Ah, dear old Naomi Campbell. She's still managed to dodge actual prison time, but there is the matter of those 200 hours of community service for spitting at and assaulting police officers earlier this year, in an altercation at London's Heathrow Airport.

I can understand, though. When I think of how many times I've had a single piece of my luggage gone missing, flown into a towering rage and done everything from scream at the captain to get into it with the police...

Of course, I didn't follow it up by arriving late to my first day of community service — in a chaffeured limo. Yes, Naomi — bless her — decided that that was an appropriate mode of transport to a soup kitchen serving the destitute of London. And, thankfully, Campbell wasn't expected to interact with the masses or, you know, do anything as distasteful as that. She'll be confining herself to paperwork and the like while she's there.

On to one of Naomi's fellow Brits, though one I'm rather more fond of... comedian Russell Brand. To be honest, I'd always thought the man rather a git — till I watched Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards.

Amidst the agony of some of the blandest music ever to blight the face of the earth, I was sustained by the award-sweeping comeback of Britney Spears, and Brand's simply awe-inspiring hosting.

Not that his comedy went down well with the audience. Or America in general.

Puritanism runs deep in the US, and even the VMA's teeny-bopper crowd were none too thrilled at Brand's ripping off their cherished Disney-created band, the Jonas Brothers. Russell had lots to say about the promise rings all three of the brothers wear to pledge their intention to remain virgins till they marry. (God is, I hear, very concerned at hastening of the Apocalypse by means of the enjoyment of sex outside marriage.)

Needless to say, the idea that it might not be as evil as killing puppies for young people to shag someone did not go down well with some. Enter singer Jordan Sparks, who took the opportunity of presenting an awards to comment that, "It's not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody, guy or girl, wants to be a slut."

I was rather dismayed to see Brand then come out and do some back-tracking, announcing that: "I've gotta say sorry because I said those things about promise rings; that was bad of me. I didn't mean to take it lightly... Promise rings, I'm well up for it, well done everyone."

Thankfully, Russell quickly redeemed himself, adding: "It's just — a bit of sex occasionally never hurt anybody."

Bizarrely enough, socialite-launched-by-a-sex-tape and irony-free-zone Paris Hilton decided to wade into the controversy this week — by commenting to US tabloid Us Weekly.

"Don't pick on them," Paris says in defence of the Jonas Brothers. "That's [their virginity] something cool for a kid to keep, so don't pick on them for that. I think that they're all really good kids and that they're definitely our next generation of kids and they're all really good so I think that's awesome."

Stirring, articulately expressed sentiments from the one person who knows all about the joys of abstinence.

Hey, here's a wild idea! How about some kind of middle ground between pointless 'purity' and rampant whorishness? What about waiting until you, personally, feel ready and comfortable to have sex? Me and my crazy ideas...

Speaking of which — Paris Hilton is, oddly enough, reportedly all eager to get wit' Britney again. As well as weighing in on the promise ring thing, she's also been talking duet this week: "My new album's out soon and it would be hot if I could do a duet with Britney. It is really poppy and sounds a bit like Kylie Minogue."

Awesome coincidence that she was, like, totally thinking of collaborating and now Britney's gone and won all those awards and got all popular again and stuff. It's just a pity that people think Hilton was such a lousy influence on Spears last year that she shouldn't be within 100 feet of her and stuff.