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It's time for today's installment of What the hell is exactly going on?

Remember when Madonna brought out a book called Sex, so everyone in the western world could get a good look at her vagina?  Externally, anyway.  I remember it was spiral-bound, to facilitate wanking.  That is so 1992.  Today's celebrities will sell you the smell of their lady-parts, or so they say.  How can most of us check?  I want to see the commercials ("Gee, your hair smells like... Gwyneth Paltrow's crotch").  Madonna writes books for children now.

Michael Douglas revealed that his father's last words were not "I regret nothing" or "It's been fun" or even "I am Spartacus," but an endorsement of Mike Bloomberg.  "I don't know if he was pulling my leg or not," he added.  Never mind, it's already part of the Bloomberg blitz of perpetual advertising.  Even the pharmaceutical companies are complaining that there's no space to promote the latest psoriasis drugs.

This winter has been especially hard on musical instruments.  First the TSA deliberately ruined Ballake Sissoko's kora, and now movers have accidentally dropped Angela Hewitt's piano.  If I owned a Strad, I'd rent a cheap violin for concerts involving travel.

Remember that Tom Hanks movie The Terminal, about a charming construction worker from a fictitious country who gets stranded at JFK when a coup back home leaves him stateless?  It was based on a real Iranian who was stuck in a Paris airport after the 1979 revolution.  To my knowledge there has not been a coup or a revolution in Britain, but tell that to this poor bloke, whose passport was yanked for no apparent reason.  He's sleeping on the streets in Brussels, ironically enough.  

Blackface book covers?  Barnes & Noble decided to salute Black History Month with a series of books aimed at young readers (all in the public domain, as far as I can tell) featuring "diverse" cover illustrations.  You need to see it to get the full impact.  For instance, black Dorothy Gale (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) is carrying a pair of ruby basketball shoes.  B&N cancelled the project after critics said, "No.  Just no." 

"The stars are ageless," murmured Norma Desmond before shooting Joe Gillis in the back.  (Sorry, spoiler alert.)  Well, of course they aren't, and some people think Betelgeuse is about to go supernova. 

Jamie Oliver's UK restaurant business collapsed last year with a crash they could hear in Paris, but he says he's opening a new spot for great Irish food.  In Dublin.  Suddenly I have all kinds of questions, beginning with who would even rent him space? and what about the millions he owes to creditors?  Will well-heeled Irish people flock to eat an Englishman's version of their cuisine?  Are TV chefs impervious to failure?  What is a robata grill?  Will there be takeout?