I've been out of the office for most of this week, so on the premise that it's better late than never (although it may not be for some!) I bring you the gossip mags - express version! Like a short black instead of lounging around sipping a cappuccino. Or that microwave rice that you know you shouldn't buy because it's overpriced - but you do anyway, cause it's quick and you can't really be bothered with the real stuff.

The can't-make-up-his-mind TV bachelor, Jason Mesnick, finally proposed to his girlfriend Molly Melaney while on holiday in Queenstown recently - and Woman's Day has a rather hideous photo shoot with the pair to celebrate the news.

He's in a ‘Homer Simpson goes to his ‘70s prom' suit (apparently channeling ‘Prince Charming') and she's wearing a flammable looking frilly wedding gown (reportedly Cinderella). It deserves to go up in flames, actually. Not her. But the frock.

I looked for a credit reading ‘Clothes: Model's own' so I could do some judging from my office chair, but it's okay! Not actual clothes. Costume shop gear.

Apparently the couple "have defied critics with their love," and Mesnick attempts to explain his controversial on-screen dumping of first choice Melissa Rycroft for Molly. We can point the finger at contractual arrangements, he says.

"Who has to make a decision within six weeks about who to spend the rest of your life with? Nobody!"

Er, you do. If you're not that keen maybe don't go on a TV show called The Bachelor with the express purpose of finding a mate in front of millions of TV viewers?

New Idea has run this week with a cobbled together cover picture of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, with details inside of donations Jen's been making to a Mexican orphanage - where her ex-hubby also contributes.

Could it mean a romantic reunion? Actually to its credit, the mag doesn't go down that road.

Jennifer was nice to the babies, hence rumours that she's about to bring a baby friend back across the border. Good luck to that kid if it has to spend its formative early days exposed to John Mayer, whom the Aniston is supposedly reunited with.

"Jen's deeply fascinated by Mexican culture and the beautiful landscape in Baja California," reports the mag.

If knocking back margaritas makes you deeply fascinated by Mexican culture, then I am also a convert!"

Another ‘worker' says: "Jen is like an angel sent by God. Her love is unconditional. She'll make a wonderful mother one day."

That sounds like a ‘worker' suspiciously made up in the office editorial meeting. Mind you, a Malawian orphan also told Madonna this week that ‘you are our God,' so maybe the whole world's just going topsy turvy. Madonna as God, Angelina Jolie as a saint, and the Aniston as an angel? Jen and Angelina can shoot each other the stink eye from the Madonna God's right and left hands.

New Idea reports the rumours about Jennifer and John Mayer being back on, and if she's fool enough to get back with that megadouche then she deserves all the love woes which come her way.

The couple everyone loves, radio wedding pair Zane and Paula Nicholl, show off new baby Olive in the New Idea - and the inspiration for their daughter's name came from some unlikely quarters. She's named after Paul Henry's mother.

"Paul's mother was on the show and she was a beautiful, elegant woman," Paula says by way of explanation.

The Day led this week with Paris Jackson and the bond she's supposedly forming with family friend-possibly secret brother Omer Bhatti. Reports allege he's the result of a ‘fling' between Michael Jackson and Omer's Norwegian mother, Pia, in 1984. Weird. I can't imagine Michael Jackson flinging with anyone.

The Weekly runs an ominous headline this week, sporting Katie Holmes on the cover and the headline ‘Sexy Ultimatum: Get Me Pregnant!'

This angle flies in the face of every other story saying Tom Cruise is the one keen for more kids and she wants to hold off. Plus, it gives me the shudders. I can't see these two generating a smidge of anything sexy, particularly when I see the shot of Tom's moobs bouncing while he jogs in Chicago.

Apparently wearing a black bra under a kind of see through black dress made Katie's recent look on a night out without her husband‘dangerously provocative', and it's all part of what the mag calls ‘sexing up her image.'

She's hardly Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

"It's hoped the net result of all this body shaping and sexy dressing will be a baby next year - most likely around their fourth wedding anniversary in November 2010," reports the Weekly.

So not only do they know in all certainty that the pair are on the baby making train, they can also predict when they'll conceive! The mag's powers are all-encompassing.

Former TV newsreader Kelly Swanson-Roe and husband John Aiken are having a baby. The pair is living in Sydney and, along with intimate details of Kelly's medical problems (TMI for someone like me) the mag goes into detail about her very elaborate plan to let her husband know she was expecting.

It's rather sweet, but sounds like a lot of work! She wrote a note which said ‘I can't wait to meet you Daddy', bought a rattle, got the bloke in shop to write on envelope to disguise handwriting, and hid it in with the mail.

"You read about women putting buns in the oven to reveal to their husbands that they're pregnant," she told the mag. I haven't. Do they? Women are weird. Some guys still wouldn't get it. They'd just eat the thing.

The couple hasn't found Australians have always welcomed them with open arms. Despite Kelly's shiny hair and nice even teeth, prerequisites for TV presenting, she's had abusive emails and letters after her Kiwi twang got airtime on Fox Sports. Aussie viewers presumably wanted a true blue Ocker sheila called Narelle or Kylie presenting their shows.

"It was a bit confronting at first - I was being attacked for being a Kiwi - but I learnt very quickly to speak Aussie and I did some elocution lessons to alter my vowels which helped too."

The Day run the People cover with pics of Nicole Richie's infant son Sparrow on the front. You can see more of these in WHO mag, if you're so inclined. Nicole sheds some light on that curious choice for a name.

"We have different tastes in names. Sparrow was one we both liked. I liked the way it sounded with Harlow, and there's the Captain Jack Sparrow connection."

Calling him Jack would have also had a Captain Jack Sparrow connection. Whatever. It hasn't grown on me at all, but it's not my kid.

"It reminded me of the Johnny Cash song ‘A Boy Named Sue,'" says dad Joel Madden. "My worry raising a son in Hollywood is what will he have to struggle for? I wanted to give him a name that he's going to have to stand up for. I love it. I think it's a beautiful name."

Let me get this straight. The kid would be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so let's give him a strange name so the humiliation will build character? Hmmm.

Rebecca Loos won't show pictures of her three-month-old son Magnus to the mags, but she is back to her old tricks in the Woman's Day - stripping into a bikini to give us all a post-pregnancy eyeful.

"I can honestly say that I'm happier with my body now than before I gave birth," pipes up the publicity hungry one.

Interestingly the mag doesn't say Loos' dalliance with her former boss was an ‘alleged' fling with David Beckham, which they have been for the past five years. Have the general media just given up the pretence?

A bikini-clad Britney is snapped in the New Idea, and her body's looking fabulous! Hair still looks like a rat's nest though. Brit Brit, take some of that $46 million Forbes mag says you earned last year and get a decent weave! I say this with love.

Corrie star Samia Smith has given birth to a baby girl, named Freya. I like the name, but am presuming they don't have the Freya's bread range in the UK. It'd be like naming a baby Vogel.

Supermodel Elle Macpherson considering a move back to Australia says the Day, which reports snippily: "It probably doesn't help that her own modelling career has been somewhat eclipsed of late by that of her labradoodle Bella."

"Three times they asked me to do Lord of The Rings. I didn't f**king understand it. Twice they asked me to do The Matrix. I didn't f**king understand it. I passed on both."

- Sean Connery on his interesting technique when it comes to choosing movie roles.

 

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