Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Celebrity Week in God's Country East!

Former British PM Tony Blair was in town for a lecture Tuesday and here's the story I filed. The speech was about an hour; I then had 30 minutes to write. That's why it's not very good.

Ever catch C-SPAN's coverage of the British Parliament back in the day? It's roughly 297 times more entertaining than watching the U.S. House or Senate coverage. Let's just say the Brits don't raise their hands before speaking - they just frickin rail into the Prime Minister at the slightest impulse. And as he endured the screams from the seats, poor Blair used to just stammer and try to get a word in edgewise, like he'd been called into his boss's office and had the door slammed behind him. It would get so bad you thought Blair's head would implode. It was an awesome train wreck - it was C-SPAN's Anna Nicole show.

Anyhow, on Tuesday Blair told the audience that he still gets chills when the clock reads 3:12 p.m. because that's the exact minute they'd arrive to bring him to the Parliament "torture chamber." Those C-SPAN feeds were spot-on.

Blair also had a great story about Bill Clinton at a G8 summit. For the closing ceremony, they laid several local customary shirts on the leaders' bed to choose to wear. Blair said the shirts were varying degrees of terrible, so he picked the best of his options and left for the ceremony. Blair arrived to find Bill wearing the hands-down worst shirt, and told him "Mr. President ... that's an awful shirt." Bill replied, "When my folk back home see me, they're going to feel sorry for me - 'Look at what they made the President wear!' But when your folk see you they're gonna say, 'What a bad shirt the Prime Minister chose to wear.'"

Great story, classic Clinton. That's the kind of insider info my three readers have come to expect!

I was pretty stunned when Blair said he didn't feel the West had committed any sort of grievance against the Muslim world. The issue isn't whether what he said is true (I happen to strongly disagree) ... it's what would happen if Bush said that. Can you imagine? Yikes.


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Wednesday morning I hit the local links to get color quotes at this year's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Scores of celebrities. (And Huey Lewis.) I'm surprised at how many of 'em have a decent-enough golf game to agree to do this. Apparently there's a pretty big pool from which to pick. Seriously, who knew Kevin Nealon played decent golf?

Turns out Samuel Jackson is pretty damn good, too. The force is strong with him. And I had to resist my Tourette-like urge to yell "DOES MARCELLUS WALLACE LOOK LIKE A BITCH TO YOU?!" as he putted.

Luke Wilson was sporting an awesome porn-stache, but he flubbed a shot on 17. By my standards it wasn't bad actually - I'm a terrible golfer. As he walked off the green with that squinty, befuddled Luke Wilson expression someone called out "Nice shot, Luke!"

I don't think the guy meant it sarcastically - he just wanted to connect with a celeb and it came across unintentionally funny since the shot sucked. People cracked up, but not Luke. He just intensified his Luke Wilson face. I wondered, why do celebrities subject themselves to this unnecessary exposure? Why take the risk of a crappy day?

Then I got back to the office and read eternal LA sports optimist T.J. Simers' column, where he called the Hope a "dying PGA tournament." Classic Simers.


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In other news, the Nameless-versus-Dickie Hillary-versus-Obama debate rages on! Nameless swears she's still undecided, but she feels the need to stick up for Hillary because I'm so biased and "anti-Clinton" and thus clearly a chauvinist pig. (That's my cue to ask her to stop talking politics and start ironing my shirts.)

Also, she's not telling me whom she winds up choosing in the primary just "to piss me off."

Look, I respect that - I'm not gonna jump to any conclusions *COUGHclinton*