Alice Jones: Celebrities can take a joke? Don’t make me laugh

IMHO...

It is getting harder and harder to make fun of celebrities. I mean, they make it really easy in lots of ways but lately they’ve got into the irritating habit of getting their punchlines in first. Take Madonna caught on tape at the Venice Film Festival turning her perfect nose up at a fan’s flowers with the drawled snub: “I absolutely loathe hydrangeas.” A week of horticultural outrage later, the singer has hit back with a self-mocking silent movie in which she begs the blooms for forgiveness before trampling them beneath her stilettos.

Next, the Winklevii. The twins who sued Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that he stole their idea for Facebook (they received a settlement of $65m but no admission of liability), have shot a commercial for pistachios. “Hey that’s a good idea. Could be huge,” says Tyler Winklevoss. Or possibly Cameron. “Think someone will steal it?” says the other one. “Who would do that?” (to camera, in unison). Perhaps they needed the money. Finally, Gérard Depardieu has sent up his in-flight urinary malfunction with a clip in which he dresses as Obelix and throws a tantrum when the hostess withholds his meal of wild boar.

It’s a growing trend that has its roots, perhaps, in Saturday Night Live’s skits, which have long forced celebrities to play court jester poking fun at their own shortcomings. Now, a gaffe has barely started to trend on Twitter before the PR machine trundles in with a slick, self-deprecating YouTube comeback. Celebrities may think that they’re showing their funny side but really it’s about image control, a bid to eclipse the original clanger. The real mark of a sense of humour is being able to sit back quietly and take the joke.

Quick, the global economy is tanking! Grab the foam tortilla and the pinenut marshmallows! As Greece counts out its last cents and UBS counts the cost of a rogue trader frittering away $2bn without anybody noticing, an unlikely powerhouse pairing is on hand to save the world’s finances. Enter Ferran Adria, head chef of El Bulli, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.

This summer the 49-year-old creator of the mimetic peanut, the spherical olive and other gastronomic marvels, closed his world beating restaurant and announced a new El Bulli Foundation. A thinktank for culinary creativity, it will open on the same site, complete with “Ideatorium” and space-age kitchens, where 20 young cooks, selected using Harvard interview techniques, will rewrite the recipe books watched over by Stiglitz and other advisers.

There won’t be a restaurant, just occasional, free dinners for selected guests – be they sponsors or students. Finally, a fiscal strategy to get on board with. “Part of my job is to see into the future, and I could see that our old model is finished,” Adria told Time.

“We’re changing it but we’re still going to be feeding people… It’s time to figure out what comes next.” Indeed. Perhaps Adria’s visionary take on food and finance – deconstructing it all and starting from the bare bones – is what the world needs now. Too bad the foundation won’t open until 2014.

If you want to rile people, compile a list. And if you want to really rile people, compile a list of films. And if you want to make them Incredible Hulk-angry, compile a list of comedy films. This week Time Out unveiled their top 100, as chosen by 200 comedians and writers, and me. Predictably, within seconds of Spinal Tap being crowned No 1, the comments started to spool. Only one Chaplin?

That’s like having one Shakespeare in the 100 Best Plays! No foreign films? Xenophobes! Zoolander?! Don’t make me laugh.

There’s something about funny films that awakens an atavistic protection instinct as fans fight for their favourite, using quotes as well-worn weapons. My top 10 include films my father introduced me to (Airplane!), ones I watch over and over with my sister (Love and Death) and, at No 1, the one that I still quote endlessly to friends (Anchorman). It’s funny, really, that happy movie memories should provoke such ire online. That said, Time Out, missing off Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? That’s unforgivable, dudes.