MTV boots Allen

According to the 3AM Girls - with all the health warnings that go with that - MTV have dropped Lily Allen from this year's awards shows, worried that she won't get a visa:

"MTV were desperate to get Lily and they're furious with her visa situation. They've decided to pull the plug because they didn't want to leave it to the last minute to find out if she could or couldn't make it."

Allen's chances of getting a visa might be receding further. The same piece claims she's hiring lawyers to fight American demands that she take blood and urine tests as part of her re-application process:

A source tells us: "Lily's desperate to fulfil her September tour in the US, which included going to the MTV Music Awards in Vegas on September 9. But it's been much trickier than she's imagined - in particular being asked to take the tests which she considers irrelevant and unnecessary.

"She is determined to fight the system every way she can and that means hiring the best lawyers available."

That'll go down well - the American immigration department are well-known for the way in which they love to engage in debates about the quality of their rules.

We have some sympathy for Allen - the US seems to have replaced the idea of border security with pointless democracy - but much of immigration is "irrelevant and unnecessary", like people born in the last half-century having to pledge they weren't involved with Nazi Germany. But it's quicker and easier to jump through the hoops rather than pissing off the man by asking him to get rid of the hoop. After all, it's not like your blood or wee has anything in it it shouldn't have, eh?