Hit & Run: Britney redux

On Saturday, US pop princess Britney Spears will appear on ITV's reality talent show The X Factor. She will follow the performance, it is rumoured, with a gig at London club G-A-Y, ahead of the general release of her new album, Circus, on 2 December, her birthday. On Sunday, she gives a candid account of her life in the limelight in a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Britney: For the Record, on Sky1. Next month, she's splashed across the cover of Rolling Stone, and in June 2009, it has just been announced, she will stage two massive concerts at London's O2 arena. It's official. Britney is back.

And where else should she stage her dramatic return to form than on The X Factor, a show watched by at least 12 million Brits? "She is such a sweet, endearing person," gushes X Factor choreographer Brian Friedman, who was instrumental in arranging her UK visit. "Last year, I asked her to come and do the show but she was too hectic. I'm so glad to see her back on track. Her performance is going to be incredible. She has gone from the Princess of Pop to the new Queen of Pop. Now she is claiming her throne."

There can't be a soul alive who isn't happy to see the 26-year-old singer put the hair-shearing excesses of last February behind her. Her well-documented meltdown and reported struggle with bipolar disorder was fuelled by her divorce from husband Kevin Federline, whom she married in 2004. Their split, and the custody battle surrounding their two children, Sean Preston, three, and Jayden James, two, was exacerbated by alleged drug and alcohol abuse. An attempted comeback at 2007's MTV Video Music Awards was scuppered when the singer appeared confused and disoriented during a performance of her single "Gimme More".

But times have changed. Though she lost her custody battle with Federline in August, Britney has taken things easy for most of 2008. Since February, her estate was placed under the control of her father, Jamie. "I feel like an old person now," she tells Rolling Stone. "I do! I go to bed at, like, 9.30 every night and I don't go out or anything, you know what I mean? I just feel like an old fart." The premature ageing will not hurt her career. Circus is expected to top the charts. "I even thought her last album [2007's Blackout] was quite good," enthuses Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills. "But all her personal stuff overshadowed that. You didn't think she could get back in the game. But now she's back on it and it seems like she really wants to be here. I've heard the new album and think it is great, and I am going to see both her performances this weekend. I just think when she appears on The X Factor, the eyes of the world will be on her. If she nails this, I think the transformation will be complete. I admire her for it, though. A year ago, I didn't think it was going to happen. People will soon see who the actual Queen of Pop is."

Get the Somali pirate look

You're standing on the deck of a 330-metre oil tanker, astride a $100m bounty. Taking time out from delicate negotiations with a Saudi oilman, satellite phone crackling in your hand, you squint through Chips-style aviator shades out to the mothership on the horizon. Life as a pirate is cool, and you dress accordingly: loose-fitting camo shirt; ammo belt; checked neckerchief tied jauntily; sun-bleached jeans rolled up to the calf. Style is in the job description. Vivienne Westwood has often taken inspiration from the insouciant, weather-beaten pirate "look", while Johnny Depp's interpretation (via Keith Richards) confirmed its sartorial credentials. Hit & Run can't condone your crimes, but, damn, you look good.

SUSIE RUSHTON

If you think hedge funds are bad...

'Vulture funds', n., pron. blud-sukk-ing lee-chiz. Unscrupulous enterprises that buy up the bad debt of Third World countries for a fraction of their worth and then sue for the full value. A post-credit crunch breed has now started to apply the same approach to mortgages, and anyone whose debt is acquired by one of these firms can expect an unsympathetic hearing should they fall into arrears, since even selling houses on the cheap will net vultures a healthy profit. From 'vulture', n., amoral animal that takes advantage of others' misfortunes, and 'funds', n. pl., something no one has enough of at the moment.

ARCHIE BLAND

Louis, you're out of your depth

Where on the line between journalism and entertainment would you place Louis Theroux? Once it was relatively easy – Theroux, armed with a disarming faux-naivety, entered the worlds of whacky celebrities or weird sub-cultures – with everyone opening their homes and their hearts to this strangely endearing interloper. And although Theroux is a journalist, his real background is in that fashionable area where journalism meets satire.

But is Theroux now straying too far from his satirical roots? In his last documentary, he hung out with the inmates of San Quentin Prison in California and there was a certain wimp-amongst-brutes pleasure in watching Theroux sweat as he interviewed scary lifers. But something began to grate in that programme which now, with his latest documentary, Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia (airing this Sunday on BBC 2), is starting to judder.

In the film, Theroux rides around in the back of a police car as it patrols the drug-saturated, post-apocalyptic neighbourhoods of the US city dubbed "Killerdelphia". His innocent-abroad act – asking "What's happened here?" to the sister of a shooting victim – is going sour.

Theroux could argue that he's being subversive by taking viewers where many might not usually go. But there's also the feeling that he is daring himself to take on ever tougher subjects and bouncing his well-worn persona off ever sadder human misery. What next – Louis Theroux on Death Row?

GERARD GILBERT