Unfortunately, the incident happened in America and not in the UK where so far the most exciting thing to do for viewers is count how many times Luke mentions the £100k cheque.

We’re always told that things don’t go truly mental until the series kicks off, gets into its stride and sees housemates go quite mental. Sadly the UK version is halfway through and still as exciting as pouring vinegar over your own open wounds.

Consequently we’re switching to America for some entertainment. Quite literally we’re thanking God for turning the equally boring show into something worth watching. Fear not, we’ve got a video of it as well, after the jump.

Was that exciting or what?

Honestly, we’re going to constantly play that video whenever the UK version gets dangerously boring. Actually we may have to that right now. Rex is taking about his restaurants, Lisa’s blabbing on that she possesses gypsy powers, Darnell is inappropriately swearing and Kat is singing. Absolutely no change at all there then.

But if you were wishing for some Big Brother housemates to perish in a pit of rubble you’d be disappointed. The earthquake that measured 5.4 on the richter scale only lasted around fifteen seconds – not enough to make a Hollywood disaster movie on the events, but surely enough to make someone traumatised for life.

It wasn’t just reality show morons that were affected by God’s mighty decision to shift the earth, with stony-faced Judge Judy also feeling the true power of the space magician himself.

How Hollywood copes with all these earthquakes we don’t know, but it does make us wish that the UK had some sort of natural disasters to spice things up. Boring football matches would be made a lot more interesting if comets were hurtling towards the pitch.

Or what about making the banker from Deal Or No Deal a bit harder? It would make the contestants less thrilled, to say the least, if they knew there was the chance of picking a box with no money, instead offering a chance at death via a one-on-one gladiatorial conflict. It would certainly ramp up the pressure, that’s for certain.

God, if you are reading hecklerspray as you normally do, can you send a plague of flesh eating termites to the UK Big Brother house? Now that’ll make decent television.

(Yes, we’re quite aware that’s two stories covering one earthquake, but come on! Footage of these reactions is priceless!)

But no film this summer is likely to be as controversial as Wall-E, the latest Pixar movie to top the weekend box office. It's hard to think of a more uncommercial-sounding movie than a film about a silent robot compacting rubbish on a deserted planet, but that's what Wall-E is.

And Wall-E isn't just a commercial success, either. As well as being number one in the US weekend box office, the movie has also been called 'perfect' by more than one reviewer. Yeah? So what – there's a bit in The Love Guru where it sounds like Mike Myers is calling someone 'cuntface' when he's not and it's funny, so shove that up your critically adored poop-chute, Wall-E.

Does anyone else get the feeling Pixar is out to make the least-appealing summer movie ever? It had a good crack at it with Ratatouille – a film about a dirty-pawed rat crawling all over people's food – but people loved that.

And now it's having another shot with Wall-E, a love story between two non-verbal metallic objects set in a dystopian futurescape.

But, guess what, it doesn't matter – Wall-E is still lording it over the rest of the weekend box office. When will Pixar learn that it won't be able to make a genuinely unappealing movie until it adapts that Rosie O'Donnell biopic screenplay that we sent it a few years ago? Here's this week's US weekend box office top five…

1 - Wall-E (Relish Wall-E while you can, for it won't be long before someone releases the Wall-E videogame and, if the Ratatouille game is any indication, it'll be so awful that you'll end up wanting to burn down any shop that you see it in) $62,500,000

2 - Wanted (OK Angelina Jolie, you've done your popular sexy assassin movie now. As per your contract, you're now allowed to make four small worthy movies about various world problems that nobody will see before we ask you to make another one) $51,118,000

3 - Get Smart (Female movie stars take note – get yourself romantically caught up with a potentially fraudulent Italian businessman who exploits his relationship with the Vatican and your movie will lose 48.3% of its audience between its first and second weekend of release. Happens every time) $20,000,000

4 - Kung Fu Panda (Thanks to the success of Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2 is apparently being fast-tracked into production now. We just thought we'd warn Angelina Jolie about this now, because it's production might clash with her new movie People In Darfur Are Sad) $11,746,000

5 - The Incredible Hulk (Finally, after the disappointment of the Ang Lee Hulk movie, this is an Incredible Hulk movie that people want to see. And forget the fact that it's made about $17 million less than Ang Lee's Hulk so far. That doesn't mean anything, you hear?) $9,226,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo

Or, to put it another way, Piers Morgan went to America looking for success, and America (and by America we mean Donald Trump) looked back at Piers Morgan and replied: "Sure, why not? You're a man with all the qualities required to succeed here. Your wish is our command".

What is wrong with America? It all started off so positively some 40,000 years ago when a bunch of wandering nomads from Asia decided to set up camp. They had a quaint little society going on, and for thousands of years everything was wonderful, but then in 1492 some Italian named Chris landed on the shore and it all turned to shit.

Civil War, Vietnam, Iraq, then Will and Grace, and now this, the ultimate coup de grace – Piers Morgan – whose list of crimes include making people feel sympathy for Jeremy Clarkson, being editor of the News Of The World once, and having the name Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. Commenting on Morgan's performance in the show, touped-twat Donald Trump told him:

"You're a vicious guy; I've seen it … You're tough, you're smart,
you're probably brilliant, I'm not sure. You're certainly not
diplomatic, but you did an amazing job and you beat the hell out of
everybody."

The final task on Thursday's finale was to hold a charity event and raise as much money as possible. Morgan's rival, country singer Trace Adkins, had the duty of babysitting The Backstreet Boys, while Piers was responsible for the auction and food.

Trace sold more tickets, but Stefan Pughe raised the most money, earning an additional $250,000 (£125,000) for his charity.

And what was Morgan's chosen charity? Why it was the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides support for families of U.S. military personnel who have died in the line of duty.

Which is all very well, but it just goes to prove that, no matter how much of an utter cunt you are, if you cheer loud enough in support of the troops, all will be forgiven, even if you had previously been sacked for publishing faked photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army personnel.

Whatever, America, you can have him, but don't doubt for one moment that this is anything other than your Judgement Day. So long, it's been good to know ya.

But, we ask you, is there any election analysis from British websites that usually only spend their time writing puerile jokes about celebrity crap that nobody could ever possibly give a stuff about? No, no there isn’t. But now that hecklerspray is doing US general election betting odds, there is. And we can all sleep soundly at night because us that. Unless we’ve got sleep apnea or any other made-up illnesses.

Yesterday we looked at the Democrats, so today it’s only fair that we look at the general election betting odds for the Republicans, with help from Paddy Power…

Republicans – While the Democratic candidates are busy tearing strips of flesh off one another in public, old John McCain has got it easy. He’s already the Republican candidate for president, so he can kick back and spent the next few months fundraising and softening America up uncontested. It’s a win-win, except for the fact that the majority of his own party can’t stand him and that he’s so old that a sudden loud noise might finish him off for good. John McCain is a Vietnam POW which, ultimately, makes him Rambo. And Rambo always wins everything, even though he’s a bit clueless, heavy-handed and you don’t really understand what he says when he talks fast. But, although John McCain and the Republicans look as if they’re home and dry, they’ll still have to defend themselves against the Democrats’ constant inspiring war-cry of ‘change’. We’re not sure what sort of change John McCain actually stands for, apart from the three-hourly change of his man-nappy, of course. Current General Election betting odds – 6/4

Next week: the return of Eurovision betting odds! Probably! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power general election betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Thing is, though, it seems you know so much about Semi-Pro from all of this that none of you bothered to actually go and see the thing.

Although Semi-Pro is the US weekend box office number one, it only managed to scrape together a meagre $15,200,000 – roughly a tenth that Spider-Man 3 made in the same amount of time. Does Semi-Pro's relative failure mean that the public is getting sick of Will Ferrell sports comedies? Well, yes. Plainly it does. Can't you people read?

You know what you're getting when Will Ferrell makes a film. You're going to get at least two of the following – 1) an ironic 1970s setting, 2) a tired sports theme and 3) giant belly laughs. But it seems with Semi-Pro, you only got the first two. Even though it's number one at the weekend box office, Semi-Pro opened three times worse than Talladega Nights and twice as bad as Blades Of Glory. And even less than Meet The Spartans. That's all the criticism it needs. Here's the US weekend box office top five…

1 - Semi Pro (So the wheels have finally come off the Will Ferrell sports movie wagon. Although in the long-term that might push Will Ferrell to make more interesting stuff like Stranger Than Fiction, it spells disaster for the upcoming Untitled Will Ferrell Snooker Project, Untitled Will Ferrell Darts Project and Untitled Will Ferrell Unicycle Hockey Project) $15,200,000

2 – Vantage Point (Vantage Point really missed a trick, you know. Instead of showing a murder from multiple viewpoints, it could have just shown it from one and saved everyone from wasting an hour and a quarter of everyone's lives) $13,000,000

3 - The Spiderwick Chronicles (We're still steadfastly refusing to look up what The Spiderwick Chronicles is actually about but, since it's been in the weekend box office for three whole weeks now, we're almost completely certain that it's not a Will Ferrell sports movie) $8,752,000

4 - The Other Boleyn Girl (Seriously, our world is turning upside down this week. It's not just ironic Will Ferrell advertising spots that are stopping movies from doing well this week, it's lesbian kisses between Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman too. What's going on? We're scared) $8,300,000

5 - Jumper (Finally, some normality. Jumper continues to lose huge amounts of viewers week after week. Thank God for shitty-looking action films!) $7,600,000

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Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo 

Because, sweet baby Moses, is this week's weekend box office ever appalling. Thanks to the weekend box office one-two of Fool's Gold and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, the stars of the two most popular films in America right now – and thus the biggest stars in America – are Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey and Martin Lawrence.

If you need us we'll be weeping despondently in our lead-lined bunker.

Whoever keeps letting Matthew McConaughey keep making romantic comedies needs to be booted in the nutsack. Failure To Launch, The Wedding Planner, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days – all films we suspect are kept at the top of the Abu Ghraib DVD stacks for use on terror suspects when waterboarding, electrocution and dog-attacks fail. 

And now Matthew McConaughey is back with his How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days co-star Kate Hudson for this week's US weekend box office-topping movie Fool's Gold. Fool's Gold is about… oh, who cares. Is your life really so worthless that you want to spend two hours of it watching Matthew McConaughey being a dim-witted tie-died surfer dude again and Kate Hudson being all uptight and shrewish again – and pay to do it? Of course you don't. Do you?

Here's this week's US weekend box office top five. It isn't going to be pretty…

1 - Fool's Gold (The worst film named after a Stone Roses song since… actually, no. Unless Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson have starred in a romantic comedy we don't know about called Bye Bye Badman then this is the worst film named after a Stone Roses song) $22,010,000

2 - Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (A Tyler Perry-style African American 'everyone learns something about their family' heartwarmer, only it's got Martin Lawrence in it so someone ends up with a skunk spraying its stink into his open mouth) $17,127,000

3 – Hannah Montana/ Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour (We apologise, but Hannah Montana/ Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour's preposterously long title has left no room for a pithy comment) $10,508,000

4 - The Eye (Ironically, the eye is the only part of Jessica Alba's body that she hasn't carped on about during her pregnancy to make her seem more sexual. Jessica, if you're reading this, now's the time for that 'my baby has made my eyes look a bit like nipples' interviews you've been longing for) $6,630,000

5 - Juno (Forget Juno, let's discuss Paris Hilton's The Hottie And The Nottie which opened at number 40 in the weekend box office, taking only $225 in each average screening. No joke here. We don't feel it's needed) $5,725,000

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Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo 

Let’s face it – even if you ascribe to Bill Hicks’ philosophy that American politics is basically choosing which puppet can give the best impression of your beliefs (something Britain seems to have emulated too), then you might as well make a bit of cash out of this whole upcoming election shebang.

So we’re all doomed to Armageddon no matter who gets into office? Who cares? You’ve got a tenner that’s burning a hole in yer pocket, and you’ll be damned if you’re not going to do something election-based with it, right here, right now.

Let’s kick things off with the big boy, then: the betting odds for which party is going to win the 2008 US Presidential Election, as mapped out by those lovely people over at Paddy Power.

Republican Party (Odds: 7-4)

Anyone with a base grasp of world affairs – so Big Brother contestants can look away now – will be aware that the Republicans presently hold office by virtue of grinning simpleton George W. Bush.

This is something of a disappointing low point in their legacy thus far. Even if you don’t agree with their politics, any party that can count Ulysses S. Grant - a name surely on a par with Hercules T. Magnificent or Jesus Q. Megatron – among their past leaders has it least got it right in the impressive-sounding stakes. Being British, we don’t really know anything about old Ulysses here at hecklerspray, except for the fact that he was apparently known for ‘tolerating financial and politician corruption among top aides.’ Hey – maybe he’s not so different from Georgie-boy after all.

George won’t be eligible for president this time around, though, as a) American rules forbid any president ruling for more than two terms, and b) he has a lot of colouring-in to catch up on. And those Garfield And Friends puzzle books don’t fill themselves in, you know.  He’ll be replaced by either John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson or the terrifying Mike Huckabee. We’ll be going further in depth about these fellows soon enough, but for now all you need to know is that the Republican Winning Odds stand at 7-4.

Democrat Party – 2-5

The oldest political party in the United States, you can trace the roots of this organisation way back to 1792, roughly around the same time Jackie Collins was born. Left-leaning and liberal, the Democrats generally tend not to take such a rabidly knee-jerk view of things as their main political rivals, and rank John F Kennedy as among their previous leaders.

Certain party figureheads, though, have been quite fond of inserting cigars into the vaginas of young lady interns, which last time we checked isn’t common practise in any workplace we know (JJB Sports have yet to get back to us on the matter). And it hasn’t been a total success story over the years – there’ve been quite a few election losses, including two by Adlai Stevenson (who kind of made up for it by having a Sufjan Stevens song written about him).

Last time the Democrats were running for office, they made the insane choice of having John Kerry as their leader – a man who decided to act as a refreshing alternative to the war-crazy government by waffling on about Vietnam all the time and saluting every baby he was handed to kiss. This time around, however, it could either be Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards trying to grab votes. As with the Repubs, there’ll be more on them from us soon, but in the meantime you just pay attention to those 2-5 betting odds, mister.

Paddy Power Election Betting Odds

But how could it possibly not be? Ever since the Cloverfield teasers flickered into life six months ago, the movie was always going to end up topping the US weekend box office. How good is Cloverfield exactly? According to weekend box office grosses, it's 82 times better than Woody Allen's new film.

But then again we recently did a shit that was 83 times better than Woody Allen's new film, so that isn't exactly high praise.

On paper Cloverfield shouldn't come anywhere close to working – it's basically Godzilla through the eyes of the Blair Witch Project – but its weekend box office receipts show that actually it does. Of course, Cloverfield has its detractors who say that a movie about New York under attack demeans the memory of 9/11, and, of course, they're right.

In fact, early audiences have reacted negatively to some of Cloverfield's scenes – especially the ones that painfully evoke memories of seven years ago when Al Qaeda sent armies of eight-foot lice onto the streets to explode people by sort of crawling inside them.

Here's this week's weekend box office top five:

1 – Cloverfield (Now that it's been proved that you can make any movie a success if you make it with shaky hand-held cameras operated by screaming actors, let's cross our fingers that the movie about the vegetable pirates gets this treatment soon) $41,000,000

2 - 27 Dresses (We're not even going to pretend that we know what 27 Dresses is about, because it's called 27 Dresses for the love of God. We want to watch films called Exploding Robot Death, not 27 Dresses, you Hollywood idiots) $22.427,000

3 - The Bucket List (At least with a film about terminal illness you know there probably won't be a sequel on the cards. If only 27 Dresses ended with everyone getting leukaemia, we might be able to make the same comforting assumption. It might do, actually, for all we know. We haven't seen it. Honest) $15.150,000

4 - Juno (The heartwarming teenage pregnancy comedy that's winning fans over around the world while simultaneously turning them on to folk music sung by giant rabbits who drink their own piss. Take that, 27 Dresses!) $10,250,000

5 - National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (New releases not in the US weekend box office top five include a film by Woody Allen, the much-hyped new Katie Holmes movie and the Pamela Anderson epic Blonde & Blonder. 27 Dresses, however, is in the US weekend box office top five, even though it's a film about 27 bloody dresses. What's happened to the world?) $8,148,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo 

Because that's what The Bucket List is about, and The Bucket List is currently the top movie at weekend box office. It's not difficult to see why The Bucket List did well at the US weekend box office – it's basically a remake of Cocoon, but one where all the old people die at the end instead of getting zapped up by aliens.

And, really, who can honestly say they they weren't a little disappointed when all the old people didn't die at the end of Cocoon.

The Bucket List is number one at the US weekend box office, thanks to its winning mix of effortless star power – between them, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson have played presidents, God and a sort of werewolf thing – and the enduring appeal of movies about terminal cancer patients learning important lessons about themselves.

The Bucket List is also the reason why Jack Nicholson had a crazy bald head at last year's Oscars, which will come as a profound disappointment to anyone who was hoping that he was preparing to play Skeletor in some sort of live-action He-Man film. Here's this week's US weekend box office top five…

1 - The Bucket List (The weekend box office success of The Bucket List just goes to show that Jack Nicholson doesn't need to perform alongside a horrific-looking dildo to win fans over. However, that hasn't stopped him from signing up for his next movie, tentatively entitled Dildo And The Dildos On The Planet Of The Dildos) $19.540,000

2 - First Sunday (From the 10 seconds of First Sunday we've bothered to watch, we get the impression that it's about Tracey Morgan running around in his pants and screaming and nothing more. So that's us sold) $19,000,000

3 - Juno (On the basis that Juno is the new Napoleon Dynamite, we can look forward to Ellen Page's next role where she'll star as the friend of a ditzy ghost played by Reese Witherspoon that's by all means terrible) $14,000,000

4 - National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (Does anyone know what secrets are in this special book yet? We're hoping that they'll include how to do power serves on Wii Sport, what animal Barbara Windsor's hair comes from and who put the ram in the ramalamadingdong. Otherwise we're not going to watch it) $11,482,000

5 – Alvin And The Chipmunks (Make it stop. Just someone, please, make it stop) $9,100,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo 

But still, National Treasure: Book Of Secrets must have something going for it, otherwise it wouldn't be so flipping popular at the US weekend box office. Maybe National Treasure: Book Of Secrets has done such good business at the weekend box office because it is a masterpiece, or maybe it answers a number of profoundly upsetting questions that the cinema-going public may have had for some time now.Or perhaps – just perhaps – National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is number one at the weekend box office because the main competition this week comes from a shitty horror film about a spooky telephone.

So National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is the number one movie at the US weekend box office, as it has been for three weeks now. But why? Our guess is that it's down to mostly natty film-titling. National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is perfect – everyone likes secrets, everyone likes treasure, plenty of people like national stuff and the word 'of' – but the 'book' part is what'll stop it from topping the weekend box office for months to come. Who reads books any more? That's craziness! Now, if the movie had been called National Treasure: Xbox 360 Of Secrets, different story altogether. Here's this week's US weekend box office top five…

1 - National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (Now that Nicolas Cage's first ever sequel is a success, perhaps he'll be keen on revisiting some of his other movies – personally we can't wait to see him star in World Trade Center 2 where, trapped under the rubble of the fallen buildings, Cage befriends a tiny animated rapping mouse who teaches him how to love) $20,225,000

2 - I Am Legend (Although I Am Legend has missed out on the bulk of awards and nominations this year – largely because it isn't very good – we hear that Coventry City manager Ian Dowie could be up for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as All Of The Infected Zombies) $16,300,000

3 - Juno (So Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant and Juno – a film about a pregnant teenager – shoots up the weekend box office charts. So if anyone has made a film about a crazy woman being wheeled around in a hospital getting psychologically tested, now's the time to bung it out) $16,225,000

4 - Alvin And The Chipmunks (Now that Alvin And The Chipmunks has made almost three times its budget in America alone, perhaps it's time to look forward to Alvin And The Chipmunks 2. That is unless this writers' strike goes on forever. So, you know, fingers crossed) $16,000,000

5 - One Missed Call (Just like The Ring, but about spooky voicemail that kills people. Think that the 'killer phonecall' subgenre is dead? Think again – next month sees the release of a movie about subscription-based name compatibility text-message services… that KILL PEOPLE) $13,525,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo 

It did alright. Ish. We suppose. For a festive family fantasy blockbuster with a budget of $180 million, The Golden Compass managed to top the US weekend box office, but only by taking a relatively paltry $26 million. The Golden Compass' failure to ignite the weekend box office any more than, say, Flubber or S.W.A.T will be a disappointment to many, but a timely reminder that there's only a certain amount of dads in the world able to convince their children to see a movie just because Nicole Kidman wears a tight gold dress for about three minutes in it.

The Golden Compass is enjoying a slightly pyrrhic victory at the US weekend box office today, because – although it's number one, it's got a slightly disappointing gross. So why has The Golden Compass underperformed at the box office? Is it because the movie's anti-Catholic sensibilities has alienated its key audience? Is it because rumours got out that the movie had to go through extensive reshoots because it was originally quite rubbish? Or was it because films about polar bears punching each others' jaws off isn't everyone's idea of a lovely Christmas movie?

One thing's for sure – this weekend box office haul will be disappointing to The Golden Compass' studio, which is now stuck with a loss-making franchise to complete. There's an obvious way around this, though – the series' dramatic climax, where the main characters murder the central God figure in his tower high above the clouds can be downscaled to a scene of Daniel Craig kicking a tramp in the nuts. Same thing really. Here's this week's US weekend box office top five…

1 - The Golden Compass (Part of The Golden Compass' appeal is that things in its universe are slightly out of line with what we'd expect. For instance, naughty children are sent to an arctic wasteland in The Golden Compass, where in this universe Jeremy Clarkson just picks them up and shakes them around a bit) $26,125,000

2 – Enchanted (Soon to be involved in a hard-fought weekend box office battle with Alvin And The Chipmunks for the title of Most Adorable Animated Movie Rodent. Since the character in Enchanted doesn't eat clumps of its own shit in the trailer, though, we're going to call the Enchanted rodent the early favourite) $10,706,000

3 – This Christmas (Like Last Christmas by Wham, but much longer and less likely to go onto bum men in hedges or fall asleep at the wheel of its car) $5,000,000

4 - Fred Claus (Fred Claus' continued inability to do very well at the US weekend box office proves one very important thing. That, um, it probably isn't very good) $4,660,000

5 - Beowulf (Beowulf's success at the weekend box office means that Ray Winstone's older films might do better with some CGI treatment to make him look better. First to be given this makeover is Nil By Mouth, in the hope that more people will go and see it because, although Ray Winstone will still domestically abuse Kathy Burke in a series of harrowingly bleak scenes, Winstone will have a bit more of a six-pack and Burke will look exactly like Angelina Jolie) $4,400,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo