A colleague has just forwarded me an AFP story headlined - "Nepal bombing bad news for peace process: analysts". I applaud the urge to maintain a rigid division between fact and commentary. But sometimes I think journalists should be allowed to state the blindingly obvious - without resorting to "analysts".

The headline reminds me of a conversation I once witnessed at the BBC World Service. A worried editor was fretting that the presenter of a current-affairs programme had described some people who had let off a bomb as "militants". The presenter - Hugh Prysor Jones - replied, reasonably enough - "Well, they are unlikely to be moderates."

On the other hand, one should always be aware of the possibility of misunderstandings and ambiguity in newspaper stories. Reading the Washington Post this morning, I came across the headline - "Showdown Nears on Stimulus Bill". My initial assumption was that this was an article about Bill Clinton’s controversial campaign tactics. In fact, it turned out to be a piece about efforts to pass a fiscal package to get the American economy going. But I prefer my initial interpretation. I think "Stimulus Bill" is an excellent name for the former president.

This morning I woke up with a start and immediately reached for the Blackberry on my bedside table. This is an incredibly bad habit, which I must rid myself of. Among the messages that had come in overnight was this comment posted on the blog by WCM, who makes "no apologies" for his rudeness. He suggests that I am not doing my job properly because I am writing about trivia and neglecting important issues like developments on the Turkish-Kurdish border, developments in Pakistan, the world of private equity etc…

WCM is not alone in his concerns. When I mentioned to my colleague Lucy Kellaway that I was planning to write about celebrities this week, she looked slightly concerned and said - "Isn’t that a bit moronic?" However, since her previous column had been devoted to seeing how many swear-words she could get into the FT in one go, I did not feel Lucy was in a position to preach. (I recommend the podcast incidentally).

However, the issue raised by WCM and LK is a valid one. My answer is that the question I ask when choosing a topic for my column (or indeed for the blog) is not - what is the most important thing going on in the world? It is - do I have anything original to say about this?

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Here is a selection of recent newspaper headlines: "Redford slams Bush over Iraq"; "Bono takes IMF to task over Liberia"; "Jolie blasts US military spending"; "Clooney’s foreign policy - sexiest man has a plan to save Darfur".

You do not have to buy supermarket tabloids to read this stuff. The Bono headline was in the Financial Times; the Clooney story was in the Chicago Tribune. The news editors of these high-brow publications have not gone mad (as far as I can tell). They are simply reflecting the fact that film stars and rock musicians shape public opinion - and therefore public policy. Daniel Drezner, an academic, argues in a forthcoming article for National Interest - "Foreign Policy Goes Glam" - that the growth of "celebrity activism" reflects the decline of traditional media and the rising power of star-struck "soft news" outlets.

Something about this mix of glitter and public policy makes me uncomfortable - and apparently I am not alone. When I suggested recently on my FT blog that Bono was a "grandstanding poseur", I was astonished by the gleeful vitriol I unleashed in response.

The remainder of this column can be read here; comments can be made below.

Nicolas Sarkozy is shaping up well as the politician who provides best value on YouTube. In an earlier entry, I posted the video of Sarko’s giggly press conference at an EU summit. Now the French president has surpassed himself by walking out of an interview with CBS’s "60 Minutes" programme, because the interviewer asked him about his divorce.

Well done, indeed. This interesting footage, got me thinking about a hit parade of political moments on YouTube. I think Sarko’s walk-out goes straight to the top.

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I was sorry to read today that Joseph "Erap" Estrada, the former president of the Phillippines, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption. I have a soft spot for Erap. He is the only politician I have ever interviewed who actually fell asleep during the interview.

It was in the mid-1990s and Estrada was vice-president at the time. He was also enormously popular with the poor in the Phillippines - largely because he had played a series of heroic roles in low-budget thrillers. He was clearly the coming man, so getting an interview with him was quite a big deal. He had a large office, full of note-taking flunkies. They were as horrified as I was, when the great man nodded off and began to snore during the course of our interview. But I can’t really blame him. It was hot; I was asking a lot of damn fool questions about development and foreign policy. He might have had a few at lunch. He has a reputation as a world-class drinker and womaniser. Eventually I was ushered to the door by a staff member who said:  "I’m sorry about that, but I could tell the vice-president was very interested by your questions until he fell asleep."

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[This is my latest FT newspaper column, drawing on suggestions from an earlier blog post. My other newspaper columns can be read here — most require an FT.com subscription.]

Conspiracy theorists have a bad reputation. They are usually portrayed as paranoid, isolated, deluded people, best avoided.

It is true that there are many sinister and unpleasant conspiracy theories. These are usually the ones that seek to blame all the world’s ills on a single racial or social group – Jews, Catholics, Freemasons.

But there are also conspiracy theories that are delightfully dotty. A friend in Ankara tells me many Turks are convinced that, during the cold war, the Russians infested the Sea of Marmara with a sturgeon-devouring predator that sent these valuable fish fleeing into the Russian bit of the Black Sea – thus allowing the Russians to control the world’s supply of caviar. That is a theory worthy of James Bond.

The idea that conspiracy theorists are an isolated bunch, on the fringes of society, is also wide of the mark. Some theories are so widely believed that they are now almost mainstream. A recent BBC opinion poll suggested that only 43 per cent of Britons accept the official verdict that the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, was an accident. The countless “9/11” conspiracy theories also have a surprisingly wide audience – even in America. A Zogby poll last year found that 42 per cent of Americans think the US government is “covering up” facts about the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.

Why do conspiracy theories command such a wide audience? I have my own theory about that.

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Well, I think the experiment in crowd-sourcing (otherwise known as picking the brains of readers of this blog) has been a great success. It would be invidious to pick out particular contributions. But I was struck by how interesting and rational most of the posts were - so unlike the forums in other newspapers. I mention no names. I think I’ll definitely repeat the experiment, after the summer break.

In the end I’ve decided to do the conspiracy theories column. In the course of the research I came across two particularly striking conspiracy websites. (There are zillions of them) The editor of Conspiracy Planet sent a rather aggressive letter to the editor, accusing me of being a "shill" for the establishment. Fortunately, he is based in Montana - so I doubt I’ll ever have to argue this one out in person. Then there is the Lobster site, which has long had a devoted following in Britain.

Meanwhile, out in the real world  - things still look bad in Pakistan, with a resurgence of violence at the Red Mosque.

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With half of Britain under water after heavy rain, it is now clear to me what Tony Blair should have said when he left Downing Street a few weeks ago: "Apres moi, le deluge."

Now - onto the main business of the day. I see that PL is worried that I am blurring the line between the column and the blog. I must admit that it is rather odd maintaining two personalities and two voices - one for the newspaper and one for the blog. But I have decided to go for a bit more line-blurring. Specifically, I wonder whether readers of the blog might help me do some research for my newspaper columns. I did hesitate before making this suggestion, since it involves dropping the pretence of omniscience which is an important part of the persona of any newspaper columnist. But I’m not sure I can even spell omniscience - let alone claim it - so what the hell. Anyway, the people who run the website tell me that what I’m proposing to do is called "crowdsourcing" (rather than laziness, as some might have it) and is extremely cutting edge. So that is some consolation.

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Tony Blair thinks that the British media are too frenzied and aggressive (see yesterday’s post). But are the French media too passive and respectful of authority?

The question is raised by the current controversy over whether Nicolas Sarkozy was drunk at a press conference at the G8 summit. The suggestion was first made by a Belgian television newscaster and the accompanying video is certainly amusing and suggestive. But no French television station broadcast the footage. And the main French papers also ignored the story, until the Belgian TV newsreader was forced to apologise - a fact which was then dutifully reported in France.

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Tony Blair’s attack on the media may or may not be fair. But it does illustrate an iron law of British politics. All prime ministers end up fearing and hating the press.

The first time I interviewed Blair - shortly after he became PM in 1997 - he made rather a point of underlining that he was going to avoid this particular pitfall. I remember him saying with a laugh that his predecessor - John Major - had been so obsessive about the newspapers that he had anxiously checked the first editions at 11 at night. "I don’t bother with all that," said Blair with an airy laugh.

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