George Clooney may well be a huge ball of smugness, thinking he knows better than all of us – but he doesn’t think that highly of himself, it would appear.

Well, he probably does still think highly of himself. In fact, there’s no ‘probably’ about it.

Anyway, Georgey apparently doesn’t think enough of himself to advise presidential candidate and Paris Hilton/Britney Spears-alike Barack Obama, despite reports emerging that claimed otherwise.

No, it would seem that George Clooney just thinks he’s better than us ‘normies’, as he may well like to call us, and only feels it prudent to educate (‘patronise’) and entertain (‘annoy with smug fat face’) the plebians – not those of a better stock, like candidates for the US presidency.

Well doesn’t that just make you feel a whole lot better? Not only is he not trying to influence possible future leaders, but he will still try and talk down to us as much as humanly possible.

But we’ve seen you in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, George – we all know what levels you’ll stoop to, and we simply can’t respect you for it. Take that!

It was reported by the Los Angeles Times on Friday that Clooney “frequently text messages the Illinois senator with whom he’s been friends for many years.”

Granted, if it were true then the texts would probably just amount to daily questions along the lines of: ‘have you bought a hybrid car yet? I have, I’ve bought ten, actually.’, ‘have you installed solar panels on your house yet? I have, I’ve got more than you.’ or ‘do you pay attention to your carbon footprint? I do – I pay loads more attention than you do’.

But George was quick to deny involvement with the senator, issuing a statement through his publicist which read:

“I have never texted or emailed Senator Obama. And I’ll offer a million dollars to anyone who could prove otherwise. In fact, I’ve only talked to the Senator once in the last year and a half….on the phone,”

The topic of conversation during the phonecall wasn’t revealed, but we can speculate it covered one or more of our potential text message topics listed above. It is easier to talk than it is to text, after all, but putting up with the smugtitude of Clooney while having to listen to his voice at the same time is something that most sane people wouldn’t be able to cope with.

This makes hecklerspray think that maybe the call didn’t cover those topics.

The statement did have more words in it, and amazingly they didn’t bother trying to lecture us at any point. It went on:

“I’ve spent more time with Senator McCain (he did my TV show) than I have with Senator Obama.

“I would hope that my friend John McCain would join me in condemning this kind of politics. Although I support Senator Obama I would never be dumb enough to offer policy advice to either candidate. They seem to be doing fine without me.”

There – proof if proof be need be that George Clooney thinks he is better than you, but not some men who pretend to care about their country. The big ruddy smug git.

Reports that Clooney, after issuing the statement, went for a walk and talked to 34 different grown adults as if they were toddlers were unconfirmed at the time of posting this. But we can assume he probably did anyway. While wearing a big UN badge.

Diddy definitely didn't know about that time Tupac got shot in 1994, the LA Times just wants you to know that.

What? You already knew that? Well, the LA Times wants to make it even clearer. It's already apologised for running the story that falsely implicated Diddy in Tupac's shooting, and now it has gone and formally retracted the story as well.  

However, the LA Times probably has another thing coming if it thinks it has wriggled out of a libel lawsuit from Diddy. An apology and a retraction just isn't enough to win Diddy over.

Now, an apology, a retraction, four free McDonald's Happy Meal vouchers, a kissogram dressed up as Notorious B.I.G and a customised Scrabble set which only contains the letters D, I and Y and it's another matter entirely. Get on it, LA Times.

Lesson number one of understanding libel law is that you're only allowed to make up lies about dead people. For example, we could easily make up a story about Charlton Heston bumming a donkey while dressed as Zorro and we wouldn't get sued, even though it very obviously didn't happen.

But libelling someone who's alive? That's another matter entirely. Were we to say that, for example, Diddy orchestrated the non-fatal shooting of Tupac Shakur in 1994 and we'd probably get in all kinds of shit. That's because we happen to know for a fact that Diddy spent so much of 1994 bumming donkeys while dressed up as Zorro that he couldn't have possibly found the time to do that.

The LA Times, though, didn't know that, which is why it published a story last month claiming that Diddy was behind Tupac's shooting and that it had the evidence to prove it. Which it did. True, the evidence was forged by a bullshitting prisoner who tapped it out on a jail typewriter, but it was still evidence.

So far the LA Times has apologised to Diddy for the mistake, but that wasn't enough. Which is why, as E! Online reports, the newspaper has gone one stage further and formally retracted the article:

"In its retraction Monday, the newspaper agreed with the investigative website's findings that 'some of the other sources relied on… do not support major elements of the story. The Times now believes that Sabatino fabricated the FBI reports and concocted his role in the assault as well as his supposed relationships with Combs, [James Jimmy Henchman] Rosemond and [Jacques Haitian Jack] Agnant," the newspaper wrote. To the extent these publications could be interpreted as creating the impression that Combs was involved in arranging the attack, The Times wishes to correct that misimpression, which was neither stated in the article nor intended'."

That should be enough to stop Diddy from launching a major lawsuit against the newspaper, right? Well, probably not. Diddy has already made noises about wanting to unequivocally clear his name, plus let's not forget that he could hire a goose in a suit to be his lawyer for this case and he'd still probably win it quite easily.

But, now that Diddy has the scent of blood in his nostrils, we'd just like to similarly clear up a few things we've said about Diddy in the past to stop him suing us as well…

When we said that Diddy punched flames out a man's ass, there was no real evidence that any fire was shat by either party. Sorry. 

Also, when we claimed that Diddy could have been sleeping with Sienna Miller, we had no proof of that. In retrospect, you'd have to have judgement so terrible that it borders on the mentally unwell to sleep with Sienna Miller. Again, we're sorry.

And we're sorry for saying that Diddy had twins. We only said that because we read about it. For all we know, Diddy's girlfriend could have hatched 2,000 babies out of a sac on her back like a disgusting half-human half-spider hybrid. We really have no way of knowing. We apologise. 

However, we refuse to retract the thing we said earlier about Diddy bumming donkeys. That definitely happened. Definitely.

OK, it didn't happen. Don't sue us please Diddy.

Read more:

Times to Diddy: Our Bad – E! Online 

As everyone knows, Diddy is responsible for all the bad things in the world, from squeaky floorboards to the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur to the invention of the jellyfish.

We know this because we read the Los Angeles Times, and the Los Angeles Times definitely said that Diddy was definitely behind Tupac's 1994 shooting.

Except that, um, he wasn't. The Los Angeles Times has apologised after an investigation showed that the sources in its recent Diddy/ Tupac story were apparently fabricated. You may be off the hook this time, Diddy, but we've still got you on the jellyfish thing. Our lawyers will be in touch.

There's no doubting Diddy's charm and panache as a person. You can see it in his day-to-day life – when Diddy roughs up a scamp in a car park, he adds so much pizazz to the beating that at least one person ends up farting fire. And Diddy's just to classy to allegedly cheat on his girlfriend with Sienna Miller like a regular schmo – when you roll like Diddy you have to allegedly cheat on his girlfriend with Sienna Miller right after she's given birth to his twins.

So, yes, much like The Pink Panther, Diddy is a gentleman, a scholar and an acrobat. And, while we're on the subject, another similarity that Diddy shares with The Pink Panther is that neither of them orchestrated the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur.

Which is more or less the exact opposite of what the Los Angeles Times published earlier this month, though – an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chuck Philips claimed that Diddy's filthy little paws were all over the Shakur shooting and that, while he may have avoided punishment, he should feel awfully ashamed of himself, or something. We stopped reading about two-thirds in, to be honest.

But Diddy denied the Tupac shooting, and a subsequent investigation by the LA Times found out that actually, the story was pretty much a gigantic crock of poo from beginning to end, and now it's sorry. According to the Associated Press:

The Los Angeles Times apologized for using documents that were apparently fabricated in a story implicating associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs in a 1994 assault on rapper Tupac Shakur. "The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should not have been used," Editor Russ Stanton said in a story posted Wednesday night on the newspaper's Web site. "We apologize both to our readers and to those referenced in the documents … and in the story." … The apologies followed an investigation launched by Stanton after The Smoking Gun Web site reported earlier in the day that the paper was conned by a prisoner who doctored the documents.

Of course Diddy wasn't involved in a shooting – look at his adorable puppy eyes. That's all the evidence we need, although unquestionable proof that the article making the accusations was based on fabricated documents probably helps a little bit as well.

It's an awkward situation for all involved – by not being more thorough, the LA Times has now mauled its journalistic credibility for the foreseeable future, and Diddy has to live with a swirl of 14-year-old rumours that he thought had been put to bed.

Chances are that Diddy might want to retaliate against the LA Times somehow. Hopefully this will be in the form of a costly lawsuit rather than a concept album about how only God can judge him. Because that really wouldn't be helping anyone.

Read more: 

LA Times Apologizes for Shakur Story – AP