There’s just one thing missing – the grovelling atonement for all of her wrongs. But, wait, because that’s coming too – Britney Spears has announced a 90-minute MTV documentary all about her personal upsets, to be called something like but not necessarily Britney Spears: Yeah, Sorry About Shaving My Hair Off And Screaming About How I’m The Devil And Stuff.

It’s hoped that the documentary will be Britney Spears’ way of describing all the terrible mental anguish she’s been through in past through years, so that hopefully everyone can understand her side and put it behind them. Well, not all of Britney Spears’ mental anguish, obviously – it’s only a 90-minute documentary and she’ll probably want to spend more than a fifth of a nanosecond describing each of her individual character flaws.

There’s only one thing we want in our stockings this Christmas, and that’s a copy of Circus, the new album by Britney Spears. We want one because if it’s anything like the new Britney Spears single Womanizer, then it’ll consist of what sounds like Professor Stephen Hawking’s broken voice-machine repeating the word ‘circus’ monotonously for 50 or so minutes that was recorded while Britney Spears was out, say, terrorising a child or something.

But whether anyone else wants to buy the new Britney Spears album is another matter. For the bulk of people it’ll all depend on how Britney chooses to promote it. And to be honest, we’re not sure that she’s quite got the hang of it yet.

Remember the last Britney Spears album Blackout? Britney only did two pieces of promotion for that – one involved mumbling on a phone to Ryan Seacreast on her bed for 90 seconds, and the other involved the worst stage performance ever given by a human being. Needless to say, the promotion didn’t really work.

So for Circus, Britney Spears is pulling a new trick out of sleeve – the harrowing televised 90-minute exploration of mental illness.

For some reason, Britney Spears is under the impression that the only way she can sell albums these days is if she discusses her recent brushes with psychiatric despair in uncomfortable details for an hour and a half. And that’s what Britney Spears: For The Record is all about – to be shown on MTV on November 30, For The Record will be Britney’s way of wiping the slate clean about everything from her failed marriage to her loss of child custody to her stints in mental hospitals earlier this year. In the film, Britney states:

“I’ve been through a lot in the past two or three years, and there’s a lot that people don’t know. Sometimes I think I get kind of lonely because you don’t open the gate up that much, you know I mean? You’re guarded. You have to be that way, so I’m kind of stuck in this place and it’s like: How do you deal? And you just cope, and that’s what I do. I just cope with it, every day.”

For a young woman like Britney Spears to be forced to keep herself gated up like that is incredibly sad. At least until you remember that, on the rare occasions she does let her guard down, Britney tends to do things like smash up cars with umbrellas or babble relentlessly to herself in a made-up language. Hey Britney, maybe uptight repression is the way ahead, after all! It works pretty well for us!

Anyway, will Britney Spears: For The Record convince us that Britney’s worth taking a chance on again? Hard to say. Personally it all depends on what Britney apologises for. We’ve been burnt like this before, and so we’re only prepared to accept Britney Spears back into our lives if she says sorry for all those times she got her vagina out.

And she has to mean it too. That’s a dealbreaker.

Just a few months ago, the Dirty Dancing star had weeks to live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But it was reported this week that 55-year-old Patrick Swayze is actually returning to work.

Yes, you heard that right: cancer-stricken Patrick Swayze is going to be back on your TV screens very soon. Next year, in fact.

It’s not the first time he has been linked with a return. Only a couple of weeks ago, there were rumours he was to star in a sequel of the highly-successful surfing movie Point Break.

But he quickly denied that that was the case, which, of course, we all expected. I mean, he has cancer, right!?

However, this week Patrick Swayze confirmed he will be returning to work – in the TV show The Beast – after the doctors confirmed he is fit to resume work.

Fit to resume work? Pretty incredible! I mean this is not a bout of the flu – he has an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, for God’s sake!

Read the rest of this entry (opens in a new window) >>

Snorting a line of ants? Check. Chewing the heads off animals? Check. Urinating on the Alamo? Check. Getting hammered and trying to murder his wife? Check. Falling over a couple of times before the Brit Awards earlier this year? No way! Ugh! You sick bastard! Suggest that and Ozzy Osbourne will sue your tits off.

And win, too – Ozzy Osbourne has won undisclosed damages from the Daily Star after it claimed that Ozzy had a health scare right before the Brit Awards that almost saw him get withdrawn from the show. Turns out, though, that he was such a shaky and incoherent mess during the Brit Awards because he’s Ozzy Osbourne. Sheesh.

Anyone who saw the Brit Awards this year will know two things – 1) that there’s not a court in the land that would convict you for tearing Mika’s head off and shoving it up his bottom and, 2) whoever let the Osbournes host the show is a clown.

Because the Osbournes were dreadful for so many different ways. Kelly and Jack Osbourne, knowing that that sort of stuff is what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives, dug in grimly and tried to act all professional while Sharon Osbourne managed to get so enraged at Vic Reeves that she actually bent the laws of space and time.

And then there was Ozzy Osbourne – a man who was only allowed to say about four words during the entire show, and even then in the wrong order at completely the wrong time. But the thing is, that’s Ozzy Osbourne. Ever since The Osbournes was on TV he’s been a kind of professional shambles. That’s what we expect from him.

You know what would have happened if Ozzy Osbourne had dug into his heart and delivered a precise, eloquent speech about the myriad ways that Paul McCartney had influenced him as a person and a musician at the climax of The Brits? There’d have been a bloody riot. Appalled Brit School students would have torn up their seats in protest and Take That would have started bottling each other in the face out of nothing more than confused fury. It would have been awful.

So instead Ozzy Osbourne just yelled “Laydeezangennalman, Mr Sir Pol McCartnezizzyszzagh!” and everyone was happy. Especially the Daily Star, because it got to write a story called Ozzy’s Freak Show claiming that Ozzy’s shambolic appearance was down to him collapsing twice before the show and spooking the organisers into discussing whether or not he should appear at all.

None of that actually happened, by the way, which is why Ozzy Osbourne has just won a massive libel settlement against the newspaper, as BBC News reports:

Rocker Ozzy Osbourne has accepted libel damages from the Daily Star over allegations he suffered a health scare which jeopardised the Brit Awards. Osbourne’s lawyer John Kelly said the article had caused “considerable embarrassment and distress”. He added that the newspaper now accepted that Osbourne was fit enough to present the awards and had not suffered health problems.

But, as embarrassing as this ordeal must have been for Ozzy Osbourne, at least there’s a happy ending – Ozzy has decided to donate all his damages to Sharon Osbourne’s colon charity. And, although we’re not sure of the exact figure he received, it’s thought to be at least enough to send four underdeveloped Southeast Asian boys up into Sharon Osbourne’s colon with industrial floor polishers and not come out until it’s shiny and polished enough to eat your dinner off.

Daily Star, everyone scheduled to eat their dinner out of Sharon Osbourne’s arse thanks you for your libellous inaccuracies. Keep up the good work.

Not really. It's been reported that medics at the hospital have classified Britney Spears as 'GD' – or Gravely Disabled, which allows them to keep Britney against her will.

Seeing Britney Spears described as Gravely Disabled by expert professionals might look incredibly shocking, but don't worry – Gravely Disabled is actually two or three notches up from Wanting To Marry Kevin Federline, so at least we can presume that Britney Spears is on the up and up.

It's probably fair to admit that Britney Spears' personal life crossed over from 'entertaining' to 'genuinely distressing' about the time that we all realised that Britney hadn't shaved her head for a drunken bet. And intermittently following that episode, Britney Spears' life has burst through one new low after another, defying anyone who assumed that she'd see the light and try to get help after each one.

But even by her standards, concerns for Britney Spears' health have gone into overdrive this year. Already she's been taken to hospital after locking herself in a bathroom with her son and caught sobbing on a kerb after a fight with her manager. Don't think that's low enough? OK – Britney Spears was sectioned yesterday after her psychiatrist decided that she was a risk to herself and others.

Fortunately, the reports of an attempted suicide appear to be wide of the mark, but nevertheless Britney Spears has been put on psychiatric hold, which means she'll be kept in hospital for 72 hours, with a likelihood that doctors will extend her stay for a further 14 days.

That likelihood is because Britney Spears has been classified as GD – short for Gravely Disabled – which means she's medically not able to feed or dress herself. Being Gravely Disabled is apparently one of the criteria for involuntary commitment. According to Sky:

Sources at the UCLA Medical Center, where Brit is staying, have told TMZ that Britney has been classified as "GD" – Gravely Disabled. They also reported that she arrived at the hospital at around 2.15am (LA time) yesterday morning, but wasn't admitted until 4.15am because she was causing such a scene in the hospital. According to peeps on the scene, Britney shouted: "The only reason she's admitting me is because she wants to be alone with her boyfriend. She wants to sleep with my boyfriend."

Now, nobody knows who the 'she' is that Britney Spears was referring to, but even the thought that there's anyone on the planet who wants to sleep with creepy old Adnan Ghalib shows that Britney is in a worse state than any of us could have imagined.

Also being reported today is Britney Spears' average intake, which – depending on who you believe – consisted of handfuls of ADHD drugs, ten laxative pills and 20 Red Bulls per day. Which does seem like a confusing mixture, unless of course Britney wanted to concentrate on shitting energetically, but who'd want to do that?

Hopefully things will quieten down around Britney Spears as she settles into her hospital stay now, and she'll be able to get some time to rest and reflect. Because surely things can't get any worse for her than this.

Although we've lost count of the times we've said that in the past.

Read more:

Brit's Grave State – Sky