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Your support makes all the difference.* A couple of months after Denmark's newspaper editors lit the blue touch-paper, the film-maker Morgan Spurlock is threatening to land Channel 4 in the middle of World War Three.
Late on Wednesday, the broadcaster screened a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohamed in an episode of Spurlock's latest series, 30 Days.
In a move that Islamic viewers deem blasphemous (their religion strictly forbids portrayals of Mohamed), the sequence showed a bearded prophet winking and giving a "thumbs-up" to camera.
Spurlock the creator of the hit film Supersize Me, later referred to him using a colloquial nickname: "Big Mo".
Although both clips formed part of an educational documentary, in which an evangelical Christian was sent to live with a Muslim family in America, Channel 4 executives are now braced for a backlash.
They held heated behind-the-scenes meetings in the hours before broadcast after realising the controversy the show could cause. It was recorded last year, and screened in its original form in the US and on the Freeview channel More4. However, those broadcasts took place months before the Danish cartoon affair raised tensions over the issue.
Last night, Channel 4 stood by its decision to broadcast. "The film did feature a very brief cartoon image, which the voiceover suggests is the Prophet Mohamed," said a spokesman. "It's in there for illustrative purposes and we believe it to be inoffensive."
* Daniella Westbrook's new memoir is threatening to spark literary Britain's newest ghostwriting controversy.
The cockney beauty's autobiography,The Other Side of Nowhere, has become a surprise hit, debuting at number four in the bestseller lists. Unfortunately, confusion surrounds who exactly is responsible for the manuscript, which is tipped for literary awards.
Westbrook's hardback suggests it's entirely her own work, and contains no recognition, or "thank you", to a ghost writer.
However Pandora gathers that publishers Hodder employed a respected "ghost", Natasha Garnett, to compose the entire thing from interviews with its subject.
Asked about this matter by Radio 4 recently, Westbrook became sheepish. "I had some help from another writer, as I wanted to make sure that... I wanted to get my voice ... I wanted it to be written properly," she said. "But a lot of work's been done by me over the past two years."
Garnett may disagree, but she's unlikely to protest too much: I gather she received a five-figure fee for her pains.
* At the grand old age of 80, Warren Mitchell is starting to resemble his grumpy alter ego, Alf Garnett.
The actor is planning to emigrate from his native Highgate this summer to escape "noise pollution" caused by the Kenwood concerts.
It's an embarrassment for organisers of the annual events at a pavilion on Hampstead Heath, which supposedly cater to the posh end of the market.
"They used to be beautiful classical musical concerts. You could listen to a fine orchestra playing fine music, but now it's just an organised piss up," complains Mitchell, left.
"It's turned into a money-making exercise. We're planning to move away over the summer. It's awful; you can't sit in the garden and simply contemplate nature.As well as the noise from the concerts, there's some terrible MC making inane comments disturbing the peace. It's noise pollution."
* Gordon Brown isn't the only (supposed) ally rubbing Tony Blair up the wrong way: Labour chairman Ian McCartney's at it, too.
On Tuesday, the PM and McCartney met David Cameron and Francis Maude to discuss recent party financing scandals. According to Maude, Blair jollified the meeting by wincing, frowning, and pretending to yawn whenever McCartney opened his mouth.
Speaking to the Bow Group, a Tory think-tank, Maude suggested Blair was deliberately attempting to undermine the left-leaning McCartney.
Cameron was chuffed. On his way out of the meeting, he announced gleefully: "At least I've a better relationship with my party chairman than Tony Blair has with his."
* JK Rowling's attack on the "empty, self-obsessed, emancipated clones" of the fashion industry has warmed things up a treat.
As well as skinny supermodels, it's also upset the cardigan-wearing doyens of British dog-breeding.
Writing on her internet site, Rowling criticised models for supporting "the trade in over-priced handbags and rat-sized dogs".
It was too much for the British Chihuahua Club, which is formulating an official riposte as we speak.
"For a start, you can't actually get Chihuahuas that are as small as rats," insists its chairman, Graham Foot.
"Besides, they are lovable animals. They do seem to have become a fashion accessory, but not for the sort of children that read Rowling's books."
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