Ah, Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatrical Woman Of The Year award. What an illustrious tradition that is.

It has it all. Braying, over-privileged idiots. Transvestism. Sycophantic brown-nosing disguised as critical ridicule. Toe-curling awkwardness around women. Not much else. Yes, the Harvard Hasty Pudding Theatrical Woman Of The Year award has it all.

And this year the award went to Anne Hathaway, who doesn’t even have a film to plug or anything. Except for the one that’s coming out in two weeks. And the one that’s coming out in five weeks. Nope, Anne Hathaway is doing this for love and love alone.

Awards season is now in full swing and, by now, it seems perfectly clear that Avatar is going to win everything. And rightly so – what would you rather watch, a film about a blue Jesus alien flying around on a bird that looks like an angry fish, or some old black and white Michael Haneke nonsense about some sad-looking children being sad in black and white? The alien thing, obviously. That’s why Avatar will win every single award going this year.

Well, maybe not every single award. It’s not going to win the Harvard Hasty Pudding Theatrical Woman Of The Year, for three reasons - 1) it isn’t a woman, 2) it’s already made billions of dollars so it doesn’t need to lower itself to sitting in a room full of whinnying upper-class millionaire ninnies dressed up as pantomime dames to give itself exposure, and 3) Anne Hathaway won it yesterday.

Yes, following in the footsteps of Scarlett Johansson and a bunch of other people from years when we could find more important things to write about, Anne Hathaway has been named as the Hasty Pudding Woman Of The Year, either for her lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment, or for the fact that her ex-boyfriend literally tried to rob God, or for the way that she takes her top off in quite a lot of films and nobody in the Hasty Pudding theatrical society has ever seen a real pair of boobs before.

But no matter. Here’s how the Boston Herald reported Anne’s award acceptance:

“Did I mention that I can sing? I can. Just in case you couldn’t tell that from the Oscars and the episode of ‘The Simpsons,’ ” Hathaway crooned. Vintage WOTY “Liza Minnelli” also made an appearance toward the end of the skit… The former NYU English major then recited a lengthy poem thanking the Pudding peeps for the Hasty hoedown.

Gosh, it almost makes you wish you were there, doesn’t it? Sadly we weren’t able to attend Anne Hathaway’s ceremony, because we were too busy doing something a little more tolerable – repeatedly driving metal chisels into our cheekbones.

But, hey, the fun isn’t over yet – next week Justin Timberlake will be awarded the Hasty Pudding Man Of The Year award, too. Fingers crossed that some more important news happens next week, eh?

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JK Rowling has captured the imagination of the young, and every now and again she puts cigarettes out on its arm until it tells her how to get richer.

This makes JK Rowling the most uniquely qualified person on the face of the earth to speak at Harvard University’s spring commencement yesterday. For only JK Rowling can fill those students’ young hearts with the hope that they too can one day rip off the Narnia books and make a sodding fortune out of it.

In her spring commencement speech, JK Rowling told the Harvard students not to fear failure, that they should never let go of their imagination and that real strength of character comes through adversity – proof that if her money ever runs out, JK Rowling has a lucrative future writing inserts for those horrible aspirational greetings cards that only creepy friendless wimps buy.

You know what the most insufferable invention of all time is? Spring commencement, that’s what. A ghastly self-congratulatory aren’t-we-great parade of ‘cherish the moment and be all you can be’ oversincerity that people apparently manage to sit through without vomiting, spring commencement is essentially the last shove that university students get before they forge long-lasting careers for themselves as the sad-eyed people who stand in town holding signs for Subway sandwiches in the rain. It’s dreadful.

But it’s not entirely worthless, because occasionally famous people get to dust off their Big Book Of Mawkish Catch-All Sentiments and indirectly explain exactly how rich and successful they are to the outgoing students. This year at Harvard, it was Harry Potter creator JK Rowling’s turn to do exactly that.

And JK Rowling really had her work cut out for her, because she knew only too well that the sheer scale of deprivation among Harvard students has rendered them completely hopeless – several of them won’t be given flashy-sounding but meaningless vice president jobs in their fathers’ corporations for up to 18 months, and it breaks our heart to report that a handful of them don’t even own yachts yet.

So yesterday in her spring commencement speech, JK Rowling dug deep and basically went through the lyrics of The Greatest Love Of All, changing all the words with a thesaurus to make it sound cleverer. The Associated Press reports:

“We do not need magic to transform our world,” she said. “We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better.” Imagination gives one the ability to empathize with others, she said. “Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation,” Rowling said. “In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity; it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”

“But don’t your imagination to write children’s book about wizards,” JK Rowling added, “because that’s my turf and I’ll sue your bollocks off if any of you little fuckers try it.”

Honestly, those Harvard students get it all handed to them on a plate. In the space of one year they’ve had talks by both Paris Hilton and JK Rowling – and the knowledge gained by those two speakers means that they’re now perfectly primed to grow up and become the next generation of global leaders.

Well, that or they’ll suck a bunch of men off and then make a rubbish-sounding theme park about it. One or the other.

Paris Hilton is no stranger to prizes – in her life she's won everything from the Most Pointless Wonky-Eyed Skinbag award to a statuette for Best Internet Blowjob (Wonky-Eyes Class).

But now Paris Hilton gets to add an award to that list that actually exists – yesterday Paris was officially crowned as the Harvard Lampoon's Woman Of The Year.

And, really, Paris Hilton winning an award at Harvard sends an undeniably positive message to the women of the world – that they can accomplish anything they put their mind to in life, provided they've got a billionaire grandfather, a month-long jail sentence under their belt and a tendency to suck men off and film it for the internet.

You're right to be jealous of Paris Hilton, you know. How many times have you been asked to pose naked for a range of canned champagne? None. How many hopelessly failed albums have you ever released? None. How many times have you ever urinated in a taxi? Well, OK, now we come to mention it you look like the sort of person who urinates in taxis quite a lot, but you get the idea. Paris Hilton has blown more opportunities than you'll ever have in your entire miserable life.

And now Paris Hilton gets to hang around the sort of rah-rah bowtie-wearing richboy ninnies who simply adore boating on the lake and using the word 'quintessential' in sentences just to prove how clever they are. That's right – Paris Hilton has gone to Harvard.

No, not to study – as far as we know the college hasn't started a PhD in Grainy Shamefaced Internet Sex Tape Production And Distribution – but to receive an award. Last month we reported that Paris Hilton was up for a Harvard prize, but at the time we just thought that it was all a big lie to help promote her rubbish-looking new film The Hottie And The Nottie. However, it looks like the award was genuine because yesterday Paris Hilton went to collect it. The Boston Globe reports:

"Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine standing here," Hilton told a crowd of about 100 students. "It's really exciting and I've had such a great time." "They're honoring me for being in business and my acting," Hilton explained to us. Undergrads brought all sorts of items for the socialite to sign: student IDs, their Blackberrys, Harvard boxer shorts, the syllabus from a freshman sociology class, and Hilton's self-titled CD. Said junior Norman Goode, who got Paris to sign his math project. "I guess that's the quintessential Harvard experience."

Now, we feel we should point out that Paris Hilton didn't win the coveted Harvard Hasty Pudding Woman Of The Year award – that only goes to true megastars like, um, Scarlett Johansson – but instead she received the Harvard Lampoon's Woman Of The Year award. That's very obviously a pisstake prize, although we're not sure if anyone actually bothered to pass the news on to Paris, because we've never seen her shiny cattle face look any happier.

Still, though, Paris Hilton is Harvard's Woman Of The Year, and that's just something we'll have to respect. But if she's the Woman Of The Year then who's the Man Of The Year? We haven't bothered to find out, but we assume it's someone of equal worth, like OJ Simpson or that man three in from the left in the second-to-last Maroon 5 music video. Or something.

Read more:

Paris Hilton applies herself to Harvard – Boston Herald 

Forget the Oscars and the Grammys and the Golden Globes – they're all rubbish, largely because Paris Hilton won't ever win any of them.

Where it's at now, kids, is the Harvard University Woman Of The Year award, because – other than the inaugural Dozy Wonk-Eyed Slapper gala set for later this spring – it's just about the only award that Paris Hilton will get this year.

No, really, Paris Hilton is going to get a Woman Of The Year award. We're not making this up. Promise.

As comprehensive and groundbreaking as Paris Hilton's 1,500 page thesis on the first iconoclastic period of the Isaurian Byzantine dynasty is, it was generally thought that only way that Paris Hilton could ever get into Harvard is if she sucked off a security guard, filmed it and put it on the internet.

But how wrong we all were. As it turns out, Paris Hilton is going to Harvard University next month to pick up the Hasty Pudding Woman Of The Year award, because apparently she's been fairly important over the last 12 months. News to us.

But apparently this is true. Of all the billions of women in the whole world, the megabrains at Harvard have decided that Paris Hilton is the only one who deserves to become their woman of the year. According to UPI:

Hilton is slated to accept the award and speak publicly to Harvard University's student body at a large public ceremony in the middle of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 6, said Regent Releasing, the studio behind her new big-screen comedy "The Hottie and the Nottie," which opens nationwide Feb. 8.

Oh, OK – if the studio behind Paris Hilton's so-shit-that-only-an-idiot-would-watch-it misogynistic romcom The Hottie And The Nottie have announced this Woman Of The Year accolade, then maybe there's a fraction of a chance that it's all a lie baked up as a watery publicity stunt to boost awareness of that awful piece of crap movie.

But let's just say that it is true and that Paris Hilton really is going to accept Harvard University's Woman Of The Year award. Why? Could it be because the students at Harvard have witnessed Paris Hilton's dramatic personality shift from drink-driving jailbird to the Rwanda-shunning do-gooder who paints herself gold for charity that she is today and they want her to impart her zen-like messages of philanthropy on the children of the world?

Either that or they hear that Paris is a massive slut who'll bang anything that walks. One or the other.

Read more:

Paris Hilton headed to Harvard – UPI