First, a clarification – Rip Torn has the best celebrity arrest of all time. The man’s a genius. He’s untouchable.

He’s 78 years old and he broke into a bank, holding a loaded gun, because he was so drunk that he thought it was his own house. Nobody on the face on the planet has ever done anything that brilliant. Rip Torn, we want you to be our grandpa.

But, although he has the best celebrity arrest in history, he hasn’t got the only celebrity arrest in history. Celebrities literally can’t stop getting arrested and, since celebrities are on average 15 times stupider than normal people, their arrests are often quite hilarious. Take a look…

10 – Naomi Campbell

There are places where you’re allowed to be a bit angry. Boxing rings, for instance. Or pub car parks. But planes? No. Act out of line on a plane and you could end up being attacked by dogs. Or  getting shot at. Or someone might stick their fingers up your bum. Not that Naomi Campbell cared about any of that in 2008, when she went berserk over some lost luggage and ended up lashing out at a policeman. She’s a lovely girl really.

9 – The Game

You don’t hear much from The Game these days, do you? That’s either because a) the only way he could have picked a less Google-friendly nameis if he called himself The, or b) because he’s not very good. Still, at least he’ll always go down in history as being the rapper with the stupidest arrest story of all. Drugs? No. Guns? No. Putting on a Halloween mask in a shopping centre and swearing so loudly that he ended up getting pepper-sprayed? Um, yes. The Game, you are a genius.

8 – Hugh Grant

Getting a blowjob from a prostitute? Forgiveable. Getting a blowjob from a prostitute when you’ve already got a girlfriend? Less forgiveable. Getting a blowjob from a prostitute in a car in front of a policeman? Stupid. Getting a blowjob from a prostitute in a car in front of a policeman when your girlfriend is Liz Hurley? Hugh Grant, you really can be an awful wazzock.

7 – Lindsay Lohan

Anyone can get arrested. Some people can even get arrested for getting drunk and driving a car full of terrified passengers around. A choice handful might even have cocaine in their pockets as they do it. But only Lindsay Lohan, only dear sweet Lindsay Lohan, would preface all of this by screaming “I’m a celebrity, I can do whatever the fuck I want” just to make it perfectly clear that she isn’t very likeable, as she did in 2007. For that, Lindsay, we thank you. Sort of.

6 – Paul Reubens

When you watch Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, you don’t ever get the impression that Pee-Wee is the sort of person who’d be arrested for wanking in a cinema, do you? Well apparently he is. Ick.

5 – George Michael

When you watch a George Michael video, you don’t ever get the impression that George is the sort of person who’d be arrested for wanking in a public toilet, would… oh, yes. Yes you would. Sorry.

4 – Foxy Brown

It takes a very special woman to make Naomi Campbell look approachable and meek, but then again Foxy Brown is a very special woman. Arrested once for fighting the staff of a nail salon over some change, arrested again for trashing a shop because she was trying to fix her hair while it was closing, and arrested yet again for smashing her neighbour’s face in with a BlackBerry, Foxy Brown doesn’t do anything by halves. Apart from rapping, obviously. She isn’t particularly good at that if we remember correctly.

3 – Gary Coleman

As with Foxy Brown, Gary Coleman is a tiny, past-his-prime human with a penchant for ridiculous arrests. But the most ridiculous, even more ridiculous than the time he was arrested for punching the inside of his own car, came during an evening out at a bowling alley. A man asked to take a picture of Gary Coleman, and Coleman refused on the basis that photos of him cost $20. The man tried to take one anyway and, in the ensuing scuffle, Gary Coleman knocked him over with a truck. Not a toy truck, either – a real, full-sized truck. And that’s how we fell in love with Gary Coleman again.

2 – Mel Gibson

You all know the story, so we’ll just cut to the chase and give you the wonderful quote instead: “My life is fucked. I’m not going to get in your car… You motherfucker. I’m going to fuck you… Fucking Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?… What do you think you’re looking at, Sugartits?” Perfection.

1 – James Brown

September 1988. We’ll quote this one from The Guardian:

James Brown, toting pistol and shotgun, marched into an insurance seminar next door to his offices in Augusta, pissed off that someone had used his toilet without permission. Cops were called and a chase ensued over the state line into South Carolina. After 23 bullets were emptied into his tyres, Brown finally emerged from his vehicle – allegedly singing ‘Georgia on My Mind’.

Oh James Brown, why can’t your ghost come and haunt us, you mental old sod.

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Japan seems to be cracking down hard on all things American. First it wanted to arrest the cheerleader from Heroes, and now it's banned the thing that America holds most dear – rubbishy old-man hard rock groups.

Or, to be more specific, one rubbishy old-man hard rock group – Velvet Revolver. According to a posting on the Velvet Revolver website, the band have had to cancel their imminent tour of Japan because immigration officials wouldn't let them have visas. Apparently the ruling may have to do with the drug-heavy background of some of Velvet Revolver, although chances are that the band's ban might be in some way be involved with the Japanese government's new legislation outlawing whiny skinny idiots who dress up as scruffy Nazis for a living. And awful 1980s widdly-woo rock music. And top hats. So, in that respect, it's been a perfect storm for Velvet Revolver. 

In the coming years, Japan's falling birthrate will ensure that it will become a country entirely comprised of dribbling old people. And, even then, we suspect that the Japanese still won't be old enough to enjoy Velvet Revolver's music.

Oh, you know who Velvet Revolver are – they're the band that's taken the worst parts of Guns 'N Roses' sound, the worst parts of Stone Temple Pilots' sound and mixed them together until something inexplicably worse than both appeared. You know, the band who were so bad during Live 8 that even Jonathan Ross took the piss, even though they were sharing a line-up with The Stereophonics. The Stereophonics!

With the exception of the time that Scott Weiland’s wife set fire to all his clothes, we haven't paid much attention to Velvet Revolver in the past, partly because the only people who like them are the fat kids from school who live with their nans, wear Megadeath T-shirts on non-uniform days and have managed to develop both BO and a bumfluff moustache one full year before anyone else.

But this time is different, because this time an entire country has banned Velvet Revolver. And that country, if you haven't worked it out, is Japan. Velvet Revolver were due to go on a four-day tour of Japan starting next week to promote their current album Libertad, but Japanese officials have decided to deny the lot of them visas, prompting this explanation on the Velvet Revolver website:

The increasingly tough Japanese immigration officials are taking exception with the backgrounds of various band members, which have included arrests. The band is appealing the decision of the officials — which is ironic given that Libertad is Spanish for "liberty" and "freedom" — but this process will unfortunately take months to sort out. "We want to apologize to our fans in Japan that we won't be able to perform our scheduled concerts," Velvet Revolver said in a group statement. "We don't understand why the authorities won't give us visas when they granted them for us in 2005 for what was a successful tour and a great experience. We love Japan and look forward to our return there." 

Yeah, how ironic – even though their album means 'freedom', Velvet Revolver totally aren't, like, free at all, man. And it's a shame, too – if only the Japanese immigration officers spoke Spanish, they'd realise that Velvet Revolver were actually free all along and they'd have no choice but to allow the band to breeze right through customs, even though one of them went to jail for a year over heroin possession charges. It's a shame because, had this act of unflappable logic worked, Rose West was planning to record an album called I'm Free Too! that would have forced prison guards to see their mistake and let her out through the front door as well.

But all joking aside, if Velvet Revolver use the free time they've gained from the ban to tour Britain, we're going to see it as a direct act of aggression from the Japanese, and appropriate retaliatory measures will be taken. And just to prove how serious we are, we've dispatched Kate Nash to take up a holding pattern at the Japan Airlines check-in counter at Heathrow until this crisis blows over.

To us, Ozzy Osbourne is a funny old man. Despite not being able to string a sentence together properly, he is still idolised by millions across the world.

But Ozzy is more then just a rock clown married to a woman possibly on a par with Michael Jackson for the amount of plastic surgery she’s had. In fact, Ozzy Osbourne is a man who's just got himself involved with the law, even though he knew nothing about it and and now he's all annoyed at the police over it. This is a confusing one.

So Ozzy Osbourne has helped to catch 30 criminals. However, as much as it breaks our hearts to admit it, Ozzy didn’t actually get to don his best Sherlock Holmes gear and browse the streets looking for clues to crack the case that had been leaving the force scratching their heads for months. In fact it's bollocks to say that Ozzy actually did anything at all.  

What actually happened is the result of North Dakota sheriff Paul Laney, who invited 500 criminals over for a party where it was claimed that Ozzy would perform. This prompts two questions: Are the police over in the States too lazy to get a criminal's address, knock on their door and arrest them? Or are the American bad boys and girls really stupid enough to believe that Osbourne would welcome them with open arms so they could spend an entire night ant-snorting and dove-chewing together? 

Anyway, it appears that some people were actually dumb enough to believe Laney's set-up. Around 30 people turned up to his sting and were consequently arrested for stealing jars of mayonnaise or something. You might be wondering why the criminals thought Ozzy Osbourne would be appearing in a nightclub in Fargo, North Dakota. The simple reason being that the rock legend was due to play at a nearby arena around the same time. Using this information, the police set up a simple sting operation. 

Consequently, this move by the police force hasn’t actually pleased the Prince Of Darkness, who said: 

“Instead of holding a press conference to pat himself on the back, Sheriff Laney should be apologising to me for using my name in connection with these arrests. It is insulting to me and to my audience and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job." 

You get the insinuation here – that Sheriff Laney figures all Ozzy Osbourne fans are criminals while Ozzy Osbourne knows his fans, although all possessed with suspect personal hygiene, are law-abiding citizens of the highest order.

While these tactics may seem like lazy policing, it could help to influence our own trigger-happy police force to do the same. Heroin addicts could be duped into attending an intimate performance by Amy Winehouse, serial golddiggers could have a seminar with Heather Mills and illegal firearm owners could have a day in the forest brushing up on their aiming skills with Phil Spector.