Like many people, we’ve often dreamt of jiggling around flashing lights into Keanu Reeves’ face as he attempts to drive a car.

But we’ve been too scared to do that, because of that paparazzo who claimed that Keanu Reeves mercilessly mowed him down while he was doing that exact same thing. But our days of worry are far behind us, readers – Keanu Reeves has been cleared of liability over the accident.

You know what that means? It means that Keanu Reeves didn’t run over photographer Alison Silva last year, yes, but mainly it means that we’re all allowed to be as infuriatingly intrusive towards Keanu Reeves while he’s in his car as we like, and he almost certainly won’t drive into us as fast as he can, shattering our pelvis into a million pieces. Almost certainly. Result!

It’s best to think of the paparazzi as big game hunters. That way you’ll realise that Lindsay Lohan is a common prey, like a slurring elk that hardly ever wears knickers, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are more like elephants because they’re massive and they’ll quite often attack anyone who gets too close to them.

And then there’s Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves is more like a mountain lion, for two reasons. One, he’s slippery and hard to track down and, two, he’s never knowingly displayed a recognisable human emotion. But let’s concentrate on the first one for the time being.

Because Keanu Reeves deliberately shuns the limelight as much as possible, the paparazzi can often find themselves getting over-excited in his presence. That’s what happened to photographer Alison Silva last year, when he attempted to grab a picture of Keanu Reeves in his car and ended up splattered across the tarmac.

At the time Silva claimed that Keanu Reeves had run him over, while Reeves himself said that Silva fell over of his own accord because he was so busy over-zealously clicking away into his little camera. With a depressing amount of inevitability the argument went to court, with Silva demanding $640,800 for medical bills and loss of earnings.

But yesterday Keanu Reeves was cleared of any liability in the accident, which means that Alison Silva can go and shove his loss of earnings up his tarmac-destroyed bottom. Reuters reports:

Actor Keanu Reeves was cleared on Monday of any liability for injuries a paparazzo claimed he suffered when he was struck by the actor’s car. A Los Angeles jury deliberated for about an hour in the civil lawsuit brought by photographer Alison Silva against the “Matrix” star before clearing Reeves.

Keanu Reeves hasn’t commented on the result of the case yet, and he really doesn’t need to, because just about everyone on the planet will assume that he’d just blanky murmur “woah,” and that’s probably about three or four times as eloquent as whatever he was planning to say anyway.

And, in time, Alison Silva will come to appreciate the fact that he lost his case. After all, had he won, Keanu Reeves would have taken on more work to recoup his losses, and we’re pretty sure that knowing you were ultimately responsible for Johnny Mneumonic 2 would be far more painful than the injuries you picked up slowly falling over in front of Keanu Reeves’ car.

The copyright lawsuit between JK Rowling and The Harry Potter Lexicon finished yesterday, but don’t think you can go back to not giving a stuff about it again.

As you remember, JK Rowling claims that The Harry Potter Lexicon unfairly and illegally plagiarises the Harry Potter novels, while the makers of The Harry Potter Lexicon just claim that it’s nothing more than a reference book. And now the case has concluded.

However, we won’t know if JK Rowling or The Harry Potter Lexicon author Steven Vander Ark will win yet, because the judge needs to go away and think about it. And he won’t do that until both JK Rowling and Steven Vander Ark have submitted written summations of their arguments to him. We’re just guessing here, but we’d assume that Vander Ark’s summation is going to be identical to Rowling’s, but with a couple of words changed and cheaper-looking artwork.

Chances are the copyright lawsuit between Harry Potter author JK Rowling and the makers of The Harry Potter Lexicon has had you on the edge of your seat, assuming that you really have nothing better to do than concern yourself with a petty legal squabble between an obscenely rich woman and the makers of a trashy cash-in book that you wouldn’t have even known existed otherwise. If that’s you, then consider this your Super Bowl.

So, to quickly get everyone up to speed, this is what happened. David Vander Ark ran a Harry Potter fan website that JK Rowling gave an award to once. Then there were plans to turn the website into a book, which JK Rowling didn’t like the idea of because she was writing a similar Harry Potter reference book and she thought that Vander Ark’s book would step on its toes. JK Rowling sued David Vander Ark to stop publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon, saying that it amounted to theft. And that’s where we are today.

Well, almost. Yesterday was the final day of the court case in New York, and JK Rowling took to the stand once again to angrily declare that she’s being royally ripped off, as the New York Daily News reports:

Author JK Rowling Wednesday trashed the geeky librarian who’s trying to publish a Harry Potter encyclopedia as a literary thief who ripped off her novels. “If I may say so without being arrogant or vain,” Rowling [said], “I think there are funny things in there, and I wrote them.”… This time around, Rowling, wearing a crisp, white jacket, was testier, turning away from her lawyer to speak directly to Patterson as she urged him to defend authors like herself against plagiarists. “I did not fly here because I thought I would lose some sales,” Rowling said. “If this book is allowed to be published, the floodgates will open….I see this as an incredibly important case. Are we or are we not the owners of our own work?”

JK Rowling has a point. If she loses this case, then web nerds everywhere will be able to make their own hastily-compiled reference books – not just about Harry Potter, but about any rubbish, inexplicably popular series of kid’s books. It might be Harry Potter today, but tomorrow it’ll be Clifford The Big Red Dog. Is that something you want on your conscience? Is it?

Anyway, nobody’s going to know who’s come out on top of this case for a while, because the judge has requested that both JK Rowling and Steven Vander Ark hand in written summations of their arguments for him to peruse before coming to a conclusion. And if the Harry Potter books are anything to go by, JK Rowling’s summation is going to be about four billion pages long and full of about 18 pointless Quidditch matches. So don’t expect a result for a while.

Read more:

Harry Potter ‘Lexicon’ trial gets testier - New York Daily News

You may remember that attorney who claimed Britney Spears' civil rights had been removed by the way her father kept her constantly encased in a pulsating plasma forcefield and only fed her twigs.

Or something. Anyway, this attorney – Jon Eardley – had been pushing to move Britney Spears' conservatorship case to a federal court because of this apparent civil rights hoo-hah.

But it isn't going to happen. A judge has ruled that the Britney Spears case has to remain in California because the attorney isn't really Britney Spears' attorney. Interesting, huh? OK, on with your lives now.

If ever there was a human being who doesn't deserve normal civil rights, it's Britney Spears. Give Britney Spears an inch of civil freedom and next thing you know she's using it to wear a bright pink wig and lead a small army of paparazzi around a fast food restaurant car park while she mutters at herself in a British accent and weeps.

Face the facts – the only thing that's helped Britney Spears recover from her horrible mental breakdown last month was the way that her father Jamie Spears took control of her conservatorship and imposed a strict set of rules on her. But some would say those rules were imposed a little too strongly. 

Like Jon Eardley, for example. He argued that Jamie had stripped Britney Spears of her civil rights and wouldn't allow her to think for herself or wee by herself, and that when Britney tried to phone Eardley the phone was snatched away from her because it was in the middle of Jamie Spears Jabs Britney's Ankles With An Electric Cattle Prod To Make Her Dance Like A Sad Puppet Hour. Or whatever.

Anyway, Jon Eardley used this argument to try and move the Britney Spears case to a federal court, but yesterday a judge decided that he wasn't having any of it. Reuters reports:

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled the case of pop singer Britney Spears' conservatorship should remain in a California court, effectively allowing the troubled performer's father to keep control of her affairs. U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez said attorney Jon Eardley, who claimed Spears' civil rights were violated by California officials, could not be Spears' attorney and, as a result, was not entitled to move the case to federal court. "Mr. Eardley had no authority to remove the case from state court. He is neither a party nor a defendant," Gutierrez wrote in his ruling.

It's probably for the best that Judge Gutierrez made this decision, because a move to a federal court would have only brought more attention to Britney Spears, and that's just about the last thing she needs. Plus this way Jamie Spears can continue doing the seemingly fine job of keeping Britney Spears in check. And let's not forget that it keeps Judge Philip Gutierrez in the limelight, too, bringing his dream of hosting a daytime cookery TV show one tantalising step closer. 

However, this legal kerfuffle hasn't been without its drawbacks. It's been reported that the cost of fighting Eardley's claims ran to more than $40,000. And, since Eardley claims that he was hired by Britney Spears, then his fees will also be coming out of the Britney Spears bank balance.

Eventually, if this continues, Britney Spears is going to run out of cash. So maybe it's time for her to think about marketing a new perfume with a name that reflects her current situation. How about Britney Spears: Locked In A Cage That Used To Belong To A Spider Monkey?

Read more:

Britney Spears case to stay in California court – Reuters 

The only things standing between OJ Simpson spending the rest of his life in jail for armed robbery and OJ Simpson being set free to skip around in a meadow like a wide-eyed schoolgirl are guns.

And whether or not OJ Simpson knew there were guns during the heist has been the main point in the court case to determine whether or not OJ Simpson should face a full trial for his alleged crime. OJ Simpson, you see, is adamant that he saw none of his goonsquad carrying guns during the hotel-room sports memorabilia raid – but testimonies by the goon who owned the guns, the goon who OJ Simpson asked to carry a gun and the memorabilia dealer who apparently had a gun held to his face seem to go against that. It all sounds a bit far-fetched to us – anyone who's read If I Did It knows that OJ Simpson's weapon of choice is a knife. That's a knife.

OJ Simpson is currently in the middle of a court case that will determine if there's enough evidence for him to face a full criminal trial over his role in September's supposed armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers. If there is enough evidence then OJ Simpson could spend the rest of his life in jail, and if there isn't enough evidence then a large percentage of the world's population will rub its eyes and loudly proclaim "Whaaaaa?" – especially since none of this court case is going OJ Simpson's way.

On Thursday when the trial began, we heard the testimony of Bruce Fromong – the sports memorabilia dealer who claims that one of OJ Simpson's more anatomically-incompetent goons held a gun to his face and threatened to shoot him in the ass – and the case continued on Friday with a testimony from Charles Cashmore.

You may remember Charles Cashmore as one of the OJ Simpson goonsquad members who agreed to testify against OJ Simpson in return for more lenient sentencing – and that's precisely what he did on Friday, insisting that although OJ Simpson knew about the guns, he flat-out denied the presence of guns at the raid almost immediately after it was over. According to Cashmore, OJ Simpson told his henchmen in the getaway car:

"There were no guns, right, gentlemen?… We didn't have any guns. Nobody saw any guns."

This is a claim backed up by Thomas Riccio, the auctioneer who set-up the meeting between OJ Simpson and the memorabilia dealers, and also the man who recorded it. He had claimed that OJ Simpson phoned him up right after the sting, saying:

"He left me a voice mail minutes after it happened saying: 'I'm hearing people are saying there were guns. There were no guns.' I don't know how he knew what any of [us] was saying."

Of course, it could be argued that everyone testifying against OJ Simpson has their own agenda – like Bruce Fromong's desire to have Jack Nicholson play him in a movie of his life or Charles Cashmore's desire to spend less time being shanked in the kidneys by his psychopathic cellmate than he needs to – but that'll all no doubt be assessed when the case continues tomorrow.

As for OJ Simpson, well, we can see his point too. After all, is it really a crime to hire a gang of men from golf clubs and wedding receptions to burst into a hotel room and threaten violence at gunpoint to a pair of sports memorabilia dealers simply because they happen to be in possession of some items that you may have once owned?

Yes. Yes it is. Clearly.