PSY steals $2.5 million necklace from Cannes film festival (hopefully)

I hate the Cannes film festival. I've had to go there quite a few times over the years for work reasons. I don't like the glitz, I don't enjoy being around the enthusiastic Americans, I'm not interested in celebrities, I don't like showbiz parties, I've never had time to see any films, I have to drink constantly, it's hot and I run a mile from all the desperate people who've mortgaged their house in the hope of selling their first film (which they won't). So these days, I enjoy when Cannes comes around and the news fills up with the usual bullshit Cannes stories... because I'm not there.

The media loves Cannes because of all the celebrities, parties and red carpet stuff. That's the most irrelevant part of the festival, but that's all the media reports. Oh my god, Tom Cruise went to the MTV party! Wow! Why anyone cares is beyond me. The celebrities are just there as window dressing - everyone else is there to network and do business.

But enough of me complaining about having to go to celebrity parties and drink other people's gin, there's a Cannes story that's caught my eye. Or rather there's two, but maybe they're the same one.

A cheeky chap was smart enough to figure out that Western people can't really tell Koreans apart, so he figured that any podgy yellow person with funny sunglasses was going to be mistaken for PSY and he was right. That's him on the left up there (and the real PSY on the right). Looking as he did, he found he could wander in to pretty much any party at Cannes and nobody questioned him.

Parties at Cannes are run on the 'cool' system. The guys on the door don't care if you have an invitation or not - they care if you are cool. If you're cool, then you're doing them a favour by turning up to their party. If you're not cool, then they'd be doing you a favour by letting you in. Everyone tries to get as many cool people as possible to their parties in order to raise the coolness level. If the coolness quotient exceeds a certain level everyone gets a sack of cocaine and a Learjet or something like that. I never had any trouble getting in to parties in Cannes because I always wore a kilt and the yankee bloody loves a kilt, he does. So looking like PSY automatically means you're cool and the doors of any Cannes shindig will open for you like a tired cliché about prostitute's legs.

Now the other story is about some jewellery. At a Cannes party, someone walked off with a $2.5 million dollar necklace. The De Grisogono company had various people wandering around the party dressed in their shinies. Come the end of the night, when they took them all back, one was missing. Oh dear; it's only the second time it's happened this week.

All those pointless celebrities wandering round Cannes are lent dresses and jewellery and shit like that. Yes, the world's second-thickest millionaires (footballers being number one) don't even buy their own clobber. The jewellery firm Chopard sends forty staff to Cannes to hand out sparkly things to actors. At the end of the day, they'd put them in a hotel safe which was in an empty room. The next morning, when they came to open the safe and take the jewels out, it turned out that'd already been done for them.

So this latest necklace theft isn't exactly surprising. It happens at Cannes pretty much every year. And, as we've seen, guest lists are pretty flexible, so they don't even know who was at the party. Wouldn't it just be perfect if it was the fake PSY who walked off with it?

Living in the countryside makes you a second-class citizen

If ever I went outside, this is what I'd see (if I were really tall)

For many, the countryside is a magical place. I've met a good many people in London who dream of moving to parts rural in order to live the simple life. It's not easy to disparage them as I've pretty much done the same thing myself. However, the country life they envisage is quite at odds with the reality of rural living.

Here in Northumberland, things are somewhat decentralised - life is local. There aren't any cities, just a smattering of towns and villages spread out over some beautiful scenery (so I'm told - I'm not big on all that myself). This leads to certain complications and compromises.

This is not just ballet, it's Chinese ballet

I don't like ballet and it's not for want of trying; I've been to see several ballet companies perform and I've never enjoyed it. Whilst I'm sure that the elegant movements portray the story and the psyches of the characters involved, all I see is a bunch of people in funny outfits jumping around a bit. In short, I just don't get it. I keep hoping that if I watch enough, I'll have an epiphany and gaze up at the stage in rapt awe.

DPRK OS: Red Star - The North Korean Operating System

As some of you might know, I have a strong interest in North Korea. I find the secretive country simply fascinating and I keenly follow anything related to it. Just as when a news story begins "Today, Prince Philip said..." you know it's going to be riveting/hilarious, so too is it when a report begins "Today, North Korea..."

When I visited North Korea a few years back, I didn't see many computers. The few that I did manage to spot all, rather disappointingly appeared to be running dodgy copies of Microsoft Windows. One might have hoped that they'd have developed their own slick-screened bad guy OS like we see in so many films. But no, it was just Windows in Korean. Suck.

Happy music: J Rabbit

I don't like sad music. It's not because my mental state is so fragile that a depressing tune would send me over the edge, but because I find sad music is so very, very easy to write and personal sadness is, like dreams, best kept to yourself because it just sounds like bollocks to everyone else.

I don't know the person singing, I don't know their girlfriend either and I sure as hell don't know why they broke up. If there was any truth or meaning to these songs, there would be a lot more doleful pop tunes called "Dumped Because I'm a Twat" or "I Only Shagged her Sister a Little Bit". So there are very few sad songs that I like with the exception of things like "I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)" by Alice Cooper - which is about almost getting run over by a lorry, but being saved by the ghost of a dead pet horse.