You know, that long, slow, dull deathmarch to the Oscars where every single vaguely filmy organisation on the face of the planet announces which movies it enjoyed watching most. But more than that, awards season marks the time of year when we wish we had another job. Any other job. A job involving heights and spikes and angry bears, even.

And now the good news – The Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave its best picture award to WALL-E.

We’re going to be cautious here and meekly suggest that this awards season isn’t going to be as throat-slittingly interminable as it usually is, on the basis that something quite incredible is happening – this year, movies that people have actually seen might win something.

It’s still a long shot – after all, don’t forget that Sean Penn is still starring as an inspirational yet tragic figure this year and Hollywood’s got Holocaust movies coming out of its arse – but if the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is anything to go by, this year might be the year that bone-dry dramas based on issues and tragedy and crying might be replaced by, gasp, entertainment.

Although the last two years has seen the Los Angeles Film Critics Association name the likes of Brokeback Mountain and There Will Be Blood as its best films, this year it has decided to give its top award to WALL-E, the almost dialogue-free kid’s cartoon about a funny robot. BBC News reports:

Wall-E has been named best film of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as Hollywood gears up for Thursday’s Golden Globe nominations. The Pixar film was chosen ahead of The Dark Knight by the body, which gave its best actor prize to Sean Penn for Milk.

Weird, huh? WALL-E. Not a rites of passage film about a boy who treks across the Andes. Not a film about Darfur starring a popular actor who wants an Oscar more than life itself. Not a biopic of a recently-dead musician. WALL-E, the film that people a) paid to see in the droves and b) actually enjoyed. How utterly mystifying. WALL-E isn’t even based on a book or anything.

But just because a bunch of dusty old movie critics happened to like it, it doesn’t mean that WALL-E should hang out the bunting just yet – the Los Angeles Movie Critics Association hardly ever picks the same movie for Best Picture as the Oscars.

But still, this is still undeniably good news – not just for WALL-E but for populist movies in general. Finally, after years in the wilderness, it looks like they’re being accepted alongside all the impenetrably highbrow arthouse fodder that has dominated the awards scene lately.

And you know what that means – come the Oscars, Beverly Hills Chihuahua’s going to win EVERYTHING!

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That's the only way we can explain why a series of Biblical plague-style accidents keep wrecking their homes, anyway. Just weeks after Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' house burnt down in the Malibu wildfires, Eddie Van Halen's house has got all muddy because a water main freakishly broke near his house yesterday. Actually it's a little more serious than we're making out – thousands of gallons of water uprooted trees in Eddie Van Halen's garden, filled over his swimming pool and narrowly avoided causing permanent damage to his house.

Memo to God: when you get round to unleashing your plague of unhealable boils, might we suggest Bon Jovi as a target. Again, that's Bon Jovi.

These days, Eddie Van Halen never does anything more strenuous than seeing how girly he can let his hair get before anyone confronts him about it or choosing theoretical new Van Halen line-ups by throwing darts into a phonebook blindfolded. So with this in mind, Eddie van Halen has had a hell of a year.

First Van Halen were going into the Rock And Roll Hall OF Fame, then hardly any of the band turned up because Eddie went to rehab, then they managed to split up before they even reformed, and then they decided to reform anyway. And the last thing anyone wants after a year like that is an unusual amount of mud in their back garden.

But that's what Eddie Van Halen has to deal with today, after a water main burst near his home in LA yesterday and sent thousands of gallons of mud and debris crashing down Coldwater Canyon and into his garden, not affecting anyone else's property. Although neither Eddie Van Halen or his girlfriend were at home when the mud-attack hit, Van Halen's girlfriend Janie Liszewski – who also moonlights as his publicist – had this to say:

"It could have been a lot worse. The pool is buried in mud, the driveway gate is down and some major landscaping is going to be needed to restore the yard to its former self."

It's also been reported that the only thing which saved Eddie Van Halen's house from the accident was the quick-thinking firefighters who threw down sandbags to protect it. But coming so soon after Flea's house burnt down in a freak Malibu wildfire, how are these under-fire celebrities going to protect themselves from the cruel hand of Mother Nature?

We think we have an answer, and that answer is a man-for-man population swap with Basildon. It's so obviously – Basildon has everything that the modern millionaire celebrity needs, from plans to build one of Europe's largest wetland nature reserves to a shopping centre with a Claire's Accessories and a Bon Marche. Plus the current population of Basildon would get to go to LA and have their houses burnt down by a succession of natural disasters. We wouldn't be against that, to be honest.

Read more:

Eddie Van Halen's Yard Flooded - Associated Press