Journalists are just the public in their Sunday best

The problem is finding a common language between journalism and celebrity. In the Fight Club that is the relationship between Hugh Grant and the Daily Mail, the actor protests at the terms of engagement. An actor is forced to do publicity interviews and must therefore either pompously dismiss personal questions or be a "good sport", which makes his life fair game. There is another route actually, perfected by George Clooney, which is to seduce journalists by charm and wit. The red carpet television journalist on Sunday, Edith Bowman, conducted a Bridget Jones-style interview with Clooney in which she blurted to him a description of her thermal underwear. He listened to her with grave concern, keen to help in any way he could.

The new charmer is Jean Dujardin. The star of The Artist has no fear of British journalists but that may be because he can't understand what they're saying.

Hugh Grant sarcastically notes that showbusiness journalists are not interested in discussing acting technique but then acting is an internalised business. You can appraise an actor's performance - but critics are even more disliked than news journalists.

The reason actors end up being asked what it was like to kiss a co-star/strip naked may be because there is really nothing else to say. Edith Bowman could not mention the questions that viewers were interested in such as "Why no Angelina?" Or "Gary, how furious are you not to win?" So, apart from her underwear diversion, she stuck tediously to asking everyone how nervous, excited, pleased they were for each other.

If journalists sound idiotic, the language of actors is incomprehensible. The litany of meaningless reverence, "blessed" "privileged" "extraordinary" "beautiful" la, la, la. The altitude at these occasions is exhausting. No wonder we turn gratefully to the newspaper report of the pre-Bafta party celebrity fight. It allows a little daylight in.

What would life be like without "media scum"? Stephen Fry believes in direct communication with the public through Twitter but "the people" cannot always be trusted to be polite and grateful, as Coriolanus kept warning. Daniel Radcliffe gave a graceful speech at Bafta. The response on Twitter? "That stunted little muppet Harry Potter has to show his face everywhere."

Believe me, journalists are the public in their Sunday best.

The only solution I can think of to the stand-off is dropping the media soundtrack, in the manner of The Artist. Let's just have lovely mute pictures of actors and actresses. No sound, no fury.

High society's drugs are just as criminal

In the post-riots analysis, there has been a predictable conclusion from the liberal Left that society is to blame for a materialist culture and unfair distribution of wealth.

I particularly dislike this mitigation because it diminishes the moral stature of those who are disadvantaged but who do not riot. But there is one direct link between society and the "criminal class". The economy of the gangs of London is drugs. If there were no demand for drugs, gangs would lose their primary function. The founder of Kids Company, Camila Batmanghelidjh, mused to me that every time a celebrity at a party phoned a dealer to order recreational drugs, they were effectively destroying life's chances for a street kid.

There cannot be one rule for fashionable London and one for ganglands. They are the same thing.

China panic syndrome

At a school career convention the other day, the opening speaker told assembled sixth formers that while they could fill a school hall, an equivalent meeting in Beijing would be held in a stadium.

The China syndrome dominates our debate about education and employment. In this anxious atmosphere, I can see why the American political campaign advertisement DebbieSpendItNow is controversial. A beautiful Asian woman on a bicycle thanks the sponsor's political rival for her high spending, claiming it means more borrowing from China.

"Our economy get very good, we take your jobs," beams the woman, from the sunny Chinese paddy fields. Whether or not the advertisement is racist, it is a hilarious expression of Western fears. They are over-qualified, and they're over here.