1. DOWN AA Gill

This week The Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill provoked, well, absolute astonishment, really, when he kicked off his column with the instantly immortal line: “I shot a baboon.” Given that the piece was supposed to be a review of the new London restaurant by the TV chef John Torode, it was quite a left-field opener.

Gill then went on to explain that, while on safari in Tanzania, he’d been offered the chance to take a potshot at a wild baboon and had acquiesced, as he “wanted to get the sense of what it might be like to kill someone — a stranger”. So he didn’t just kill a monkey — he was also pretending it was a human while he did it. CW will give Gill this: he’s not exactly goal-hanging for popularity.

As you might imagine, such an admission has caused a fair amount of controversy, with animal rights activists getting quite lemon about it all. The League Against Cruel Sports commented: “This is morally completely indefensible. If he wants to know what it’s like to shoot a human, he should take aim at his own leg.” Which is, you know, a good point.

Those who regularly read Gill’s restaurant-review column would have been slightly less surprised by his hectic digression into monkey murder. Over the past ten years, Gill’s restaurant column has become less and less about restaurants, and more a 1,800-word essay on whatever the hell’s on his mind that week — with a cursory “and I had some soup and a chop” tacked on to the end. Like a child belatedly remembering to pray for “all the poor people in the world” after spending three minutes barracking God for a pony, a yoyo and some Frubes.

But what saddens CW’s heart is how, ultimately, lame-o the whole thing is. After all, if you’re going to kill for, as young people say, “shits‘n’giggles”, don’t wuss out with a monkey. Imagine if Raskolnikov had just booted a mandrill around 19th-century St Petersburg for 500 pages. Or Johnny Cash singing: “I shot a chimp in Reno/Just to watch it die.” If CW’s ever that desperate for an opening para, it guarantees it’ll take out two bedraggled prostitutes for material, minimum.

Ultimately it was Ian Martin — The Thick of It satirist — who made the best, bewildered appraisal of the affair, on Twitter: “So AA Gill shot a balloon. SO F***ING WHAT?”

2. UP The Queen

The whole thing about being the Queen is that you just have to make a lot of small talk. A lot of small-talk. And that small talk is really small. It’s essentially nano-talk.

Imagine the Queen’s relief recently when she found out she was appointing Vidal Sassoon a CBE. For as someone who has been a hairdresser for 67 years, Sassoon is possibly the only other person in the world with small-talk to rival the Queen’s. CW can visualise the entire exchange now: “So what do you do?” “I’m a hairdresser. Going anywhere nice on your holidays?” “Balmoral. Have you travelled far today?” “From Chelsea. Did you see the X Factor last night?” “Yes. The weather is quite muggy, isn’t it?” And so on.

3. UP Peter Andre

This week Peter Andre gave an interview to Heat magazine that might literally be the best interview that someone with a face has given to another person with a face. The topic of the interview was “smells”. CW gives you a brief glimpse here:

“And what would the Queen’s scent be?” Heat asks.

“She would smell of trees,” Andre says, decisively.

Appearing, momentarily, to have confused “Elizabeth the Second” with “a squirrel”.

4. DOWN Cheese

Cheese, celebrities — celebrities, cheese. Can’t decide which you like best? Torn between your love of Heat and your love of The Murray’s Cheese Handbook: A Guide to More Than 300 Cheeses? WELL NOT ANY MORE! For this week, the Pilgrims Choice “Celebrity Cheeseboard” was announced — matching celebrities to the cheese that most resembles their personality! Because the world needed that!

“Gorgonzola is rich, flamboyant and a little bit blue — like Jonathan Ross!” its PR posits. “Colin Firth = traditional West Country farmhouse cheddar; solid, tasty and sure to tantalise the tastebuds! And to finish, a sophisticated, classic Brie de Meaux — which, much like Myleene Klass’s violin playing, adds a smooth feel to any dinner party.”

Ooooh! Oooooh! Can CW join in with this game? It’s always thought that Gareth from The Office looks like a Cheestring! Can you put that one in?

5. DOWN Paris Hilton

This week, Hilton — blonde heiress to the Hilton Hotel chain millions — denied accusations that she is “an airhead” with a “baby voice”.

“I’m smart,” she insisted, which is something that smart people say all the time. “If I’m in a business meeting, I’ll talk in my normal voice,” she added, which is, similarly, something that international business scions mention on a regular basis.

Well, CW can’t blame Hilton for trying. It can’t blame her at all. But if you feel you need any more input on this issue, CW would like to present you with this damning picture of Hilton — in which it is clear that Hilton doesn’t even know the right place to put a hat on a camel. CW will now rest its case.

6. UP Shilpa Shetty

Shetty — you remember? Bollywood actress. Was called “Shilpa Poppadum” by Jade Goody on Celebrity Big Brother — has invented a word. Yes! We know! The word is “lovefinity” — “a word made up by [fiancé] Raj and me, to describe the depth of our love to each other”.

Although CW can’t pretend it’s the most beautiful of new words — in terms of elegance, it’s a bit like a dog with legs made of boxes, falling down some stairs — it is, nonetheless, an important addition to the Celebrity Dictionary: now to be filed alongside Peter Andre’s “insania” and Jordan’s deathless “cockalicious”. It’s a volume that’s starting to make Shakespeare’s coining of “entomb”, “majestic”, “metamorphise”, “courtship”, “radiance” and “undress” look a bit lacklustre. Although “lacklustre” was one of his, as well.

7. UP Joan Collins

Stand straight, shoulders back, bitch-beams set to “stun” — for we are in the presence of Ms Joan Collins, who, as Alexis Colby-Carrington, committed murder while wearing a tam-o’-shanter, then proposed to a billionaire in a coma. Genius has penned a stirring missive in Hello, on Samantha Cameron’s style. We know. We read every word as if it was champagne in the desert. While Joan is generally approving of Cameron’s look — “Way to go, Sam Cam!” — she does make demurement at the hair: “It could possibly benefit from a slightly shorter cut,” Joan sniffs, “as it can look a little lank. Samantha’s hair doesn’t always measure up.” Joan’s template for hair is something more . . . substantial. Proper Eighties hair. Like someone’s dropped a bear on your head, then backcombed it.

8. DOWN Elizabeth Taylor

As anyone not trapped down a well may have noticed this week saw the release of This Is It, the Michael Jackson documentary/film. Dame Elizabeth Taylor, Jackson’s best friend, later posted on Twitter 18 times in 20 minutes: “I wept from pure joy at his God-given gift. Memorise it and say: ‘I saw genius in my lifetime’. It is the single most brilliant piece of film-making I have ever seen.”

CW says: wait until you see Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World, love. It’ll blow. You. Away.

9. DOWN Spandau Ballet

After CW’s daring Spandau Ballet exposé last week — on how it believes that the svelte-yet-evil Kemp brothers have turned “feeder” to the increasingly “cuddlesome” lead-singer Tony Hadley — further proof of the theory appears to have arrived. At the Q Awards this week — while picking up the gnomically entitled, and possibly quite meaningless, “Q Idol Award” — Gary Kemp boasted: “We could eat Oasis for breakfast.”

CW is fairly confident that it knows just who, in the Spands camp, would be charged with wedging Liam Gallagher in a bun.

10. DOWN Blake

You may recall that, some time ago, CW drew your attention to Blake — the boyband whose USP is that they’re, like, rilly, rilly posh. Well, Blake are BACK — and this time with quality controversy. Humphrey Blake kicked things off by admitting that as a kid, he “stole a boiled sweet from Woolworths”. That is boiled sweet, singular. Ollie Blake also admitted to having once “carved my initials into a cathedral”. But biggest posh-props must go to Stephen Blake, who revealed: “One night a woman asked me to sign a picture of her naked and spreadeagled. I politely told her we were only signing Blake official merchandise that night.” Arooga! Rawk an rowl! Blake boyz in tha area!

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