DOWN Barack Obama
Poor Obama, “the most famous man in the world”. Everything has started going wrong for him. Despite a BBC poll of 25,000 people, in 22 countries, confirming that, as a planet, we favour Obama as the next president of the US, the US isn't so sure. As in, its electorate seems wholly intent on putting its ketchup thumb-print in McCain's box instead.

The main problem is that the election campaign has gone on so long, with so much coverage of the Hotness of Obama, that it feels as though he has actually been the President of the United States of America for some four years now. Given this, the US is understandably ready to move on to some fresh blood - such as a Republican. Until Sarah Palin turned up, it felt as though we hadn't heard from those guys in ages.

And it is, of course, Palin who is Obama's nemesis. As he's finding out, there isn't anything you can say about a female candidate with a disabled baby that doesn't, in the event, make you sound like a totally insensitive idiot. Even if he isn't actually talking about her, everyone presumes that he is - as evinced by the hysterical controversy over his statement: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.”

But even if the comment were about Palin - so what? After all, Palin clearly likes the idea of animals in make-up, having described herself as “a pitbull in lipstick”. She probably puts mascara on moose before she shoots them. That's just what they do in the countryside. And besides, in the case of Miss Piggy, putting lipstick on a pig resulted in one devastatingly attractive porker. Obama should play the “it was really a compliment” card - and fast.

DOWN Kevin Keegan
Much wailing from the North of England, where Keegan has resigned from the Newcastle City Football Gang, or whatever it's called. Apparently, Keegan's dispute with management hinged on his new masterplan to revive the club: purchasing David Beckham, Thierry Henry and Frank Lampard, at a cost of £200 million. CW isn't aware of every nuance in the glorious game of soccer-ball, but hazards that not only could it have come up with this plan itself, but would also, following the same logic, have chucked in purchase orders for a $6 billion Pelé robot, 50 rocket-propelled football boots from Nasa and Dorothy's magical ruby slippers, while it was about it.

UP Victoria Beckham
The woman we will always know as “that Posh” has had her hair cut, into some manner of women's-prison do. In the subsequent media frenzy, we have learnt the intriguing fact that Posh, apparently, “always cuts her hair on a Sunday - so by the time the magazines come out, the news is a week late”. So, just like light from the Sun, we never sees Posh's hair as it actually is - just how it was eight and a half fashion minutes ago. We can only hope that the activation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN this week will lead, at some point, to the Earth attaining Quantum Posh Hair Innovation Awareness.

UP Michael Phelps
The Olympian has been celebrating his eight gold medals as one would expect 6ft 4in of ADHD, testosterone and flipper to so do: in a strip club. News of the World filed an admirable report on the incident, noting that “Michael Phelps swapped butterfly stroke for butt-and-thigh stroke,” and was “trying his hand at track and feel”. Inspired by this Beijing-level punning, CW would like to also add: ass-ketball; a-breastrian events; bed-minton; cross-country bum; man-athon; sin-chronised women (swimming); the whores (the horse); the lunge (the luge - though CW is aware that it appears to have pulled its pun hamstring, and may have to retire).

UP Britney Spears
This week that modish MTV yoof-bash, the Video Music Awards, was graced by the presence of Spears. In the lead-up to the broadcast, the singer promised that her appearance would be “a real surprise for everyone”. In the event, she turned up sober, in a flattering outfit, made acceptance speeches consisting of words in the correct order, then left the stage without falling over - thus making her pronouncement, to be fair, entirely correct.

UP David Attenborough
Publicising the soon-to-come, 15-DVD box-set of his career, Life on Land, Attenborough revealed that being the world's premiere naturalist doesn't consist solely of tracking down rare creatures, describing their life cycles and campaigning for the preservation of their habitats. He can give you serving suggestions for them, too. “If you put caterpillars on a fire and burn off the poisonous hairs, they're quite tasty, really. Just like Twiglets,” he revealed.

DOWN Madonna and Guy
After allegations of marital difficulty, the Ritchies have discovered a new way to cleave unto each other: their “secret love code”. Although the Ritchies doubtless paid some charlatan £9 billion for the idea, it apparently consists merely of “looking at each other every 15 minutes”, then “whispering intimate words” to each other, such as “macho,” “beautiful” and “mysterious”. Far be it for CW to begin marketing itself as a rival to this powerful brand of love magic, but it suggests that a far more enjoyable and effective method of marital bonding would be whispering “sausages”, “that bloke in the hat over there looks like a w*****” and “let's go home” instead.

DOWN Heather Mills
Despite a clause in her divorce settlement, forbidding any possibility of a “tell-all” autobiography, the ever-resourceful Mills is currently writing a novel. It is - with a measure of inevitability that could almost raise the dead - about a campaigning model, who subsequently marries a legendary rock star. Further details are, as yet, unavailable, but CW suspects that the fictional Meather Hills will meet a Mir Sual PcCartney - formerly of Bhe Teatles - lall in gove, wravel the torld, before detting tivorced and being subjected to didespread wabloid terision.

UP Matt Hermer and Charlie Gilkes
A poignant picture in Hello! magazine this week. Matt Hermer and Charlie Gilkes are described as “night-club owners”. CW fears that, given the usual appearance of night-club owners - pallid, Gollum-like lizard-people who recoil from food, and daylight, and only ever wear black trousers - the pair might have confused “a night club” with “a lovely chocolate-coloured labrador”.

DOWN Shane Richie
In a moment of profound pop-culture significance, Richie - erstwhile Daz advert man, former Alfie Moon - has named his new baby girl “Lolita”. Is this a sign that there is some manner of statute of limitations on unacceptable names for babies? One that has, in the case of Lolita - under-age rape victim in Nabokov's seminal abuse novel - now expired? If this is the case, then the christening of Alfie Moon's daughter may now prompt nurseries full of Pols, Oedipuses and Satans (perhaps rendered as “Stan”, for short.)

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