and kiss us, and that’d be like kissing your granny. Bleurgh.

It doesn’t any more, though, and Noel Edmonds has got a right old cob on about it. Now that Noel’s made his ‘glorious comeback’ – which mainly involves ordering dimwits to open boxes on daytime Channel 4 and banging on about orbs of energy like some kind of swivel-eyed fairground huckster – he’s decided that everyone at the BBC is a great big idiot and so he doesn’t want to pay his licence fee any more.

So Noel Edmonds has stopped, because of what he describes as the BBC’s ‘threatening’ behaviour. It’s an impressive outburst, not least because the whole world – including Noel Edmonds – knows that Noel Edmonds would probably agree to host a show called Noel’s Donkey Masturbation And Anthrax Hour if it could be on BBC One again.

Noel Edmonds used to be Mr BBC. He had a radio show, he presented Top Gear, he had his own fluffy-jumpered quiz show about television and – best of all – he had Noel’s House Party. And, thanks to the unique way that the BBC is funded, you paid for that. When you saw Noel Edmonds play elaborately smug pranks on Eddie Large, or hop around like a giddy bearded elf pouring gallons of goo over Nigel Mansell, he was spending your money.

But now that Noel Edmonds is on commercial television and only indirectly funded by you, he’s had a bit of a rethink about the whole licence fee thing. Now Noel Edmonds thinks it’s all a load of bollocks and nobody should pay it, because the licence fee adverts are a bit depressing or something. Noel told BBC Breakfast:

“I worked for the BBC for 30 years. When I was there it promoted the licence fee by saying how wonderful it was. But now Auntie’s put boxing gloves on. I am not going to have the BBC or any other organisation threatening me. I’ve cancelled my TV licence and they haven’t found me. Nobody’s coming knocking on my door. There are too many organisations that seem to think it is OK to badger, hector and threaten people.”

This weird little outburst came right before Noel Edmonds’ new Sky One show, Noel’s HQ. If you missed it, it was kind of like that TV show Noel Edmonds used to present on Christmas Day, except with about 20 times extra Daily Mail-style public outrage. It was – what’s the word – odd.

But, to be fair, Noel Edmonds has got a point. The fun’s gone out of not paying your licence fee these days. Not so long ago you’d feel more like a renegade spy, living in the belief that a special van drove around the country with an impossibly advanced licence fee detection radar trying to catch people out. But now we all know that there’s just a database with everyone’s details on it, it’s hardly worth dodging your licence fee at all.

And because he’s admitted not paying his licence fee, Noel Edmonds has already got in trouble. There’s talk of him losing his ceremonial title of Deputy Lieutenant of Devon over it. Hopefully, though, the powers that be will see sense and, rather than just sack Noel Edmonds outright, they’ll simply demote him temporarily to Chief Petty Officer of Babbacombe (Scones And Yokel Division).

Ultimately, though, we have to side with Noel Edmonds on this argument. Like him, we’re sick of being threatened and bullied by television. It’d be so much better if all TV shows just fostered unintelligible, scientifically-berserk theories about positive energies having the ability to tangiably move physical objects to disguise the fact that they’re really just programmes about simple people arbitrarily opening some boxes, wouldn’t it.

On Saturday the UK Eurovision entry Andy Abraham came joint last – along with some nondescript Germans and a Polish tooth machine who looks like she bathes in Ronseal – causing Terry Wogan to mumble furiously about political block voting and boycotts and even his own resignation if our crap songs weren’t taken as seriously as mainland Europe’s crap songs in the future.

And now Terry Wogan’s outraged warcry has been backed up by none other than Bruce Forsyth. Old men grumbling about stuff? Who’d have thought?

We wouldn’t like to be Andy Abraham at the moment. After coming joint last in Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest, Andy’s managed to become the most high profile British loser in all of Europe. And that’s saying something, given John Terry’s proven inability to stand up and kick a football at the same time.

Scoring points from just two out of 43 countries, Even If by Andy Abraham is going to go down in history as a song that’s even less successful than Scooch. Than Scooch, for christ’s sake. Watching your children get gang-raped by bears has to be less painful than that.

And that’s why the angry Eurovision backlash has begun. It started during Eurovision itself, as Terry Wogan started to mutter darkly about western Europe boycotting the contest because Eurovision was no longer a music contest while watching several former-Soviet countries give full marks to the Russian entry.

Andy Abraham had one of our best entries in years, Wogan said. It didn’t matter that it sounded like the theme tune to Supermarket Sweep, or that it was the second song to be performed out of 25 so everyone forgot about it when they voted, or that it was completely free of any memorable traits whatsoever – we should have won and because we didn’t we should pick our ball up and go home.

And now Terry Wogan has received some high-profile backing from an 80-year-old chinny dancer and the man who Kerry Katona named her child after. The Press Association reports:

Showbusiness legend Bruce Forsyth said: “I agree with him. It’s not a song contest any more, it’s political. It’s all so biased, it’s developed into a farce. I’ve stopped watching it, the last couple of years.”… Public relations guru Max Clifford commented: “Terry Wogan is spot on. It’s all about politics and block voting and nothing to do with the merits of a song. It’s like having a World Cup where the results are worked out in political terms and it’s got nothing to do with who scores the most goals.”

So what’s going to happen? Is the UK really going to retreat from Eurovision? There’ll be a bit of a catch-22 scenario if it does, because the UK pays for about 40% of Eurovision’s running costs at the moment. If the UK quits Eurovision then the lack of money will force several other smaller former Soviet countries out of the contest, too, effectively dismantling the eastern voting block. With that gone, the competition will be fairer and the UK stands a decent hope of winning. Until it decides to rejoin Eurovision, of course, because then it’ll pay for everything again and the eastern voting block will be able to afford to rejoin as well and we’re all back at square one.

Oh, it’s a tricky one. Why can’t Eurovision be fair and simple like it was in the old days, when it was won and lost depending on which crackpot fascist nationalist dictator happened to be in power at any given time? Such a simpler time.

Read more:

Wogan backed over Eurovision attack - PA

We mean it. Naomi Campbell is a genius. Only a genius could do something as flat-out berserk as what Naomi Campbell’s just done.

Recently Naomi Campbell was banned from flying with British Airways for life for spitting on a policeman in the middle of a violent tantrum about luggage. So, naturally, Naomi Campbell has made a huge point of boycotting British Airways, even though it’s already banned her. Seriously. Indiscriminate violence and a dangerously flawed mental process? We can’t figure out why nobody’s married a catch like that yet.

We’re starting a genuine campaign right now. We want Naomi Campbell to be the new host of Watchdog. We’re not making this up. We have three main reasons for wanting this: 1) Naomi Campbell is a stone cold consumer champion. 2) If any company CEOs tried to give her the runaround, she’d be straight down their offices ready to punch everything to splinters. 3) It’d make Nicky Campbell slightly less employed, which we’re all for.

But really, Naomi Campbell is an honest to goodness consumer champion. Earlier this month, you see, Naomi Campbell suffered a taste of the hellish luggage problems that customers at Heathrow airport’s newly-opened Terminal Five have been experiencing. And because of that – and only that – Naomi Campbell has decided to boycott British Airways forever.

Speaking about her decision to boycott British Airways while in Brazil, golden consumer idol Naomi Campbell said:

“Someone from BA called me and asked that I return to fly with them but this will not occur so early. They didn’t find my bag – said it wasn’t in the system – and there was a complete disrespect for the passengers. You Brazilians went through the same problem last year. The case in Terminal 5 at Heathrow was the same thing and I am not speaking for myself. I am speaking for all those who have been disrespected.”

What a wonderful, wonderful person Naomi Campbell is. She’s boycotting British Airways because it treated the people shoddily, and Naomi Campbell stands up for the people no matter what.

In other completely unrelated news, British Airways is the airline that recently banned Naomi Campbell forever because she attacked a policeman when her luggage went missing.

However, even though she flew into a galactic rage and flobbed up on a copper, Naomi Campbell was merely cautioned for the tantrum. And it seems that British Airways wants to make amends, if Naomi’s stories of pleading phone calls are correct. They are correct aren’t they, The Times?

A BA insider told London’s Evening Standard paper: “We are not aware of any pleading phone calls to Ms Campbell.”

Oh. Well, anyway, good for Naomi Campbell for boycotting British Airways in any case. Someone needs to stand up to these giant faceless corporations, and who better to do so than a alarmingly violent woman who can hardly seem to go more than a couple of days without assaulting someone’s skull off or destroying a boat? Naomi Campbell, we salute you.

By the way, we’re serious about getting Naomi Campbell that Watchdog job. Here’s where you can contact the show to make the case for her employment. Quite frankly we’ve waited too long to see the chairman of British Gas getting his face smashed in by a screaming, froth-mouthed woman holding a telephone.

Read more:

Naomi Campbell boycotts BA in Terminal 5 protest - Times

The Golden Globes – the all-singing, all-dancing, glitzy, foreign-voted cousin to the Oscars – is set to take place on Sunday, but the writers' strike means that it will be boycotted by all the nominees if it gets televised by NBC as planned. And now the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is pushing NBC to not broadcast the awards at all so that the stars won't face picket lines on their way in. Of course, without cameras there to capture them in their pretty dresses and painstaking make-up jobs, there's a good chance that the cast of Desperate Housewives will disintegrate into clouds of dust at some point during the ceremony, but that's the chance they'll have to take.

We take everything back about awards season. Everything at all. We know we've been laying into it for a couple of months now, saying that the whole thing is nothing more that a series of excuses for actors to publicly congratulate each other for being so brilliant at repeating a handful of words off a piece of paper at a time in funny costumes, but in reality this might just be the best awards season ever.

And that's all down to the striking writers. Sure, the Writers Guild Of America strike has meant that your favourite TV shows – and Heroes – aren't getting made properly, that the sequel to The Da Vinci Code has been postponed and that Jay Leno has been told off for telling a bunch of lame jokes off the top of his head, but it also means that the Golden Globes might not be on TV this year.

You know the Golden Globes – the award ceremony that's like the Oscars except Sharon Stone gets to do a nauseating retrospective highlight show filled with preposterously unconvincing fake laughter beforehand. This year it looks like Atonement might win a lot of Golden Globes, only you probably won't see it because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organisers of the Golden Globes, wants NBC to drop the broadcast of the ceremony to stop it turning into a no-star farce.

You see, if the Golden Globes are televised, then nobody from the Screen Actors Guild will show up. And that means that there'll be nobody to present the awards and nobody to receive them. According to SAG president Alan Rosenberg:

"After considerable outreach to Golden Globe actor nominees and their
representatives over the past several weeks, there appears to be
unanimous agreement that these actors will not cross WGA picket lines
to appear on the Golden Globe Awards as acceptors or presenters."

So today NBC will make the decision whether to go ahead with the Golden Globes broadcast even though it'll consist of an empty plinth in front of rows and rows of empty chairs, whether to delay it for a few weeks while it negotiates with the WGA or whether to drop it from the schedules completely and let the ceremony take place away from television.

Fingers crossed that it won't be the last option, because we don't know if we'd be able to cope knowing that somebody was handing out awards to actors behind our backs. To think, it's a possibility that this time next week the only way we'll know the Golden Globes even happened is by the four billion newspaper pictures of Cameron Diaz twatting about on the red carpet in a dress that she's clearly 15 years too old for. And what a kick in the nuts that'd be.

Read more:

With stars dimming NBC may unplug Globes – Reuters