Always look on the bright side of Davina

Big Brother is an ex-parrot according to John Cleese, who makes a rare public intervention to reject pleas to join the celebrity version of the show.

“They have frequently resorted to quite ludicrous levels of bribery, sending in the post entirely shameless blandishments of a most extravagant nature,” he blogs. “I have nothing against Mr Orwell. I simply do not want to appear in his TV show, neither do I wish to be interviewed by the clearly insane Davina.”

Ms McCall, whose sanity has survived intact despite presenting BB for nine years, could be the ideal host for the Python star’s own programme. “I have devised several reality shows of my own. Much like human Big Brother they are based on studying animal behaviour, but mine are more to do with genuine reality, such as chewing, grooming, rutting and spitting. My absolute favourite show is called Big Llama which is something that other llamas will surely stay up all night to watch.”

— No need to question the expenses of Nadine Dorries (Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire), who is paying her daughter Jenny. “She told me I shouldn’t put what she earns on the blog as it is against her human rights,” mum writes. “I told her that as an MP’s daughter, she doesn’t have any. She is being paid £7.50 per hour.” Jenny is “working through a packing case of letters, cards and e-mails received following the abortion vote”. Sounds glamorous.

— Academic study — rather than office chores — is the calling for Princess Beatrice. She plans to study the history of ideas at Goldsmiths College, she told us at the Boodles Wonderland jewellery party on Monday. The degree course includes investigating such topics as “heresy”, “history of Buddhism” and the “everyday lives of British people”.

X Factor kettle calls pot black

The Face: Sharon Osbourne

Talent show judges are “overpaid spoilt brats and drama queens”, argued Sharon Osbourne after leaving The X Factor in a pay row. It was a typically forthright observation from Osbourne, 55, notorious for delivering excrement in a Tiffany box to her enemies.

The daughter of the rock manager Don Arden, Sharon met Black Sabbath’s Ozzy when she was 17. Their relationship was a blur of alcohol and drugs until Ozzy was arrested after trying to strangle his wife.

Guiding Ozzy through rehab, Sharon built a £110 million business, relaunching him as a living rock legend.

Their children, Jack and Kelly, became teen icons. Sharon, who beat colon cancer, traded TV quips with Simon Cowell before falling out with her fellow judge, Dannii Minogue. US primetime is the next stop for the acid queen who refuses to “play nice”.

Postscript

Jack Nicholson reveals his desire to destroy the set of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, after the director asked him for ideas for a scene. “I didn’t sleep that night. Next day, I asked the prop man to get a gun . . . I also asked him to bring a fire extinguisher. This is what happens when you set me loose, I was literally planning to set the set on fire,” he tells Total Film. Crikey.

— To reassure London’s “funkapolitan” modern art lobby of its continuing success, the new Mayor, Boris Johnson, reminds us that, while editing The Spectator, he was “thrilled to print an exclusive original Jake and Dinos Chapman showing one of their dildo-rich Hieronymus Bosch scenes”.

— Matthew Perry tells heat that he chats up girls in pretty frocks with the line: “I had to come up and talk to you because I have the same outfit.” What a card.

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