It’s hard not to feel jealous of Ricky Gervais, since he seems to have Hollywood in the palm of his hand. Not content with appearing in any old cinematic guff swimming out our shores, one cheeky snaggletooth smile and he is whisked away to star in… well, any old guff swimming out of the US.

Alas, the man from sunny Reading has managed to attract a whole host of star-wattage toward his latest project – The Invention of Lying. Taking on co-writing and co-directing duties, not to mention starring in the film, you may think that this film is just a rehash of 90’s Jim Carrey vehicle Liar Liar.

That wouldn’t be a far off assumption – jumble around the ingredients and you’re left with the only man who can lie in an alternative universe where only the truth can be spoken. Replace Carrey’s gurning antics with a repressed, reserved English lead and, of course, hilarity ensures.

Except not quite. Gervais does what is expected, although it’s hard to pin down exactly what that is without using the over-used, nonexistent adjective ‘Brentish’, but this role actually surprises by using a bit more range, even touching on emotional depth.

Still, as Mark, Gervais has to rely on the supporting cast to stop this feeling like an American holiday for one of the UK’s top comedians. Jonah Hill and Tina Fey make best out of all too short roles which could have, and would have, definitely welcomed expansion. Most of the interaction and humour comes from Rob Lowe and the gorgeous looking Jennifer Garner (We once said that Gone Baby Gone was the best thing Ben Affleck has ever done – we were mistaken).

The two play their parts well enough, although apparently in this alt-verse you are also partially lobotomised. All the characters seem to have no range or depth, walking around with child-like naivety and often repeating the same lines to hammer home jokes (at least we think these instances were jokes). It seems odd that Mark is the only person thinking on any logical level. Does the ability to lie also make one more intelligent? It appears so.

It’s not a film that needs to be thought about too much. After all it is a comedy. But it is a shame given how rich The Office or Extras was. The film just meanders around obvious jokes and a reliance on star cameos. The only stand-out jokes being more of the understated humour and not necessarily the expected over-the-top jokes.

This isn’t Gervais on top form. It doesn’t quite reach the potential and, for a film that relies on one joke, it doesn’t explore it as much as it should. Towards the end, when religion becomes the target, it seems wishy washy, not as ballsy as it proclaims and just gives up on it after an uninspired Jesus costume.

This isn’t a remarkable effort. Although it demonstrates some of Gervais’ best acting work, The Invention of Lying lacks in the scipt and direction. Perhaps Ricky wasn’t the talented one after all, maybe it is time we all hail the comedy master that is Stephen Merchant! It is not a bad film, but just enjoyable fluff – it’s not that we’re angry with you Ricky, we are just disappointed.

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Ben Affleck’s arseholeishness has been proven in his film choices, his J-Lo relationship and his fondness for schoolboy deodorant commercials. But lately there’s been less arseholeishness – first he directed a film that wasn’t horrible, and now he’s given his new daughter a non-horrible name.

Ben Affleck’s new daughter is called Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck. An only slightly weird name followed by two normal alternatives? We pray that Jennifer Garner chose the name – a reality where Ben Affleck isn’t an arsehole is too horrible to consider.

As we all know, different celebrities have different ways of naming their children. Victoria Beckham chose the ‘geographical location’ technique, while Pete Wentz adapted it to invent the ‘geographical location plus Disney character‘ technique. Meanwhile, we think that Lisa Bonet placed a dictaphone next to a man in the throes of an epileptic fit, played the tape back in reverse and tried to phonetically transcribe his garbled squeals for help, because God knows that’s the only logical way anyone could come up with a name like Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa.

And faced with berserk competition like that, it’s no wonder that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner delayed the naming of their newborn second daughter. How could they possibly top a name as impenetrable as Bonet’s? An all-consonant name? A 500-word paragraph of arbitrarily-typed Wingdings? The name ^^?

No. Instead, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have done the unthinkable and given their new daughter a name that is actually, by celebrity standards, quite nice – Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck.

It actually shows a lot of care and thought on the part of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. Although Seraphina is a pretty and angelic name in itself – if a little tiny bit wanky – the baby can easily shorten it to Sera or just chose to call herself Rose or Elizabeth instead if she grows up to be embarrassed by it. We’ll be honest – it’s not a level of forethought we expected from a man who agreed to star in Gigli, Daredevil AND Pearl Harbour.

But why Seraphina? What meaning could it possibly have? Luckily, People has more:

While no explanation was offered for the name, or if she was named for anyone, one Web site specializing in the origin of names refers to Seraphina as “derived from the Biblical word ’seraphim,’ which was Hebrew in origin and meant ‘fiery ones.’”

Oh thank God. Seraphina means ‘fiery ones’. We can’t tell you how relieved we are to hear that – it looks like Ben Affleck named his daughter after her penchant for relentless explosive diarrhoea. On reflection that is actually kind of arseholeish. Relax everyone, the panic’s over.

Now Ben, never scare us like that again, you hear?

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We’re pretty sure that it was one of the following two scenarios: 1) Jennifer Garner’s baby refused to come out until it was promised a helicopter and a suitcase of money, and an FBI negotiator had to talk it down to a scooter and a shiny penny, or 2) Jennifer Garner’s baby realised that Ben Affleck was its father and decided to stick it out in the womb.

Either way, Jennifer Garner had a baby girl yesterday. So there.

Technically Jennifer Garner has been in hospital waiting to give birth to her second child since last year, which seems like an inordinately long time for something that most women manage with nothing more than 45 minutes and a stick to bite down on.

We don’t know why Jennifer Garner spent so long in hospital. It certainly doesn’t seem like she was experiencing any complications, so we’ll just presume that the baby took its time and all the old midwife tricks – like trying to violently shake the baby out or tying an uncooked steak to Jennifer Garner’s thigh and waiting with a net – didn’t work.

But the whys and then hows don’t matter any more, because Jennifer Garner has finally given birth to a baby girl that’s completely healthy aside from however much of Ben Affleck’s DNA she decided to absorb on the way out. Reuters reports:

Actress Jennifer Garner gave birth to her second child in Los Angeles on Tuesday, People magazine reported. The baby girl, whose name was not disclosed, was healthy, People quoted a spokesperson as saying. No other details were provided.

This is the second child for Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck – their first daughter Violet was born in 2005, and is now educationally developed enough to tactfully change the subject every time one of her peers brings up Gigli.

However, even though it’s taken a full week of what we imagine to be relentless vein-popping straining, any joy that Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck feel towards the birth of their new daughter is bound to be tinged with bitter disappointment. After all, Rebecca Romijn also gave birth this week and, since she named her babies Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip, it means that Jennifer Garner’s baby isn’t even going to have the second-silliest celebrity baby name of the week.

That’s unless Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner can pool their resources and dig deep to think a name even more staggeringly dreadful than those of the Romijn twins. It’s a hard job, and we’re sure Affleck and Garner would appreciate your suggestions in the comment box below. We’ll get the ball rolling with Rhododendron Clusterminge.

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No, apparently Jennifer Garner is having a baby. Or she’s had a baby. Or she’s about to have a baby. Nobody really seems to know. Jennifer Garner checked into a hospital on New Year’s Eve with Ben Affleck, and she’s darned if she’s not coming out without a baby.

So congratulations to Jennifer Garner. And double congratulations if the baby ends up more like you than Ben Affleck. And triple congratulations if he’s not the father. Happy new year!

When it comes to heavy, almost overbearing symbolism, giving birth to a baby at the start of a new year is about as good as it gets. Both signify a fresh start, a blank canvas on which it seems that anything is possible. Both come with a mixture of excitement and trepidation for the future. And, a few months in, you’ll be chronically sleepless, covered in shit and wondering what the fuss was all about. They’re identical.

So with that in mind, we should all be jolly envious of Jennifer Garner, because if she hasn’t had her new baby already, then she’s going to have it any minute. According to reports, Garner and husband Ben Affleck have been holed up in a Los Angeles hospital waiting for the baby since New Year’s Eve. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Actress Jennifer Garner has sparked reports she’s planning to ring in the New Year with a new baby after checking into a California hospital. The star is nine months pregnant with her second child, and she and husband Ben Affleck were spotted entering Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Lucky old Jennifer Garner, we can totally relate to what she’s going through – although Ben Affleck has only ever caused us to scream and writhe around in agony for hours on end that time we thought we decided to try and watch Bounce all the way through in one go, not because he knocked us up with an actual baby.

Of course, this won’t be the first time that Jennifer Garner has given birth to one of Ben Affleck’s children – back in 2005 she gave birth to their first daughter Violet – but it is the first time that we’ve doubted Affleck’s paternity.

Sure, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck might be in a loving, monogamous relationship – but wasn’t it just over nine months ago that Gary Busey drooled across Jennifer Garner’s neck on the Oscars red carpet? Doesn’t she realise that one atom of Busey dribble is more potent than an entire ocean of human sperm? If we were her we’d keep a hammer by the side of the bed, just in case the baby comes out with big buck teeth, weird googly eyes and a horrifying lack of self-awareness. You can’t be too careful.

So Jennifer Garner has either had a baby or she’s about to – that’s the good news. The bad news is there’s now another mouth to feed and Ben Affleck isn’t exactly going to be able to provide for everyone by directing surprisingly decent but barely-watched arthouse movies about abducted children all the time. So this time next year when Changing Lanes 2 is rush-released, remember that it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Ben Affleck’s randy loins, OK?

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No? Most of us? No, not most of us either? Some of us have had visions of Jennifer Garner being persecuted by a mob for believing in Jesus? No? Not even some of us? Just Jennifer Garner’s psychiatric patient stalker Steven Burky, then? Oh.

Well, it’s just a shame that Steven Burky won’t get to warn Jennifer Garner of his vision, then, because Garner has just taken out a court order claiming that she’s living in mortal fear of him. So let’s just hope that Jennifer Garner doesn’t end up being assaulted by a violent mob because of her faith in Jesus Christ, because if she does, Jennifer Garner is going to end up looking pretty bloody stupid.

If you’re a celebrity with a stalker, rule number one is that you must never deliberately lead them on. It doesn’t matter what they do – whether they try to blow up an airport in your name or whether they send you boxes of sex toys accompanied by photos of themselves drinking unidentified yellow liquid – you must always remain standoffish in case they flip out and get all Single White Female on you.

That’s a lesson that Jennifer Garner could do well to learn. She’s had a stalker by the name of Steven Burky for a few years now. He’s a born-again Christian psychiatric patient who believes he was satanically abused as a child, and every now and again he’ll pose as different people to get to meet Jennifer Garner, or send her mounds of weird love letters, or just turn up at her house unannounced – but Jennifer Garner has been dealing with him in completely the wrong way.

Look at it this way – what are the two main things that Jennifer Garner is famous for? That’s right – marrying Ben Affleck and letting Gary Busey lick her neck. And what does that tell any potential stalkers about Jennifer Garner? That a) she’s sexually attracted to idiots and b) she likes it when strangers lick her neck. Honestly, she may as well spray herself with catnip and paint ‘STALK ME NOW’ on her tits.

Which, actually, she doesn’t have to do. You see, Jennifer Garner already has Steven Burkey and – since he has visions of Jennifer being beaten to death for her religious beliefs, along with other visions involving witchcraft, human sacrifices and dark conspiracies – he’s probably filling her crazy quota quite nicely.

He’s certainly filling her ‘petrified that one day she’ll be murdered by a crazed stalker’ quota, if the court order that Jennifer Garner has just taken out against Burky is anything to go by. In her court papers, Jennifer Garner wrote:

“Mr. Burky’s repeated efforts to contact me, his delusional and paranoid letters, his appearance at my private residence, and his recent claims that I will be ‘persecuted’ in a manner that may result in my death are all extremely frightening. I now fear not only for my own personal safety, but also for the safety and well being of those I love and care most about, including my husband and my daughter. Also, I am currently pregnant and fear for the safety of my second child once born.”

Thanks to the court order, Steven Burky isn’t allowed within 100 yards of Jennifer Garner. Not that he’d be able to do that at the moment, of course – he’s too busy being being locked up in a psychiatric hospital – but it will definitely ease Jennifer Garner’s mind.

After all, everyone knows that if there’s one thing that infatuated mental patients cursed with nightmarish Old Testament-style visions of apocalyptic death respect, it’s court-ordered restraining boundaries. Everyone wins.

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It's OK, nor can anyone. Because this year, the Oscars weren't about stupid things like 'films' and 'artistic excellence' – they were about Gary Busey drooling all over Jennifer Garner's neck until she looked like she was about to cry.

And now, about six weeks after everyone forgot that he even did it, Gary Busey has issued a statement apologising to Jennifer Garner for any distress he caused. Apparently he was aiming his spittle for her cleavage or something. He didn't say that, exactly, but it'd just make sense.

Generally speaking, the Oscars are a bit like Christmas. You get excited for the big day, you can't turn anywhere without being swarmed with reminders about it, and then three days after it's finished you can't remember who gave you what and the four kilograms of Haribo you ate in 36 hours have left you feeling like your brain's about to implode.

But not this year, though. This year will go down in history as the year that Gary Busey went mental at the Oscars, started screaming at Ryan Seacrest and then tried to maul the neck off Jennifer Garner with his mouth. It was a beautiful thing to watch – so much so that we didn't even bother to question why someone like Gary Busey was even at the Oscars in the first place. 

A few days later Gary Busey phoned Ryan Seacrest's radio show ostensibly to apologise, except that he didn't realise that he was on the air and just banged on abstractly about how Seacrest was an "innocent champion of honesty" and the art of catching dreams for a bit. Which is all very well and good, except that poor Jennifer Garner didn't get the apologetic Gary Busey treatment.

Until now. Even though the Oscars happened about a month ago, Gary Busey has chosen to release a statement apologising to Jennifer Garner for making her look genuinely terrified in front of an audience of millions. Well, we say 'apologise'… The Associated Press reports:

"I meant no disrespect to Ms. Jennifer Garner when I met her at the Oscars and apologize if I made her uncomfortable," the 63-year-old actor said in a statement e-mailed Monday by a publicist for his attorney, Vicki Roberts. By the time he realized Garner and Linney were being interviewed, Busey said he tried to step back but "suddenly Ryan introduced her to me… I simply greeted both actresses with joy and open arms, which is the way I would greet anyone I'm happy to meet," Busey said. "Everyone has experienced a handshake or hug which has turned awkward, and this was no different."

To be fair, Gary Busey does have a point – we've experienced plenty of hugs which have turned awkward in the past, so we know exactly where he's coming from. And, coincidentally, most of those hugs have turned awkward because we've furiously started licking at the other person's neck as well. Funny, that.

Anyway, now that Gary Busey's conscience is clear he can slowly dissolve away into big-toothed anonymity again – but things won't be so easy for Jennifer Garner. After all, thanks to video footage of the incident hundreds of millions of lonely men now know that Jennifer Garner pulls one of the most adorable faces you've ever seen if you suddenly lunge in and kiss her on the neck. Who wouldn't want to try that for themselves?

Read more:

Busey Apologizes for Red Carpet Blunder – AP 

And if that stuff you did included slathering kisses up Jennifer Garner's neck and verbally assaulting Ryan Seacrest on live global TV on the Oscars red carpet, then you probably know how Gary Busey has been feeling this week.

Except, no, you really don't. Because Gary Busey phoned Ryan Seacrest's radio show yesterday to explain his bizarre Oscars antics. And it turns out he's like that all the time.

You're probably sick of the Oscars by now. We are. We already know everything that happened - No Country For Old Men won and nobody watched and Whoopi Goldberg got ignored and was sad. And that's about it. Or at least it would be, were it not for the gloriously unhinged red carpet shenanigans of Gary Busey.

You know. Gary Busey. From Lethal Weapon. And Predator 2. And Under Siege. Barely even counts as an actor. Went to the Oscars anyway. Doesn't matter. Because in one fell swoop on Sunday night Gary Busey provided the sole Oscars highlight by staggering up to Ryan Seacrest live on TV during the pre-show red carpet segment, shouting something along the lines of "You! Youuuuuuu!" and then wiping his damp mouth up and down the neck of a clearly disgusted Jennifer Garner before stumbling off again. It was perfect, and it's here.

Now, your average human being would probably wake up the next morning feeling slightly shamefaced about everything and desperate to either hide away in private forever or justify their actions. Not Gary Busey, though – he phoned up Ryan Seacrest on his radio show yesterday not to apologise but to try and explain what he was trying to babble at him at the Oscars in the most nonsensical way imaginable. E! Online quotes:

You are to me, when you're working, an innocent champion of honesty. Your heart has a way to embrace the truth in your delivery without looking like you are reading a script. Everything looks spontaneous. What spontaneity is—spontaneity comes from an invisible idea that is there before the creation began. And you have that naturally, so I just wanted to pay you a compliment. But I didn't know you were in the middle of an interview, I was just moving through there.

We'd love to transcribe the whole Gary Busey interview, in fact – it's full of talk about catching dreams and the etymology of the word 'fan' – but you can click the link below for edited highlights.

All in all, though, Gary Busey's bewildering behaviour has led us to believe that maybe he might be just the thing to turn around the Oscars' dwindling fortunes. Imagine an entire Oscars ceremony hosted by Gary Busey. It'd be awesome – he'd divide his time rambling on enthusiastically about nothing and dribbling wads of man saliva over whichever female he happened to be nearest to. 

In fact, forget the Oscars. Gary Busey deserves his own VH1 reality TV show. That's how big he deserves to be.

Read more:

Gary Busey Rambles, Deems Ryan Seacrest an "Innocent Champion of Honesty" – E! Online