Observations: Your time is up, Lily

So this week Lily Allen blamed the turmoil at her record company, EMI, for the delay in the release of her second album. "It has been finished for a while now," she wrote on her blog. "I don't really know what's going on with it." While an EMI spokesman assures me, "we're all now discussing the best date for the release of the album", perhaps they're not taken with Allen's new material, which includes a Madness-esque knees-up, "Guess who Batman?", with the chorus, "Fuck you/ Fuck you very, very much/ 'Cause we hate what you do/ And we hate your whole crew/ So please don't stay in touch." And they're probably not overly keen on all the negative coverage of Allen's brattish behaviour: only this week she was spotted throwing punches outside Ronnie Scott's.

Or could it be that Allen is desperately plugging an album no one is too bothered about. Her girlish ska-pop tales were a breath of fresh air when they emerged in 2006, but the moment has passed. Maybe the world isn't waiting for the latest instalment of her musical autobiography, having seen her life played out in the gossip columns every day. "I might go on another holiday as I don't have anything else to do," she signed off. "In the meantime there are the Olympics to watch which are far more entertaining." You said it, Lily.

Alice Jones