The NYT is full of hilarity today. This artilce about Andrew Motion , the UK poet laureate had me laughing out loud.

The great poet Ted Hughes, Mr. Motion's predecessor, once wrote a poem celebrating Prince Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson in 1986 that included the lines: "A helicopter snatched you up/ The pilot, it was me." (The marriage ended in divorce.) In a poem observing the 40th anniversary of the Queen's coronation, he praised her corgis without apparent irony.


Referring to two of the many royal scandals that seem to cry out for comment by an anti-laureate, Mr. Raine wrote: "It isn't that I'd like laureate poems entitled, 'On the Occasion of James Hewitt Visiting Princess Diana for the Purpose of Consolation,' or 'Imagine Being a Tampax: Intimate Thoughts on the Mobile Phone.'

"Well, maybe I would."



And the there is this utter tripe about the Wwanks. Check out the slideshow. It is hideous.

Even as her celebrity has soared, Ms. Swank has deliberately cultivated a low-key image. "I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream," she said in her Oscar acceptance speech, referring to her upbringing in Bellingham, Wash.

So she was playing to character when she passed up the familiar list of decorators with celebrity clients in favor of Mr. Zeff. When she and Mr. Lowe called him on a friend's recommendation and described what they wanted, Mr. Zeff invited them to visit his roomy prewar apartment on the Upper West Side, which has a blend of Moroccan chandeliers, mirrors, a George III bureau and Bibendum chairs by Eileen Gray.

It was, he said, "exactly what they were describing: a mix of things that don't necessarily go together but look great together." They hired him within a week.