WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY REAPS: From deep within the more-money-than-sense department, somebody has splashed out half a million bucks for George Harrison's old guitar. At the same auction, though, nobody was that fussed about Elvis Presley's old trenchcoat.

YOU CAN MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF CAREER BY MULTIPLYING THE DISTANCE BETWEEN A CELEB AND THEIR DIGNITY BY 4.7: Justin Timberlake dresses up as a gingerbread man. For daytime telly.

CASH CRISIS: While it must be all very upsetting for "an intruder" to break in to your house uninvited and without being asked and to manage to evade your security systems and to get into your bedroom and make off with jewels and that, we're not entirely sure who Sharon Osbourne thinks she's fooling when she claims that having jewels stolen has left her unable to "afford Christmas." What? Is she telling us that she was planning to take her wedding ring and her surviving cancer ring down to Cash Converters in order to raise enough to be able to buy Jack a catering sized pack of Panadol and a box of black hairdye for Kelly? Or was there an aspect to the robbery that we don't know about? Why would Sharon suddenly start to make public announcements of how she and Ozzy, now those bangles have gone, have absolutely no money at all to talk of? Is it to stop people sending begging letters of some sort?

Of course, it could just be that Sharon loves publicity so much she decided this would be a great way to get some more press coverage. But if so: how much does that stink? We hope the people struggling to scrape the cash together for a fire-damaged turkey and a couple of toys for their kids are able to find it in their hearts to feel a bit of sympathy for a successful businesswoman so desperate for the spotlight she gives interviews saying how the loss of a couple of expensive rings is really going to limit the number of flatscreen TVs she can afford to gift this Christmas.

HOOBATSTANK YANK: Another one for the rock sick list, as we excitedly await the first gig to be cancelled due to avian flu. Hoobastank have pulled their current US tour because singer Doug Robb has "bronchial pneumonia." A chastened Robb admitted not listening to his grandma and wearing his outdoors coat indoors. "I guess I just missed it when I did go outside. Now I've got this."

WE DON'T KNOW WHO'S DOING HIS PR, BUT... THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO WORK AGAIN, ARE THEY?: The most positive thing we can think of is that he's attempting to demonstrate that he's so other-worldly that he doesn't understand the gravity of the legal charges he's facing, but it's just as likely that Jackson really doesn't care how greeting two hundred kids to a special secret party looks to the outside world.

The kids were met at Neverland by Michael Jackson and Santa - a fabulous figure who brings delight by having children sit on his knee before presenting them with a surprise from deep within his sack, and a bloke in a fake beard and red suit.

One of the curiosities is that some of the kids came from the church attended by Jacko's defence attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr. Or at least, that's what reporters were told. The church in question, the First AME Church in Los Angeles, said that it hadn't authorised any such stunt ("trip"). Funny, that.

EYES IN THE UK: The soft, lovely fingers of Conor Oberst will be dancing over the doorkeys of UK hotel rooms in the new year as Bright Eyes tour England and Scotland:

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (March 9)
Leeds Metropolitan University (10)
Glasgow QMU (11)
Manchester Academy (12)
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (13)
London Astoria (14)

Mmm... Conor... Conor...

Conor looked out the window as the English countryside sped past the window. "So, what's a Wulfren anyway?" he asked, playing idly with the hair of the half-smiling body curled on his naked lap. Two eyes raised themselves gently to meet his; and for a second the tongue which had been working its way up and down his semi-erect cock stopped its insistent movement. "If you make me giggle" warned M, clutching Conor's ankles slightly more tightly in their grasp, "there's a danger I'll bite this thing off..."

POLLY GONE?: We'd be a little more distraught over the news that PJ Harvey announced Polly's retirement from live music last night if she hadn't been sharing a bill with The Libertines at Paris' Studio 287, who almost certainly were playing their last show. We're putting it down to the excitement of the moment. And hoping very hard.

RECORD COMPANIES TRY TO CUT OFF RED CROSS FUNDS: While the soft, squishy warm face of the music industry hunkers down to do some good festive work (bookmakers are now refusing bets on the Christmas number one, taking 'betting without' wagers for the number two slot instead), it's cold hearted grinch business as usual in the back office. They're trying to get the International Red Cross to freeze some of its assets because, of course, file-sharing is much more important than trying to help the dispossessed, the starving and the frightened.

Some bozo in Australia's self-appointed music piracy body has discovered that Sharman Networks has a trust adminstered in Vanuatu, one of the main beneficiaries of which is the International Red Cross. Now, because the Australian music industry is suing Sharman over what it claims are peer-to-peer inspired copyright infringements, Michael Speck of Australia’s Music Industry Piracy Investigations believes the money should be frozen. Thats right, it shouldn't be being used to try and help kids who've had their arms blown off by landmines or women and men raped by soldiers, or feeding the starving. That money, they believe, belongs helping Phil Collins pay for a new dado rail, or to ensure that Brian McFadden can afford his next four cans of Special Brew. But let's not run away with the idea that Speck and his body are cold, Scrooge-like money-grubbers more interested in their comfy offices and car-seat warmers than helping those in real need - they're offering the Red Cross the chance to freeze the funds voluntarily. Because, after all, says Speck, "it would be incredibly disappointing if we had to sue them."

"Disappointing", you see, to tie up a major humanitarian agency with pointless legal movements over a few dollars that may or may not have been redirected from a record company bottom line. That's "disappointing" as in "obvious to all that we're little more than scum", of course.

We're surprised that whenever we think the multi-billion pound record industry has sunk to its lowest, it always manages to find a new depth to sink to. Presumably the real reason for threatening to sue the Red Cross is that they just can't find addresses at all for the homeless to sue them directly.

THANK YOU, DROWNED IN SOUND: We'd just like to thank the team at Drowned In Sound who have given us the title of Blog of the Year in their 2004 awards. Thank you, DiS.

WE'RE PROBABLY COMING A LITTLE LATE TO THIS ONE: As Pete Doherty leaves a small trail of muss in his wake, Babyshambles got themselves ejected from the Top of the Pops studios last week, apparently, after Pete had got himself involved in a scrap. TOTP used a rehearsal film instead. The 'shambles must be wishing they were in a position to cut Pete out the band like the Libs did, by now...

NOTHING AT ALL CREEPY HERE, THEN: Yesterday, you'll recall, Joe Simpson was getting Ashlee's first movie role re-written because he didn't want any smack of "unnatural" sexual practices attaching themselves to his daughters. Today, he's talking to GQ about how great his kid's tits are:

"Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"

Just goes to prove: Nobody can pimp like a papa.

OH... SO THAT'S A SCOFFLAW: And he's not been convicted of any crime, so why shouldn't Michael Jackson throw open Neverland for a kiddie's party this weekend, eh? Let's just remember sweet, innocent Michael loves kids and what better way to show that than having some over to his not-at-all-scary-freaking-giraffe-strewn-ranch and slipping a small surprise into the top of their stockings?

IN OTHER NEWS: POLICEMEN LOOKING YOUNGER; WEATHER FORECASTS 'UNRELIABLE': Poor, poor Christina Aguilera. She says that she has to struggle to remain successful because she's not very talented and there's a limit to the number of times you can flog a single off the back of a wonderbra and pierced genitalia. Sorry, I mean "because she's surrounded by untrustworthy people who are desperate to destroy her reputation."

Aguilera wails:

"Showbiz is a crazy world and so are the people in it. And that includes me. Showbusiness is a fake business filled with people who are fake.

"You are surrounded by people, each one more false than the other, always ready to step on you. Either you quickly learn to survive or you fail, you lose everything as quickly as you find success."

This is, of course, totally different from all other fields of human endeavour. Had Christina chosen, for example, to enter the financial services industry she would now be enjoying the warm glow of working with colleagues and competitors who are eager to assist you in developing your own career and growing success - even if it means sometimes they have to take a step back themselves. A Wall Street trader - off to cover for a sick colleague to make sure they didn't lose their bonus for this month - said: "It's a shame, poor Christina. I can't believe there are people in the music industry like that. She should think about joining us on the trading floor. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've just noticed someone from our main rivals has made a mistake. I'd better go point that out to them pretty sharpish..."

WANT CHEAP CDS? GET BERGERAC TO BUY THEM FOR YOU: Continuing the push to try and make CD prices match up to the actual value of what you're buying, Tesco have found a little loophole which removes VAT from the disc price - by sourcing them in the Channel Islands. Providing you spend less than eighteen quid per package, you can sit at home in England, order CDs through Tesco.com, and make a small saving. This will probably lead to the BPI having another bout of squawking rage, because once again, it's going to make the prices record companies try to impose on British consumers look artificially high (even if, in this case, it's not entirely the label's fault).

PARTNERDAVIDFURNISH TO NOT BE HUSBANDDAVIDFURNISH UNTIL IT'S LEGAL: Elton John's partnerdavidfurnish has sniffily spat back at rumours that he and Elton are going to tie the knot at Christmas. "We're going to wait until it's legal" said Furnish, who insists that once the partnership bill is through, him and Elt will just nip down the register office and have a small, official ceremony in a cheap wood-lined civic room, conducted by a tubby bloke with spinach in his teeth:

"We have decided that everything would be done very simply, in a Register Office. There's absolutely no discussion of having a party or anything like that."

Righto, David. So Elton John - a man who buys fireworks and swans carved out blocks of ice to celebrate the opening of a new box of All Bran - wouldn't throw a lavish party for his wedding, then? He had a massive blow-out for his last wedding, and that was just pretend, damn it. We're not entirely sure we're falling for "we're just going to keep it quiet - a quick ceremony, family and friends, and then Pizza Express and two carafes of house red."

ON THE OTHER HAND, IT DOES MEAN HE WON'T HAVE TO BUY A COPY OF THE BLOODY SINGLE: If you set aside the ethical and political complications of the messages sent out by Band Aid 20, and look at it purely as a way of raising money, you'd have to agree it does exactly what it sets out to do: raise large sums. This time round, it's going to raise even huger sums, as rich man Tom Hunter has agreed to match Band Aid's earnings pound-for-pound. Hunter says he was moved to do so after watching BBC ONE's Band Aid documentary the other night, and deciding that we must never see scenes like that again in our lifetime. We think he meant the bits of suffering they snuck into the programme, although if we had a small fortune and could use it to stop the smug, self-satisfied faces of Joss Stone, Bono, Damon Albarn et al from hogging large chunks of prime-time telly, we'd be writing multi-million quid cheques, too.

GEE, THANKS, MOM: You've had a son who has been a bit wayward in the past, but has started to get it together again, talking to his invisible dog, scaring the bejezus out of the not-exactly jumpy people down at the tattoo parlour, and claiming that famous people have stolen your existence. So, what would you do to congratulate him on his work so far, and to encourage him to continue his normal, everyday behaviour? Well, if you're the mother of Nathan Gale, you'd buy your son a gun, of course. Handily, it gave him something to shoot Dimebag Darrell with. Thank god for that, eh, or he might have had to fall back on a knife, or heckling. Mary Clark gave an interview to NBC4 in Columbus, where she said "whoops":

She said that she bought the gun before his diagnosis – which would lead to his medical discharge from the US Marines after serving less than half of his four years.

She said: "And I still don’t understand the whole thing, but he came home with his medications, and I don’t know if he took them or not. I don’t know if he was afraid to, or… ashamed to, or… didn’t believe it himself. I have such remorse for those families, and I am so sorry that they are losing their loved ones. Their sons, brothers, fathers."

So, if you're out Christmas shopping for a loved one this year, maybe you'd like to consider giving the great gift of firearms - it's the gift that keeps on Killing.

JIB JAB: Well, that's going to make it difficult to find crew to work on the Motley Crue reunion tour - and possibly the Crue themselves - as Dallas police are a-hunting Vince Neil after he beat the shit out of his own soundman durring a gig at Gilley's nightclub. (The mere fact Neil was playing Gilleys may well give a clue to anyone puzzled as to why the Crue are so desperate to reap a pension-boosting reward from an arthritic reunion tour). Dallas police say if they can't find Neil, they'll just wait until he happens by Texas again and serve him with a warrant then. Sure, as if they'll be able to spot a ghoulishly over-made-up guy in a silk scarf and big hair amongst all those like him in Texas.

LET'S ALL HOPE THIS ISN'T GOT TO BE A SURPRISE STOCKING STUFFER FOR ANYONE WE LOVE: If you were a taxi driver, and discovered that Bryan Adams had left some old socks behind in a car you'd driven him to an appearance in, what would you do with them? Would you be straight down the end of the garden with a small can of parafin and a box of Cook's Matches, or would you instead decide to auction them for charity? It's a simple question, and the answer will be obvious to anyone who has had any experience of taxi firm's approach to Lost and Found items. Bryan Adam's socks sold for six hundred quid. We're really looking forward to the scene on Christmas morning: "You know you wanted a new bicycle, Julie... well..."

REMEMBER: IT WOULD JUST BE FOR THE TWO DAYS: We always assumed when Robbie Williams fancied a "relationship" with a lady he just rang his PR and waited to read in the Mirror who he was going out with. But it seems that's not good enough this year, and the witless singing welder has been - sniff - saying how he needs to find a Princess or he'll be all alone on Christmas Day. There's no sense in him getting a girlfriend for the day before Christmas, of course, as there aren't any papers published on the 25th so what would be the point?

We're a little puzzled why Robbie is so sure he'll be alone at Christmas - why doesn't he just go to his bloody family's home? Or do they all hate him as much as we do?

THE PRICE OF ELVIS: We're a little surprised that Lisa Marie has flogged off an 85% share of the Presley estate for just fifty-one million quid, even although at current exchange rates that is quite a lot of US dollars. We can understand the desire to release some of the cash tied up in the 68 Comeback special and, um, GI Blues, but she's handed SFX entertainment and its boss Robert FX Sillerman (are those his real initials? We're somehow finding it tricky to accept that) a huge chunk of an industry which pulled in nineteen million quid's worth of business up until September this year, and is about to have a massive boost to its take in 2004 with some sort of anniversary. Perhaps signing really shit deals with shrewd businessmen is genetic?

The great news (by which we mean "shit news") is that Sillerman thinks what Elvis needs is some more "aggressive marketing." We can't quite imagine what ghastly Elvis-faced tie-ins he's got in mind, but if the awful Official Tat is viewed by its new owner as being too restrained, 2005 looks like it's going to be the year when the corpse is dug up and sat back on the toilet to promote the Presley Diaper range. (we're going to call him and float our idea about a cartoon featuring a superhero Elvis who fires Hawaiian Lasers out his eyes and has a special anti-crook guitar, but we fully expect one of these to be in development anyway.)

Sillerman somehow forgot to include Lisa Marie's music career in the deal.

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM: Having coughed to a driving while off his box on drugs charge last week, DMX seems to have got a little confused and seemed to think the punishment for that covered him for motoring offences for the rest of the year as well: Now he's been caught speeding, which isn't that great for a guy who only picked up a conditional discharge less than seven days earlier. The whole suspended licence thing might be a problem, too. Perhaps he was just really curious to see if it really is like Bad Girls on the inside.

... LIKE THE BACK END OF A BUS: Apparently, there was nothing more to Whitney Houston driving her car straight into the back of a bus than her failure to yield at a junction. It's just a minor misdemeanour. And, hey, which of us can honestly say we've not missed something as small and tiny as a bus looming up in front of us from time to time?

DUO INJURED IN PANTO-DISASTER: Slightly-disturbing double act the Krankees* have been hospitalised following an incident at a Glasgow theatre when Jeanette, the one who pretended to be her own husband's son, had her ten foot beanstalk collapse underneath her. Jeanette - or "wee Jimmy" as she's known professionally - was sitting on top of the mystical legume when it gave way, throwing her on top of her co-star (not her husband/daddy, this time). The pair were whisked off to hospital, while a crowd of Presbyterian ministers gathered to issue statements about how this is clearly God's judgement, and so on. The second half of the show was cancelled - apparently there was no understudy able to take on the part of a fifty-something woman schoolboy.

* - yes, they are on our patch: not only did they release their catchphrase-crushing Fan-Dabi-Dozi about sixteen times, but they also recorded a frightening cover version of Charlie Brown. If you have Soulseek, we implore you not to seek it out.

ADD TO THE 'BINGO HAND JOB' LIST: What's nice about Franz Ferdinand's secret Stoke Newington gig is they've revived the art of bands billing themselves under silly names. They were, apparently, A Touch of Velvet for this occasion. Described as more like a Christmas party, they even chucked in a cover of the Fire Engine's Get Up And Use Me. Fanzineytastic.

RATHERLARGESHAMBLES: So, last week's NME featured Drugscope's Natasha Vromen insisting that "[Pete Doherty is] a successful musician... he disproves the myth that if you start using drugs you will always be taken over by them."

Last night, Doherty took the stage - barely - in Blackpool. According to NME.com reports, he was barely able to stay awake, couldn't remember the song words. The rest of Babyshambles got really pissed off really quickly, with the guitarist walking off in disgust. Others tried to persuade him to leave the stage as well, but he ploughed on. They tried to get him to leave the stage in a headlock (which we keep picturing like the giant cane that would sometimes try to hook the less successful Muppet acts off stage) and the whole thing ended in a chorus of booing. He then turned up for a second gig down at the Liverpool Zanzibar, which doesn't seem to have gone much better.

So, not taken over by the drugs at all, then.

THANKS FOR THAT GREAT IDEA, MADONNA: Madonna has stuck a plea on her website for all her fans to pray for peace in 2005. Apparently this is her Christmas message to the world - so, she might have abandoned Catholicism, but she still happy to crowd onto the Pope's gig, then.

OF COURSE, NOBODY WOULD BELIEVE SHE WAS ACTING: Overprotective golden-egg farmer Joe Simpson has forced the makers of Wannabe to rewrite the part being played by Ashlee Simpson in the movie because originally she was being asked to play a lesbian. Apparently he was afraid that her movie career might be hampered if the first thing she played had a lesbian storyline, and we can see his point: look at Anna Friel; she played a lesbian and had no sort of career afterwards. Mind you, that's because she's a rotten actress... oh, hang on, we get it now.

Of course, it's probably just as well to have the part re-written: can you imagine the slew of "she's just moving her lips" jokes that would have followed?

HASN'T POP SUFFERED ENOUGH: There's not really anything very surprising in that Coleen McLoughlin wants to be a popstar - every young girl without much in the way of a career plan wants to be a popstar. The frightening and disturbing thing is that, as Wayne Rooney's girlfriend, someone is probably going to give her the chance to live her dream. Apparently someone has told her that she has "natural talent" - Coleen has taken this as an encouragement, rather than drawing the natural conclusion from it being Atomic Kitten's vocal coach who's told her this.

YOU COULD HAVE JUST PRETENDED YOU FORGOT, OZZY: Oh, that awkward problem: you're a self-respecting Prince of Darkness, and yet you've managed to agree to play a gig at the Royal Variety Performance. What do you do? You could, of course, play the gig but yell "Death to the monarchy" and splatter the audience with paint. Or take to the stage and keep quiet for a whole ten minutes. Or, you could be like Ozzy Osbourne and say sorry, Prince Charles, got a doctor's appointment I've forgotten. No way that would look like an awkward climbdown, then.