Celebrity Stalking  is an art – one few have perfected.

We did though – don’t believe us? Then how do you explain us living in Dom DeLuise’s pantry for almost a month. Our trick was to dress as something that wasn’t food. It doesn’t really matter what – that’s the only stuff that used to make it back there. Around week three we found ourselves having surprisingly deep discussions with a broom. Go ahead – mock.

That broom was the truest of friends.

We’re an excellent stalker. The lady recently caught peeping through Britney Spears windows, on the other hand, is a sucky one.

When Paula Abdul’s stalker showed up dead in a trash can covered in nuts, gummi bears, and the entrails of what most thought was an otter (we’re fuzzy on the details), everyone was like ‘Wha….?!”

When Jamie Foxx’s stalker tried to get into the actor’s hotel room only to rub bums and exchange stomach hickeys (We’re fuzzy on the details again), the world said “Wha….?!” again, except louder. Figuratively louder, not actually louder. Because a hotel trespasser can’t really be more shocking that a dead girl covered in otter parts, right?

Britney’s stalker tops it though – she actually hollowed out the rear-half of a goat to make pants she could wear while trotting onto Spears’ property and whimsically playing a pan flute. This might sound odd at first – until you understand that for almost 15 minutes Wikipedia page recently said she was really in to Zamfir and mystical half-goat people from either Greek or Norse mythology.

The truth isn’t that interesting, actually. According to E! Online:

“A camouflage-clad woman was arrested for trespassing Thursday morning after allegedly sneaking into Britney Spears’ gated community and peeking through the windows of the singer’s Calabasas, Calif., home, E! News has confirmed. According to the Malibu/Lost Hills Station, an L.A. County Sheriff’s deputy arrested 26-year-old Miranda Tozier-Robbins on suspicion of trespassing and disorderly conduct after security guards spied her peeping into Spears’ abode.”

Tozier-Robbins really is a piss poor stalker though. Think about it – if the star’s not even home than you have absolutely no chance of said star seeing you from a distance and knowing concretely once and for all that you are the very person they want to spend their life with. Isn’t that the whole point of stalking anyway?

In a stalker’s perfect world that might be the case. In the real world, however, your more likely to be placed inside a huge microwave by a sleep-walking Dom DeLuise who won’t wake up even though you pound on the stupid door every time you spin past it.

That’s reality folks. That’s the stalking reality.

Well right off, let us just tell you that the title up there has probably misled you a little.

Sure, Jamie Foxx did recently fend off an intruder in his own hotel room recently, but sources have since indicated it was his Nanna.

And now just let us tell you that the above paragraph may have misled you as well. Although Foxx did have to push an intruder out of his hotel door, we’re told it was more of a stalker-type relationship than an actual blood relative.

Also nobody died, and nobody was foxy.

When you’re living the Jamie Foxx lifestyle you have to be ready for absolutely anything. You’ve gotta be ready to be the invisible one on In Living Color. Also, you’ve gotta be ready to always sign your name with two Xs just because you decided it looked cool in eighth grade, you’ve gotta be ready to apparently remake August Rush in 2009 but with a grown black man instead of a little white orphan, and perhaps most importantly you have to be ready to physically push stalkers posing as Beyonce’s music producer out of your hotel room before they stab you like they may well have been planning.

That actually happened recently. No really – TMZ will tell you:

“…sources say Jamie had to physically struggle to shove a 49-year-old perp out of his room, after the guy tricked Foxx into thinking he was Beyonce’s producer. We’re told Jamie realized something was wrong as soon as he opened the door, but the suspect quickly tried to push his way inside. Fortunately, Jamie overpowered him and slammed the door in his face. Law enforcement sources say the man, later identified as Willie Brown, then fled from the scene.”

In his defence, the stalker thought he was sneaking past Ray Charles. He was probably shocked when Foxx’s line of sight seemed to follow him almost perfectly.

What a dumb stalker. Doesn’t he know you’ve gotta train for stuff like that? If you are gonna successfully push past Jamie Foxx to successfully be in his room at least long enough to successfully convince him that although you’re both men, these feelings can’t be wrong – you’ve gotta train first. You’ve gotta hit the treadmill, you’ve gotta hit the free weights, and lastly, you should really practice sneaking through holes made out of door frames and mock-ups of Jamie’s legs and chest.

Only then will love find you. Only then will lifelong gay love with Jamie Foxx possibly find you.

Nothing worth it comes easy, stalker.

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And what’s Unbearably Dirty-Looking Nobsack Lesson One? That you don’t let them near you. That’s why Kirsten Dunst has just got restraining order against Christopher Smith, a man who was allegedly caught trespassing on her property.

Now everyone’s happy. Kirsten Dunst no longer has to live in fear, and Christopher Smith can just start stalking things that remind him of Kirsten Dunst, like a drunk horse that’s fallen face-first down a giant flight of concrete stairs or something.

Whisper it, but it looks like the fun’s gone out of stalking lately. Sure, once stalkers could get their kicks by sending packets of dildos to Britney Spears or hurling bags of screwdrivers onto John Cusack’s lawn, but the whole stalking game became a little bit more depressing after that American Idol contestant killed herself outside Paula Abdul’s house.

Now the stalkers sort of seem like their hearts aren’t in it any more. Just look at Christopher Smith. He was arrested last month because he apparently showed up at Kirsten Dunst’s house and claimed that he had a ’spiritual connection’ with her. That’s it. He didn’t threaten to blow up an airport in her name. He didn’t draw any pictures of Kirsten Dunst digging his grave in a wedding dress and giggling. He just said that he had a spiritual connection with her.

That’s not so unusual. We’ve got a spiritual connection with Kirsten Dunst, too – Kirsten Dunst says she wants to give up acting, which is actually something we’ve heavily lobbied for since the release of Marie Antoinette. See? That’s about as spiritually-connected as it gets.

Anyway, spooked by Smith showing up at her house and being weird, Kirsten Dunst has taken out a restraining order out against him, as E! Online reports:

A Los Angeles judge has granted a permanent protective order against the man who paid an unannounced visit to Dunst’s Hollywood home professing a “spiritual connection” with her. Superior Court Judge Richard E. Rico prohibited Christopher Smith, 25, from coming anywhere near the actress, her personal assistant, her residences and her places of business. The L.A. native is also barred from owning or possessing a gun.

What? Smith’s been banned from owning a gun? That seems a mite unfair – by all means go ahead and ban him from going anywhere near Kirsten Dunst, but if you take away his gun, you’re stripping him of his ability to partake in perfectly normal Kirsten Dunst fan activities, like buying 100 copies of Spider-Man 3 on DVD, piling them up outside and unloading round after round into them while screaming “YOU BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!” and that’s a stalker’s bread and butter.

Actually, speaking of Spider-Man 3, we’re pretty sure that that’s the reason Smith allegedly became so infatuated with Kirsten Dunst – there can’t be a man alive who didn’t see that scene of her making an omelette with James Franco and dancing the Twist in a painfully self-conscious way and thought “That’s the woman I want to be with!” Right? Right? No? Just Christopher Smith? Oh. Actually that might explain a lot.

But anyway, Kirsten Dunst’s stalkee days are probably at an end now, if reports of her being written out of Spider-Man 4 and 5 hold any water. Sure, there’s a chance that she might get the odd unwanted drop of attention from people who liked her in How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, but they’re all probably the sort of weirdos who display their love by hiding in a bush with a sniper rifle trained constantly at your head, so that’s nothing to worry about.

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So, when anybody does lunge at Lindsay Lohan, it’s best to arrest them on suspicion of being weird. And that’s what happened to Daniel Combs after he allegedly flung himself at Lindsay Lohan outside an Arizona nightclub yesterday.

A man excited to be around Lindsay Lohan? That doesn’t sound right. Our theory is that Combs was just trying to give Lindsay some underwear, which explains his cries of “For the love of God, cover it up! My eyes! They burn! THEY BURN!”

2008 is almost through, and we’re almost completely certain that the overriding memory that people will take from it is that Lindsay Lohan’s Year Of Sex was an unmitigated failure. Sure, it started off well enough – with Lindsay Lohan colonising small European islands using only her tongue – but after that? Deathly silence.

There was a glimmer of excitement when Lindsay Lohan decided to hook up with a girl, but that faded away when everyone realised the girl in question looks like a joyless semi-retired investment banker from Wiltshire named Gerald, and that her only intention was to glumly follow Lindsay Lohan around with a face that suggested she was contractually obliged to do so.

So Lindsay Lohan’s Year Of Political Failure? Maybe. Lindsay Lohan’s Year Of Not Even Being Famous Enough For Ugly Betty Any More? Definitely. But Lindsay Lohan’s Year Of Sex? No chance.

In fact, Lindsay Lohan’s Year Of Sex has now become so moribund that random strangers are now doing everything they can to give it a last-minute second wind. And by ‘random strangers’ we mean ‘alleged Lindsay Lohan stalker Daniel Combs’. And by ‘give it a last-minute second wind’ we mean ‘lunge at Lindsay outside a nightclub until he gets arrested.’ Because that’s basically what happened, as E! Online reports:

A man accused of stalking the actress was busted in Scottsdale, Ariz., early this morning, after making an aggressive play for Lohan’s attention as she exited a local nightclub.”The gentleman became very excited when he realized he was so close to Samantha, and he has a history of being a stalker with Lindsay Lohan, so he immediately attacked her and started yelling ‘I love her, I love her,’” said the club’s owner, Dan Wiecrk.

What gets us here isn’t the borderline-unbelievable notion that Lindsay Lohan still has fans, let alone fans who care about her enough to apparently try and attack her, but that this Daniel Combs character knew how to find Lindsay Lohan so easily. Because, come on, outside a nightclub at 1:30am? That’s only where Lindsay Lohan is 98% of the time. She could have been anywhere else for the remaining two percent, like inside a nightclub or… actually, no. Inside a nightclub. That’s it.

So, yes, Lindsay Lohan’s life may have possibly been put in a tiny amount of danger by this wayward fan accosting her in such a terrifying way, but we’re pretty sure that Lindsay won’t pursue charges against him. After all, we get the impression that if he goes to jail, Lindsay Lohan’s forthcoming comedy Labor Pains will be the first film in history never to be watched all the way through by a single human being.

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Unless, you know, those fans keep turning up at his house without permission because they’re fanatical veterans’ rights activists with a history of psychiatric issues who keep shutting down freeways by allegedly waving flags and guns around.

That’s bad news for Edward Van Tassel – he’s exactly that, and he’s been given a restraining order forcing him to stay away from Tom Cruise. Phew, that was close – it’s a good job these mentally ill gun-toting rogue soldiers respect court orders so diligently, eh?

Tom Cruise’s powers are perfectly self-evident to everyone. He can help car crash victims better than people who know how to help car crash victims, he can impregnate virgins young enough to be his daughter and he can also take any number of sure-fire hit movies and make people not want to watch them just because of who he is. It’s incredible.

But Tom Cruise is only human – or part-human and part-Jesus alien or whatever – and so sometimes his powers fail him and he needs outside help. Like when mentally-troubled Iraq veterans come to his house and try to hand him slightly unsettling letters, which is the case with Edward Van Tassel.

Van Tassel is a former soldier who gained notoriety recently for walking into a radio studio in fatigues and a mask with a gun as a massively ill-advised Halloween stunt, and for shutting down a freeway by standing on an overpass waving a flag and a gun around. Oh, and for spooking Tom Cruise out by visiting him with letters and books and friendship requests and whatnot now, too.

But it’s OK because, as E! Online reports, Tom Cruise has managed to get a restraining order taken out on Van Tassel:

Darryl Perlin, senior deputy district attorney for Santa Barbara County, tells E! News the order issued Wednesday bars 28-year-old Edward Van Tassel from having any contact or communications with the 46-year-old Cruise. It also forbids Van Tassel from coming anywhere near the actor’s Beverly Hills estate. “He’s definitely a threat. He’s a celebrity stalker,” said Perlin.

We know what you’re thinking – why would anyone want to stalk a film star as creepy and unapproachable as Tom Cruise when it’d be easier just to draw macabre pictures of Uma Thurman or send Britney Spears a big box of dildos?

Well, given that Edward Van Tassel is a veterans’ rights activist, and in Born On The Fourth Of July Tom Cruise played a veteran struggling to come to terms with civilian life, there’s a good chance that that’s the link.

Or maybe Edward Van Tassel just really, really liked Lions For Lambs. We suppose statistically someone had to. No wonder the poor chap seems so disturbed.

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But when a woman who a) looked like Paula, b) painted lifesize pictures of Paula and c) appeared on the TV show that Paula judges died outside Paula Abdul’s house surrounded by pictures and CDs all bearing Paula Abdul’s image in a car with a licence plate that professed her love for Paula Abdul, that may have tipped things to a new level.

Apparently Paula Abdul hasn’t slept in her own house since any of this happened. Well, duh.

Usually when a celebrity gets a stalker, it tends to confuse us a bit. For instance, we’ve had two and a half years to reflect on the fact that John Cusack has a stalker and we still can’t make head nor tail out of it – there are billions of people in the world, so why pin unattainable hero status on the bloke out of Con Air? It just doesn’t make sense.

But Paula Abdul, we’re sorry to say, seems like perfect stalker fodder. She ticks all the boxes. She’s pretty, she’s friendly, she used to be a popstar so people see her as a lost fragment of their youth and she often seems fairly incomprehensible, so people want to try and fix her when they meet her. Plus, if rumours are correct, she’s possibly OK with sleeping with people she barely knows.

But the main reason why Paula Abdul appears to be a likely victim for stalking is because she’s the nice one on American Idol – not only do thousands of deluded idiots pass in front of her eyes day after day, but Paula Abdul is often the only one who’ll cushion them from Simon Cowell’s withering put-downs and stop them feeling like total failures.

It’s a dangerous mix, which is why it was horribly unsurprising when Paula Abdul’s number one fan Paula Goodspeed was found dead near her house three weeks ago. The blame for her death could be laid at any number of doorsteps – but that doesn’t hide the fact that a young woman died, and that’s terribly sad.

And now Paula Abdul has decided to talk about Goodspeed’s death and how it affected her. It’s probably no surprise to hear that Paula’s been avoiding her home as much as possible since the incident, as People reports:

“I’ve been staying in different homes and hotels, and I have security with me… It was very tragic and very upsetting to hear. She had tried to do this before, and it was just heartbreaking … It was in the middle of Hollywood week, and it happened while I was actually working at the Kodak Theatre, and it was devastating to hear.”

The superficial knock-on effects of Paula Goodspeed’s death are obvious – Paula Abdul’s house is now inevitably on the market – but what’ll be interesting is seeing how Paula copes with this event in the longer term. Will she be frostier to the American Idol contestants?  Will she continue to judge American Idol at all?

Ultimately, though, we hope that Paula Abdul realises that this was an isolated – though unfortunately extreme – incident, and that not everyone has the same mental issues that Goodspeed appeared to suffer from.

As we’ve said before – it’s when Randy Jackson gets an obsessive fan that we’ll realise that the world has turned to shit. When that day comes, you’ll find us cowering in the bottom of our cupboard clutching a bottle of gin and a cricket bat.

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Not only did she star as Tony Danza’s midget lover on the eighties sitcom Hey You Guys, Who Is The Boss Here?, but more recently she was also in some show where she played the ghost of Shannon Doherty or something.

We thought we might have some of those details wrong, but on review everything actually looks pretty accurate. Possibly.

But just because we don’t remember the specifics doesn’t mean nobody does – one fan, for instance, just walked miles and miles through some woods to try to force an in-house meeting with her.

Sometimes 54-year-old guys just get lonely. Take our Uncle Bernie for instance – we assume he’s lonely, but that’s only because the last time we saw him he was running for an open train door with a handkerchief-stick slung over his shoulder. We haven’t heard from him since, but the travelling band of gay hobos he took up with wrote once and told us he pretty much keeps to himself.

Poor Bernie. Ever since kindergarten you could see this coming.

So we heard.

Also take Jeff Turner, a man who might not be gay or filthy, but likely expresses his emptiness by recording all of Nick at Night, probably on VHS, and then playing it back in super slow motion – pausing whenever Alyssa Milano pops on screen wearing a particularly attractive side-pony tail.

This is all assumption of course – but it certainly seems like a safe one – at least according to All Headline News:

“Former “Charmed” star Alyssa Milano has requested a temporary restraining order against an “obsessed and mentally unstable fan.” Per the court documents the actress filed on Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Jeff Turner, 54, tried to break into her home on two occasions. He also made repeated attempts to contact Milano over the past two years…Turner’s most recent attempt to break into the 35-year-old actress’ home was on November 16, when he was confronted by her agent, David Bugliari, and her uncle, Mitch Carp. He told the two that he was a friend of the family and admitted to them that he had “bypassed around the guard gate and hiked through the woods” to get in.”

You know to be fair – Milano is a tough read. Whenever she’s on the TV in Turner’s basement apartment she probably beckons him with her eyes. Then when he does as she’s obviously telling him – which is probably something like – “Pry open one of my windows and then wait in my room until I find you comfortably lounging in my lavender bathrobe,” people freak and the cops are called. Why is it always back and forth with these women?

Milano should be thankful – at least her stalker is alive. Paula Abdul is gonna have to spend the rest of her life wondering what could have been. Why is it celebrities only want what they can’t have? Why even Jennifer Garner – there she had a perfectly nice nutter who never wanted anything more than to sniff a pair of her dirty, inside-out pants, and what does she do?

We’re not sure what she did, actually. It was probably something legal.

Don’t be a Garner, Milano – or before you know it you’ll be an Abdul. And then of course you might get billed by the city when they come by to clean up your guy’s body… and there’s the fees for the incineration – or a taxidermist should you decide to go that route. Those restraining orders can really add up fast, financially speaking.

And these are not the times for additional bills, what with the current state of Wall Street and what-not.

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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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The body of Paula Goodspeed was discovered yesterday near Paula Abdul’s mansion in a car with a Paula Abdul-referencing license plate, next to pictures and CDs of Paula Abdul. It’s thought that Paula Goodspeed overdosed on prescription drugs, following a less successful suicide attempt near Abdul’s home earlier this year.

It’s sad news, and Goodspeed’s death might even make reality producers question their vetting process or treatment of contestants. Maybe they could just let Randy Jackson judge the next season of American Idol alone. After all, nobody can like him that much, can they?

There have been all manner of celebrity stalkers in recent years, all with varying degrees of scariness. Some are happy to draw creepy pictures of their victims, others will try to run them over on their driveway. But none have ever been willingly insulted by the object of their affections on national television.

Tragically, that happened to be the case with Paula Goodspeed, the Paula Abdul fan who yesterday killed herself close to Paula Abdul’s home. Paula Goodspeed auditioned for the fifth season of American Idol in a televised segment that now seems to be uncomfortably stuffed with warning signs…

As BBC News reports, Paula Abdul has already expressed her sadness over Goodspeed’s death:

The 30-year-old was discovered in a car alongside prescription drugs, CDs and pictures of pop star Abdul. The car was found near the singer’s home. Abdul said in a statement, released by her publicist Jeff Ballard: “I am deeply shocked and saddened at what transpired yesterday. My heart and prayers go out to her family.”

The news of Paula Goodspeed’s apparent suicide will no doubt affect Paula Abdul deeply. Every episode of American Idol these days seems to come complete with a little montage of fans telling Paula how much they love her, and this news might force her to be a little more hands-off with them in the future.

Whatever happens, though, we expect that the knock-on effect of Goodspeed’s death will be a toning down of the early American Idol stages. Simon Cowell has already been criticised in the past for his treatment of homosexuals and the disabled and so, to avoid a repeat of this sad news, we’re predicting that American Idol will cut back its attacks on the less talented audition performers in future seasons.

And what will that leave us with? Six months of David Archuleta clones. Who’d watch that?

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That might just be for the best though, because as soon as anyone does show the slightest bit on interest in Jamie Lynn Spears, she flips out and gets them arrested for stalking her, which is what happened to photographer Edwin Merrino a couple of days ago.

Merrino denies the charges, but then again who can blame Jamie Lynn Spears for protecting her unborn child so fiercely? If she starts letting strangers get to close to it, then the baby might hear their voice and start to prenatally learn words and concepts that Jamie Lynn Spears herself doesn’t understand. Have you ever become the slave of a malevolent super-intelligent unborn baby dictator? It isn’t very bloody nice, trust us.

There was a time, perhaps you remember it, when Jamie Lynn Spears looked as if she was going to snatch the mantle of Most Famous Spears Sister away from Britney. It wasn’t particularly hard to do – she just needed to have unprotected sex with a lad from church until she got pregnant – but it didn’t quite pan out.

You see, any old fool can become a pregnant schoolgirl, but it takes real dedication to have a full-tilt meltdown and end up locked in a psychiatric hospital against your will. But even though she’ll always be the bridesmaid of Spears family inappropriate behaviour, Jamie Lynn Spears is still capable of snagging the odd headline for herself.

Of course, it helps if there’s someone stalking her. Which, according to her, there is. Jamie Lynn Spears has got photographer Edwin Merrino arrested for that very thing.

Why? What did this Merrino character do? Was it the old dildo package trick that the Spears family seems to get hit with so often? Perhaps he drew a picture of Jamie Lynn Spears dressed as a bride and digging his grave? No, not quite. Apparently Edwin Merrino was taking Jamie Lynn Spears’ photo. From 200 yards away. The stalky bastard. Did we mention that he was a photographer? E! Online reports:

Edwin Merrino, who was released later in the day after posting a $1,096 bond, has denied harassing the couple. He told the Associated Press Wednesday that he was at least 200 feet away from Spears and Aldridge when he was busted while trying to take a picture of them using a telephoto lens. “I just think since I was the only one there, it was just easier for them to single me out,” the Los Angeles-based shutterbug said, adding that he didn’t have much luck during the short time he was in the area.

Regardless of how guilty or not Edwin Merrino is, it’s easy to see Jamie Lynn Spears’ concern. Being trailed by the paparazzi affects her negatively in so many different ways.

Firstly, Jamie Lynn Spears has seen what constant media attention has done to her sister – she knows that you can only have your photo taken a finite amount of times before you suddenly shave your hair off and proclaim yourself to be the devil.

Secondly, Jamie Lynn Spears’ maternal instincts are probably kicking in hard quite, and she definitely won’t stand for anyone potentially harming the wellbeing of her kids by standing 200 yards away and aiming a small light-capturing box at them.

Also – and this is the most important explanation for Jamie Lynn Spears’ defensiveness – she’s quite a long way through the pregnancy now and so the chance of her getting a sudden huge contraction, falling to the floor and having the baby in a petrol station forecourt is quite high, and people like Merrino would be perfectly poised to snap pictures of the baby’s head crowning through Jamie Lynn’s genitals and then sell it to What Shit-Covered Birthing Teenager magazine for millions of dollars.

And forget invasion of privacy – if that ever happened Jamie Lynn Spears could kiss goodbye to getting a cheque for a spread in People magazine. And if she knew that she wasn’t going to get paid, Jamie Lynn would have probably never even bothered getting pregnant in the first place.

Unless you mean that you’ll go to jail if you stalk Uma Thurman, because if that’s the case then yes, you probably will get away with it – just like Jack Jordan, the man recently found guilty of being Uma Thurman’s crazy stalker. Rather than jail, Jack Jordan has been given three years probation and some outpatient psychiatric treatment.

In addition to this, Jack Jordan has been banned from any contact with Uma Thurman for five years. Which means that the unveiling of his masterwork Man Falling Off Giant Razorblade Into Grave Dug By Giggling Bride Uma Thurman (Oil On Canvas) has been pushed back to 2013, a bitter blow to lovers of creepy deranged art everywhere.

Some celebrity stalkers of recent years have been more blindly traditional (anonymously sending packets of dildos to Britney Spears) or thrillingly creative (a tip of the hat to you, Dessarae Bradford), but none have managed the full-on high profile media assault of Uma Thurman’s stalker Jack Jordan.

Jack Jordan ran the gauntlet of stalking techniques to try and convince Uma Thurman that they were preordained to be together forever – he contacted Uma’s father and threatened to kill himself, he slept in a car near Uma’s house and he sent her torn-up pieces of paper, pictures of headless brides, creepy cards with stick figures of grave diggers on the back and a scribbled list of creepy words – but all to no avail.

Not only did Uma Thurman turn down Jack Jordan’s attractive ’stay with me forever and never leave me’ proposition, but she also took him to court and got him convicted of stalking and harrassing her – charges that carry a maximum punishment of a year in jail.

Not that Jack Jordan’s going to serve a year in jail, though – as he was sentenced yesterday, it became clear that ‘no time in jail at all’ was closer to what the judge had in mind. E! Online reports:

“I’m terrified of being incarcerated again,” he told the court before his sentencing. “My greatest wish is that I had known sooner that I was putting fear into the heart [of Thurman].” While prosecutors pushed for the maximum sentence of one year in prison for the conviction on aggravated harassment , New York State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro opted to have Jordan serve probation in his home state of Maryland with the condition that he receive outpatient psychiatric treatment… As for his stalking count, Jordan was sentenced to time already served.

Escaping jail can only be a good thing for Jack Jordan, because as a celebrity stalker he’d face a barrage of victimisation from other inmates if he was sent to jail – at least until he’d drawn pictures of them as headless giggling brides and won their hearts forever. But what about Uma Thurman?

Surely Uma won’t be able to fully relax with Jordan still on the outside. Every day that Jack Jordan isn’t locked up – even if he’s in another state – will be another day that she’ll be expecting another terrifying onslaught of negative attention. Not that she’ll have to adjust all that much, though – on any given day she already has to put up with verbal abuse from up to 400 disgruntled fans who were tricked into seeing My Super Ex Girlfriend. She’ll do OK.

That was the decision reached by the jury in a New York court yesterday, anyway, where Uma Thurman’s stalker Jack Jordan was found guilty of stalking and harassing Thurman and immediately jailed pending his sentencing next month.

But who’s the real criminal here? Is it the man who systematically terrorised Uma Thurman by sending her pictures of headless brides and telling her that her children don’t actually exist, or is it society?

What? The first one? Yeah, that probably makes sense, actually.

Look at Uma Thurman. Look at her. There’s just something about her, isn’t there. Something that draws you in. Something that tells you that Uma is predestined to fall in love with you until the end of time. Something that says “Hey boys, you want some of this? Then send me a relentless stream of terrifying doodles and messages that will firmly convince me of your desperate mental instability.”

We’re joking, of course – as normally-functioning human beings, the only thing that Uma Thurman says to us is “Don’t go and see any of my films, none of them are very good” – but that doesn’t apply to Jack Jordan, a man who loves Uma Thurman more than any man really has the right to.

During last week’s stalky court case, we heard how Jack Jordan had threatened to kill himself if he couldn’t be with Uma Thurman, and that he sent Uma just about the creepiest stuff imaginable. True, his lawyer said that Jack Jordan was just a hopeless romantic who couldn’t tell the difference between a bunch of flowers and a stick figure drawing of himself falling off a giant Acme razor blade into an open grave while Uma Thurman, wearing a wedding dress, stood next to him and said “tee hee,” but that didn’t work.

Yesterday Jack Jordan was found guilty of stalking and one count of aggravated harassment and now faces up to a year in jail, as the Associated Press reports:

“I’ve learned some disturbing things about this defendant during this case,” said state Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro. “I am going to remand him for a psychiatric exam.” Defense lawyer George Vomvolakis said Jordan was disappointed with the verdict and that he will soon decide whether to appeal. He requested protective custody for Jordan, saying he faces “specific threats because he’s a stalker.”

Exactly! Where are the stalkers’ rights here? As a convicted stalker, Jack Jordan should have access to a few basic necessities in jail, like an endless supply of Uma Thurman posters for him to lick day and night and a small brush allowing him to daub globs of his own semen across any letters he chooses to write to Uma over the next 12 months.

Anyway, let’s forget about Jack Jordan and concentrate on what a relief his incarceration must be to Uma Thurman. Not only is he guaranteed to be out of her way for up to a year but, now that she’s effectively put him in prison, Uma Thurman doesn’t need to worry about Jack Jordan being in love with her any more.

True, it means he’ll probably bombard her with death threats, bunches of dead flowers and horrifically-melted Barbie doll heads, but he definitely won’t love her any more.

Read more:

Jury in New York City convicts fan of stalking Uma Thurman - AP

And that’s kind of a shame, because that’s precisely the thing that Uma Thurman’s crazed stalker misunderstood fan crazed stalker Jack Jordan happened to send her.

Uma Thurman finally got her chance to testify in her court case against alleged stalker Jack Jordan yesterday, and took the chance to list all of the disturbing stuff that he’d sent her in the past. And most could agree that Uma Thurman gave a good performance on the stand. OK, a decent performance. Nobody walked out during it, at least. So, you know, it did better than Paycheck.

There’s such a fine line between appreciation and obsession, isn’t there. Sometimes it’s hard to see the line. For example, why is it OK to compliment someone on their work but less OK to send them a stick figure cartoon of them saying “tee hee” as you topple from a giant Acme razorblade into an open grave? Aren’t they essentially the same thing?

Jack Jordan obviously shares this confusion, which is why he’s been in court all week facing charges of stalking and harassing Uma Thurman. Throughout the week we’ve seen several sides of Jordan – his own lawyer says that he’s a harmless misguided romantic at worst, while Uma Thurman’s parents painted him as a disturbed man who threatened to kill himself if he couldn’t be with Uma.

Perhaps we’d all have a better handle of what Jack Jordan’s obsession with Uma Thurman was about if we heard from Uma Thurman herself. And that’s why Uma Thurman took to the stand yesterday to describe her experiences of being the focus of Jack Jordan’s attention. As the New York Times reports, the key moment came when Uma Thurman revealed what was in a package Jordan sent her:

Little pieces of torn paper, a dollar bill and a picture of a headless bride fell out of the envelope, she said, along with a store-bought religious confirmation card for a child. On the front was a dreamy pastel image of a small blonde girl, a spray of pink flowers and a dove. On the back was a crude pen-and-ink drawing of a male stick figure — apparently meant to be Mr. Jordan — walking off the edge of an Acme razor blade into an open grave next to a female stick figure — apparently meant to be Ms. Thurman — with a thought balloon over her head saying, “Tee-hee.”

Oh, that’s not all. Uma Thurman also revealed that written inside the card was a spiral of words, many of which had been scribbled out, including ‘chocolate’, ’soft’, ‘mouth’, ‘kissing’ and the inevitable ‘my hand should be on your body.’

Just one hand, you understand. Even Jack Jordan doesn’t like Uma Thurman enough for a two-handed Uma-fondle.

During her testimony, Uma Thurman appeared to be torn between the terror that she understandably went through during this ordeal and a sort of resigned pity about helping to send a man to prison. In fact, her weary, drawn testimony was a reminder that being subjected to this kind of ordeal can have a profoundly upsetting effect on someone’s life.

Now, if only Jack Jordan had done what Colin Farrell’s stalker did and made a funky pop song about his stalking adventures, then it’d be much easier to poke fun at him. Stupid Jack Jordan.

Read more:

Uma Thurman Tells of Odd Card Left by Pursuer - NYT

Maybe that’s where we’ve been going wrong all these years. And not just us, either – Uma Thurman’s alleged stalker Jack Jordan has fallen foul of this weird quirk of female nature as well. In court yesterday, Uma Thurman’s mother described a phone call with Jordan where he said he’d kill himself if he and her daughter weren’t predestined to be together.

And, surprisingly enough, this didn’t end in Uma Thurman leaping into Jack Jordan’s arms and yelling “Oh kiss me, you great big psychologically-deranged schnookie-noogs!” Women, huh? Can’t live with them, can’t disturb them to the point of shrieking hysteria.

Court cases involving celebrities tend to be quite boring, unless the celebrities have been accused of shooting a woman’s face off, because they all usually involve drink-driving and the celebrities are usually always guilty. So thank heavens for the 12-month reign of terror that frenzied stalker Jack Jordan is accused of hammering Uma Thurman and her family with, because at least it’s a bit different.

You probably know the details by now – Jack Jordan apparently bombarded Uma Thurman with letters and emails and disturbing pictures of Uma Thurman digging his grave and would sleep in his car outside her house and whatnot. And now the case has finally reached court.

Yesterday we reported how Jack Jordan’s lawyer described his client as a kind of creepy, woefully-misguided romantic, like something out of Romeo And Juliet if Romeo And Juliet’s famous balcony scene ended with the line “Seriously Romeo, get away from my balcony. You’re creeping me the fuck out and I’m trying to learn lines for My Super Ex-Girlfriend.”

And now Uma Thurman’s parents have taken to the stand to discuss the other side of the story – the side that’s a bit less ‘romantic’ and a bit more ‘crazy man threatening to kill himself’. According to the New York Times, Uma Thurman’s mother had a particularly enlightening telephone conversation with Jack Jordan:

“I wanted to know what was on his mind, so I asked him what this was all about,” she testified. “He told me in so many words that he believed that he and my daughter had a preordained life, as it were, that they were meant to be together. He knew this. She didn’t know it. If she saw him, she would know they were destined to be together and be very happy.” She tried, she said, to talk Mr. Jordan out of his infatuation, telling him that he was “projecting” his own fantasies onto Uma Thurman’s life, and that they had no basis in reality. She testified that Mr. Jordan replied that “in that case there was no meaning in life for him. He would have to kill himself. Probably in a month or so he would be gone.”

Seriously? Jack Jordan thought about killing himself after being told that Uma Thurman probably wouldn’t want to marry him? We’d have contemplated suicide way before that – about the time we realised that Uma Thurman being the meaning of our lives would probably involve having to watch Paycheck more than once, to be precise.

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Actress’s Parents Tell of Stalker Suspect – NY Times

And now your lawyer is saying that you weren’t being illegal in an effort to keep you out of jail? That is very disappointing, Jack Jordan. Very disappointing indeed.

But on the plus side, if Jack Jordan is acquitted of his Uma Thurman stalking charges, it basically means that we’re all legally free to send the object of our obsession terrifying hand-drawn pictures of ourselves walking along a razorblade while they eeirly dig our graves. Good lord, Martine McCutcheon had better hope that Jack Jordan is found guilty.

To be an effective stalker, you need to have an angle. Without a USP (unique stalking point), you’ll blend into the crowd and never be heard of again, but with a little effort you’ll be the toast of the annual Creepy Stalker Convention.

Now, joining the likes of Emily Leatherman, the woman who throws bags of screwdrivers into John Cusack’s garden; Dessarae Bradford, the woman who writes books about the people she stalks and Unidentified Dildo Fanatic Number One, who’s been pestering Britney Spears lately, comes Uma Thurman’s alleged stalker Jack Jordan.

Jack Jordan has a complex USP. On the surface, it looks as if all he does is send creepy pictures and threats of suicide to Uma Thurman and occasionally sleeps in a car outside her house – your typical stalker fare – but the genius part is that, once he was arrested for stalking Uma Thurman, he claimed that he wasn’t guilty even though he sort of admits to doing all the stuff he’s been accused of.

And that’s why, in court yesterday, Jack Jordan’s lawyer admitted that – while Jordan might be incredibly creepy – he’s not actually doing anything illegal. BBC News reports:

A man accused of stalking Kill Bill actress Uma Thurman thought he was being romantic, his lawyer has claimed. “Creepy? Yes. Obsessed? Yes. Criminal? No,” George Vomvolakis said at the start of Jack Jordan’s New York trial. In his opening statement, Mr Vomvolakis said his client “does not think the way you and I think. He doesn’t know the boundaries you and I know,” he told the jury.

You have to admit it’s a genius gambit, and if George Vomvolakis manages to get Jack Jordan off the hook then he’s set himself up with a lifetime of guaranteed work, knowing that his next client will always be just on the other side of his bedroom window trying to listen to him sleep at night.

It’s a long shot – and really, we don’t know why Vomvolakis didn’t just go with the old ‘nobody likes Uma Thurman that much, not even creepy psychiatric patients’ approach – but if he wins the case then we’re sure Jack Jordan will be grateful. Really grateful. Maybe even ‘invite yourself around for dinner at 3am’. Maybe even ’sending razorblade-walking pictures’ grateful. Maybe.

Read more:

Uma Stalker ‘Creepy Not Criminal’ – BBC