So that’s that, then – the next time you see OJ Simpson will be somewhere in the tiny window between 2017 and 2041.

On Friday OJ Simpson was sentenced to anything between nine and 33 years in jail for his part in last year’s bewildering hotel room armed robbery. If he serves the full term, we’re looking forward to reading the book that 94-year-old OJ Simpson will publish on his release, tentatively titled If I Did It, Wait, What’s My Name Again? Who Are You? Are These My Trousers? They Smell Funny.

That’s unless OJ Simpson’s appeal is successful. Oh, didn’t we mention that part?

We’ve got the right hump with Nevada at the moment, we don’t mind telling you. Why? Because it’s spoiled our fun, that’s why.

For years OJ Simpson has been livening up our gloomiest moments with his inimitable presence, either by getting thrown out of restaurants by men who think he’s a murderer, writing books so galactically ill-advised that they barely seem conceivable or losing his possessions to a family who seem convinced that a dodgy knock-off Rolex will somehow ease their grief.

But that won’t be happening any more. On Friday, during his sentencing for the armed robbery that he was arrested for last year, OJ Simpson discovered that he’d be spending anywhere between nine and 33 years in the slammer. That means that, if he’s fortunate, OJ Simpson will be released from jail in time to see work begin on an actual elevator to space and, if he’s less lucky, OJ Simpson will be released from jail in time to see the last remaining polar bear drown as the arctic icecap melts away to nothing.

The truth is that OJ Simpson will probably end up serving a jail sentence somewhere between those two dates. But he shouldn’t get down, because it still gives him plenty of time to a) cover himself in several quickly-infected self-drawn tattoos, b) befriend a long succession of rats and birds, getting driven further into the realms of disturbing insanity each time one of them dies and c) be violently bummed so often that his rectum will prolapse and hang out of his bumhole like a smelly tail or the queen’s egg sac from the Aliens or something.

Or maybe it won’t because, somewhat inevitably, OJ Simpson has decided to question his sentence with what seems like a fairly frivolous appeal. AP reports:

“This is not a frivolous appeal,” Yale Galanter, Simpson’s lawyer, said. “There were some grave errors made by Judge (Jackie) Glass, and we think they are strong enough to overturn the conviction. We also think we have a shot at bail.” Galanter has cited six initial issues for appeal. The most significant concern could be the exclusion of blacks from the jury selection.

Oh, don’t pretend that you didn’t see this coming – the court was asking for trouble when it filled the jury with nothing but angry white people. But whether or not it’s enough to warrant a retrial remains to be seen.

But if it does, the court will need to get a wriggle on – given the sheer amount of fake heart attacks that characterised his trial, the court runs the risk of losing several important witnesses to anything from fake cardiac arrests to fake spontaneous human combustion, and nobody wants that.

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Now’s the time to start hoarding your special edition Passenger 57 DVDs, because you might not see Wesley Snipes again until 2011.

Now that he’s officially a convicted tax-dodger, Wesley Snipes is waiting to be told his fate, and prosecutors are urging the judge to hit him with the maximum three-year jail sentence, with a $5 million fine thrown in on top.

It sounds particularly harsh, but prosecutors want Wesley Snipes to serve the maximum punishment so it will deter any Wesley Snipes fans who think that not filing your tax returns is cool. Although we’re sure none of them think that – if Wesley Snipes has any fans at all, we’re not even sure they’d be able to spell their own names, let alone file any tax returns.

Celebrities, take this as a warning. If you ever want to get loaded up on drugs and drive your car into incoming motorway traffic, or threaten to kill a man while waving a gun in his face, that’s fine. At best you’ll serve a couple of days in prison. But don’t you dare think about not paying your taxes, or you’ll be thrown away for a three-stretch.

Just look at Wesley Snipes. His issues with taxes have been well-known ever since his 2006 arrest, but now he’s actually a convicted criminal because of it. You see, Wesley Snipes doesn’t believe that the IRS is a properly established government agency, and that he shouldn’t pay taxes because he was a ‘stateless person’.

And thanks to these beliefs, Wesley Snipes didn’t file a tax return in 1999, 2000 or 2001. To be fair, neither would we if it meant telling anyone that we earnt money from a movie called Liberty Stands Still.

Although Wesley Snipes was acquitted of the more serious charges of felony tax fraud and conspiracy – meaning that he escaped a possible 16-year sentence – he was still convicted on three misdemeanour charges of not filing tax returns.

The maximum penalty for that is three years in jail, so you’ll never guess what punishment the prosecutors are pushing the judge to give him. ABC reports:

In a sentencing memorandum filed at a federal court in Florida — on the April 15 tax return filing deadline — the U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge to sentence the “Blade” actor to three years in prison and pay $5 million in fines. “The sentence for the criminal tax scofflaw must be commensurate with the gravity of the offense, and should act as a deterrent to other potential violators,” federal prosecutors wrote.

That’s all well and good – having seen the movies Demolition Man, Boiling Point and Drop Zone it seems clear that Wesley Snipes can handle himself in jail – but what about us, the Wesley Snipes fans who want nothing more than to see a Blade 4 released sometime before old age turns us blind?

Maybe there’s a workaround here – Wesley Snipes’ screentime in Blade was 43 minutes, his screentime in Blade II was 40 minutes and his screentime in Blade Trinity was 39 minutes. That means that at this rate, Wesley Snipes’ screentime in Blade 4 will be reduced to a three-second scene of him driving past the other actors in a car while whooping to himself. We’re sure that a day-release can be arranged for that sort of thing.

Read more:

Prosecutors Want Prison, Fines for Snipes – ABC

Americans, if you happen to stumble across an incoherent hairy Greek man asleep at the wheel of his car this summer, don't be alarmed.

Although his unshaven appearance and man boogly eyes might make you think he's homeless or a terrorist, chances are it'll just be George Michael.

George Michael has announced his first tour of America for 17 years. It'll be an undoubtedly emotional tour for him – not only will it be a chance for George Michael to claw back some of the fame he lost there in the last decade and a half but he might even get a free weekend to wank at another policeman in a toilet again, just for old time's sake.

Over the last few years, George Michael literally couldn't have been more British. He's taken up all the traditional British pursuits like ringing up Richard And Judy and fondling men in bushes and almost doing it with pre-death Princess Diana – three things that all British men do at least quarterly.

But while George Michael has managed to keep hold of his predominantly hairdresser, nurse and wealthy Russian oligarch-based fanbase in the rest of the world, American success has eluded him lately. That's partly because George Michael is more well-known as the big-haired Wham! singer than anything else there, partly because his chances of American success died a slow death when he was trying to sue his record label in the early 1990s and partly because he waggled his penis at a policeman in a toilet there once, and that tends to be a little more interesting than singing songs about baby Jesus.

But now George Michael plans to fix all that, because he's hitting the road on his first American tour for 17 years. Reuters reports:

George Michael has a lot of "Faith" in his North American fans. The British pop singer on Monday unveiled plans for his first tour of the United States and Canada in 17 years, beginning June 17 at San Diego Sports Arena. The 22-date arena trek runs through August 3 at the BankAtlantic Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Tickets for the "25 Live" tour go on sale to the general public on April 6th, a week after fan club members get first dibs. Ticketmaster currently lists one show, the July 7 gig at Saint Paul, MN., where the top price is $175.

George Michael's American tour is set to last for seven weeks, although there's a chance it'll take quite a lot longer than that if George Michael drives himself. Unless the tour is scheduled to be a narcoleptic tour of traffic roundabouts at 3am mumbled from inside his own car, in which case everything's going to be just dandy. 

Read more:

George Michael plans first U.S. tour in 17 years – Reuters