Postcard from... Los Angeles

The normally blue skies above Los Angeles were the setting for an apology of epic proportions after actor Shia LaBeouf hired a skywriting plane to scrawl an apology for plagiarism in little puffy clouds.

The 27-year-old, who stars in Lars Von Trier’s graphic new movie Nymphomaniac, has spent the past couple of weeks saying sorry repeatedly to graphic novelist Daniel Clowes, author of the comic Justin M Damiano.

LaBeouf plundered Clowes’ work extensively and without credit for his own short about a misanthropic film critic. However, there was one minor problem with his latest and grandest display of contrition, which read simply, “I am sorry Daniel Clowes” .

While the population of Los Angeles was no doubt bemused by who might have felt the need to apologise to Clowes, the man in question lives in Oakland, several hundred miles too far to the north to have seen the clouds.

Perhaps to remedy this, LaBeouf posted a picture online on New Year’s Day. Before now, LaBeouf’s public apologies have proven almost as damaging as the items for which he was forced to apologise. His first response when the similarities between his and Clowes’ work were spotted appeared to have been cut and pasted from a four-year-old page on Yahoo Answers.