It is not quite Tom Cruise jumping up and down on the sofa on Oprah Winfrey, but Sharon Osbourne's appearance on BBC2's Graham Norton Show last night was one to remember. Yes, she was slagging off fellow X Factor judge Dannii Minogue again, ending up prostrate on the floor in front of host Graham Norton, bellowing: "Fuck 'em all!" Charmed, we're sure. Minogue is said to be so upset by the outburst that she has pulled out of interviews with the Sunday tabloids. Still with the ITV1 show, Monkey hears the Daily Star was keen to get a shot of the three finalists - don't even pretend you don't know who they are - in front of their respective national flags: England, Wales and Scotland. But instead of sending the cross of St George, the paper sent the Swiss national flag instead. Easy mistake to make.

Monkey has been a very busy simian this Christmas party season, last night hanging out with new media secretary James Purnell at his first festive drinks bash. Purnell worked the room like a pro, but was careful about what he said, particularly when asked to give a comment on the new England football manager, which he deftly side stepped. Monkey was more interested in why he hadn't been blogging since taking over the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, particularly after he had tried his hand when in charge of pensions. However, it seems that experience has put him off for life, after it was met with the blogging equivalent of tumbleweed blowing through the streets. Fearing it might not exactly set the internet alight, Purnell had emailed his mates the night before in order to at least spark a bit of interest. The result? A stoney silence. Surely, Monkey feels, the media is sexier to blog about than pensions?

After hanging out with the new boy at the DCMS, Monkey scampered over to Soho to the Channel Five bash to share a banana with its director of programmes and soon-to-be new BBC1 controller Jay Hunt, who could be found dancing it up with the best of them surrounded by her loyal coterie of staff, who are still slightly in shock that she is leaving them. One tricky moment came when Hunt bumped into Paul Revoir, the TV correspondent of the Daily Mail, which welcomed her appointment at the BBC with the headline "Dumbed down blonde to run BBC1". Monkey looks forward to reading a blow-by-blow account of the ensuing donnybrook on Paul's blog. Who's the scary looking guy in the glasses on the masthead, Paul?

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without an intervention from the Liberal Democrat culture spokesman, Don Foster, decrying the number of yuletide repeats on the box. "As channels dish up yet more of the same old Christmas fare, it's not surprising that viewers are turned off by Christmas TV," Foster whinges in his latest press release. Not at all similar to what he said last year, then: "This Christmas Day's TV schedule will leave many people with a real sense of deja vu." And this, way back in 2003: "Unless the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five show some imagination urgently, Christmas day will soon seem like wall-to-wall UK Gold." The only surprise is that the Daily Mail didn't pile in today to give the BBC an all-too-predictable kicking, but give them a chance, there's still 11 days to go. Anyway, Don, here's a Christmas message from Monkey: we're getting a sense of deja vu - there are too many repeats in your press releases. It shouldn't surprise you if we start switching off.

He's got £750m in the bank, but a burning ambition still resides in the heart of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The composer and star of several BBC talent shows has never before appeared in a soap - but he will now after Hollyoaks made him an offer he couldn't refuse. The Mirror reports that he said: 'I have blurred fiction with fact all my life, but never before on national TV. Bless Hollyoaks for asking me.' Bless Hollyoaks? Any dream will do, Andrew.

Archers and out
A night of high emotion for Observer staff at departing editor Roger Alton's leaving bash at The Larder - and on the pavement outside, where the smokers gathered - in St John Street near the paper's Farringdon office yesterday. It was like attending a giant family party. In keeping with his obsession with The Archers, which spilled over into the occasional leader column, Alton was presented with a signed copy of last night's script of the Radio 4 soap, and a mocked-up eight page version of the paper, devoted to celebrating and lampooning his quirky originality and eccentricity. The spoof Obs promised an Observer Archers Monthly - "brilliant new FREE magazine, 1001 Lists of Lists"; and an Alton fashion feature - "Men's Style - why pink shirts and black suits will never go out of fashion".

Hold the front page... I forgot to write it!
The large picture of Roger Alton on the front page of his spoof leaving edition had a bubble sending up his scepticism about new media and love of the printed word. "OK, OK, I know I said I'd write the splash headline but I have to finish my podcast first; then I was hoping to update my blog and I'm desperate to upload some video on my home page, so Bob, Bob [Poulton, production editor]! Hold the front page, for f...'s sake!"

Forget left and right, stop all frightfulness
The leader inside sent up his regard for Tony Blair and support for the war on Iraq. "If a bunch of mad mullahs hate freedom so much they want to drag their country into vicious, bloodthirsty civil war, how is that the fault of Tony Blair (Peace be Upon Him)? ... By God, the left is repulsive. Hideous, pompous, Polly Toynbee-reading speed camera-erecting, pious, self regarding people, always banging on about cuts to the health service, seemingly unaware that the NHS is a frightful Stalinist behemoth... But of course, this newspaper prefers not to think in terms of left and right... we consider it our moral obligation to be frothy and aggressive in opposing the hideous outrage of shameful frightfulness wherever it raises its disloyal, cowardly, swivel-eyed head."

A true gent
John Mulholland, who succeeds Alton as editor, kicked off the formal speeches, which ran from 9pm to 11pm, with comfort breaks in between to allow half the staff to go out for a smoke, and the other half to recharge their glasses. Mulholland touched on "Alton time" - "The clocks are wrong, start the strategy meeting without me" - and his adherence to "one of life's great privileges": locking himself in the gents' toilet on Fridays, to read proofs in peace.

Tearful farewell
Roger Alton was visibly moved by a "Thank you Mr Alton" video made by children assisted by Kids Company, of which he is a patron, and another of the subjects which featured in his paper. As 11pm approached he finally took to the floor and told his staff: "All the good things about the paper are down to everyone here... it's been a fabulous evening, nice place, nice paper, I'm so proud of you. Thank you very much." The tears in his eyes were reflected back in the eyes of the hundreds who clapped and cheered.

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson fans of the world, this is the moment that you have been waiting for. The Mirror reports that a new episode of marionette masterpiece Stingray will hit BBC4 on January 2 as part of a tribute programme that will also feature a Thunderbirds episode. The episode features previously unused footage, so Monkey can't vouch for the coherence of the plot, but won't it be great to see Captain Troy Tempest again.

It's Christmas fundraising time. The London Evening Standard has launched its Christmas Charity auction. Monkey is thinking of bidding for Lot 21: Dinner with Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley at the Wolseley. But only if it's on the record, Veronica! That said, Lot 15: a round of golf with Mickey Clark, Evening Standard stock market report, also appeals. Imagine the fuss if Monkey went for Lot 29: A Day in the Evening Standard Newsroom.

There aren't many senior women at the Daily Telegraph, so the departure of Alice Thomson, assistant editor politics, from the Sunday editing rota has raised some eyebrows. Editor in chief Will Lewis has already expressed his unhappiness about lack of female executives at the paper. The latest move follows former Sunday Telegraph editor Sarah Sands saying that the company is not misogynist "but it looks as if it is just more comfortable with men". Lucky, then, that Thomson is being replaced by features supremo Liz Hunt and not another bloke.

So who will replace James "Insanely Hot" Harding as the Times's business editor now Harding has become the paper's editor? Given how the Financial Times is acting as an editorial training school these days, you might expect Harding to pick one of his old mates from the Pink 'Un. Among the candidates from the FT is companies editor Charlie Pretzlik, no stranger to runners and riders lists for prestigious vacancies on the City beat. Pretzlik has a headstart on his rivals too - he recently interviewed new Wapping supremo James Murdoch. Just as Harding found when interviewing James's dad, Rupert, back in 2002, it's no bad thing to catch the eye of a prospective boss. See here - and scroll down to the Murdoch interview on November 1 - to see how well you think Pretzlik's job audition went.

Nuts magazine has done some wacky things in its time, but has the IPC lad's mag taken things too far this time? Its latest campaign aims to "make darts sexy". Yes, that's right, the pub game that allows men with beer guts to masquerade as elite athletes is to get sexed up. And who has the magazine turned to assist in this uber-makeover? None other than "Crafty Cockney" Eric Bristow, five-times world champion in the 80s. "In 2008 Nuts aims to make darts sexy," the mag pants. "Joining forces with Eric Bristow, Nuts is now running the Nuts Darts Academy and training two of Nuts' most darts-mad models, Lindsey Strutt and Kayleigh Pearson, in the noble art of tungsten tossing." Bristow elaborates: "By making it sexier with the Nuts girls training in I'm sure we'll see even more young men following the sport closely. Of course, it can't do the game any harm to get some young ladies involved too. I've been impressed with the girls' enthusiasm for the game - it's a perfect example of how darts is really becoming more popular with all sorts of people." Bristow and the girls are all promoting this commendable initiative at a "training day" at a pub in Old Street, London, tomorrow. Game on!

A night of farewells at News International, as Times staff said goodbye to departing editor Robert Thomson at the paper's Wapping offices at 5.30pm. Hours later across town at the Soho Hotel, James Murdoch was on hand to witness departing News International executive chairman Les Hinton be farewelled in a speech by group managing director Clive Milner. At the Times, Thomson gave a speech, as did deputy Ben Preston and comment editor Daniel Finkelstein. Gifts included the traditional spoof front page, flowers and a Peter Brookes cartoon before staff gave Thomson the traditional printers' "banging out" of the newsroom.

Thought that you had heard the end of disgraced media baron Conrad Black? No way. The Telegraph reports that the peer will be granted email access when he begins his six-year prison sentence on March 3, meaning all the world's journalists will only be one click away.

What do you get when you put a gaggle of media hacks, plenty of free booze and a handy recording studio together? A massacred version of Do They Know It's Christmas? it seems. The good people at Sky One blew the budget on their Christmas party last night with a mini-recording session of the Band Aid song to mark the forthcoming launch of new quiz Don't Forget the Lyrics. For those brave enough to listen, be warned - it ain't pretty. And yes, that is Sky One controller Richard Woolfe doing the Bono line. In the interests of good journalism, Monkey feels it only right to name and shame those responsible. Among the guilty were the Daily Mail's Paul Revoir, the Sun's Sara Nathan and Colin Robertson, the News of the World's Dan Wootton and Rachel Richardson, the Daily Star Sunday's James Ingham, the Daily Star's Michael Booker and Gareth Morgan, the Daily Mirror's Alun Palmer and Mark Jefferies, and the Express's Christian Guiltenane and Suzanne Kerrins. The assembled hacks also received a new iPod Touch, worth around £200, which when you add it all up could have paid for a new series of Cirque de Celebrite. Monkey couldn't make the bash but, like any good simian, always likes receiving free gifts of bananas and Apple gadgets. Not that we're bitter, like.

America's Got Talent, Simon Cowell's US talent show featuring the Hoff and former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan as judges, has become one of the world's biggest new formats. But Christian Schneider-Sickert, the director of operations and strategy at the show's producer FremantleMedia, has revealed that mistakes were made on the first series that "didn't fit with the core proposition of the brand which is family entertainment". But what could they be? "We had a 70-year-old stripper, which was amusing for younger audiences but doesn't fit with family values," he said. Fair enough. "And a Russian transsexual. It didn't really gel with what the brand stood for." Monkey wonders what the American audience would have made of the Kit Kat Dolls, the drag queen act that got kicked off Britain's Got Talent for allegedly selling sex.

The good people of Gawker have got ever so slightly hot under the collar over James Harding's appointment as editor of the Times. "Insanely hot biz editor to helm London Times" is the headline on the Gawker story. Not everyone agrees, though. "You people have some weird ass taste in men," posts one visitor to the site, while another suggests "He looks like he has lots of back hair." How unkind. Harding might prefer to read this comment, from someone calling themselves Arundel. "He's Harding me, fer shure." Steady on, people! Not for nothing does Gawker headline the piece "Shallow media coverage". Monkey wonders if the fact that Gawker was set up by Nick Denton, who like Harding is an ex-Financial Times hack, has anything to do with all this attention.

Monkey is a sucker for a publicity stunt to, say, launch the DVD release of a movie of a long-running TV series. So it is with some inevitability that we turn to the release of the DVD of the Simpsons Movie, which was accompanied by the appearance of the "Spider Pig" (you'll have to watch the movie) between the chimneys of Battersea power station in south-west London. Older readers will remember Pink Floyd did a similar thing with a pig (but not the spider bit) to accompany the release of their Animals album 30 years ago. Unlike the Pink Floyd animal, Spider Pig did not break free of its moorings. At least, not when we last looked.

Simon Heffer's tenure as the Telegraph's saviour of style (see below) has already got off to a rocky start. The email ordering all the group's journalists to attend his style briefing on Wednesday gave the date as November 12 - a month ago. D'oh! Such embarrassment, particularly as a corrective email had to ping to everyone. As a wise old sub once told Monkey: Check, check and check again.

Simon Heffer to the rescue! After the Daily Telegraph shamed itself recently by referring to the Queen as HRH and not HM, (see below), editor-in-chief Will Lewis has tapped up the Heff to sort things out and appointed him what Telegraph wags are already dubbing "style counsellor". Heffer will address all editorial staff at 11.30am on Wednesday and will concentrate on matters of how to style and forms of address. "Attendance is mandatory" the email warns. Sounds a better idea than relying on Wikipedia, which was Telegraph head of news Chris Evans' helpful suggestion. Is the Heff gonna Shout to the Top? Just watch out for his Ever Changing Moods.

A computer program that poses as a flirtatious internet surfer is stealing people's identities in chatrooms, reports the Guardian. Criminals are using the virus to contact people in chatrooms and steal personal information. Wags have dubbed it CyberLover.