George W Bush might have been expected to spend his final hours in the White House polishing his golf clubs and taking Laura on a farewell turn around the state ballroom. Instead – unusually for one so workshy – he was busy with official business, and on Sunday held, as one of his very last acts while in office, the National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

Our former Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is on the verge of celebrating a famous victory in the name of free speech.

The BBC came under fire today after celebrity lesbian couple Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were the subject of "gratuitously sexist and homophobic remarks" in an end-of-year show.

Dangerous-diet watchers, for one moment set aside your copy of Fern: My Story. Switch off "Silksy" masticating his jungle grubs. For there is mildly alarming news direct from Los Angeles, global capital of thin: paparazzi shots this week show actress Lindsay Lohan striding out of an LA drugstore clutching three packets of cherry-flavoured sweets, a packet of lemon chews and... a bright blue bottle of grape-flavoured VPX RedLine Fat Incinerator. Lohan, who has previously admitted to bulimia, now appears to a fan of a notorious supercharged caffeine drink favoured by bodybuilders – those hard enough to stomach the Fat Incinerator's whopping 250mg dose, anyway.

Stop the presses! Hollywood A-lister ventures away from the red carpet and into... um, Essex. Yes, you read correctly: last Sunday, Lindsay Lohan – the actress, socialite and all-round princess of Hollywood – made the somewhat surprising decision to visit the county best known for its fondness for fake tan, miniskirts and white stilettos.

Australia's Mean Girls proved last week they could rival the malice of the US film of that name when female students at an exclusive Catholic college in Queensland were castigated for behaviour worthy of Lindsey Lohan at her worst.