WARMEST wishes go this week to hotel heiress, Chihuahua aficionado, perfumiere, DJ and fingerless glove wearer Paris Hilton on the joyous occasion of her 40th birthday and engagement to her "twin flame".
Paris is betrothed to a venture capitalist called Carter Reum who popped the question during a beach stroll on a private island, armed with a ring created by "a group of the finest diamond cutters, polishers, jewellers and setters" including the great-great grandson of Louis-Francois Cartier.
"When you find your soulmate, you don't just know it. You feel it," Paris explained on all her social media platforms.
She's talking about Carter and not the Cartier ring, right?
"I said yes, with all the joy and confidence and comfort that comes with knowing he's more than my love. He's my twin flame. My other half, my best friend and my soulmate."
Sleb Safari is delighted for her. Paris is a woman who can turn her fingerless gloved hand to anything; as evidenced by, to select but two achievements at random, her singing career and her short-lived but much missed Cooking With Paris YouTube tutorials.
"Today I am going to teach everyone how to make my famous lasagna" she announced in the first episode and from there it was "don't use these lasagne sheets", and "don't get this mozzarella, get the grated one". One can only wonder whether the person whose job it was to buy the ingredients ever found work in Hollywood again.
Paris has form with engagement rings so her twin flame might want to double check the fit on this one. Three years ago, Paris was dancing in a Miami club when her $2m rock from a previous fiancé flew off her finger, sailed through the air and landed somewhere among 7,000 sweaty clubbers.
Her people locked that club down and the ring turned up in a Champagne bucket. Paris put her good luck down to her "amazing karma".
"The ring was just so heavy and big that while I was dancing it literally flew off my finger into an ice bucket a couple of tables over," she tweeted.
"Thank God by some miracle my fiancé found it before someone else did and most likely would not have returned it. I am so lucky!"
It's a great anecdote but Sleb Safari's all-time favourite misplaced celebrity engagement ring story still belongs to Love Island's Olivia Buckland.
"We went to a strip club and got really drunk and I passed out at the hotel," Olivia said, by way of scene setting.
"When I woke up [the ring] wasn't on my hand. I freaked out, but eventually found it down the side of the bed."
Paris, forewarned is forearmed, no Miami clubs and no strip clubs, mmkay?
Dancing On Ice is running out of contestants
DANCING On Ice – the show where they ask celebrities to strap the world's sharpest knives on to their feet and run hand in hand across a treacherously slippy floor – is having a bad time of it.
This year's series has been beset by falls, injuries, surgery, slings, self-isolation, positive Covid-19 tests and what have you, but surely the most bizarre of all was professional skater Hamish Gaman having to pull out because he injured his finger putting on a sock.
What was this sock made of? Razors?
At this rate there will soon be so few contestants that Torvill and Dean are going to have to compete against each other.
Sally Rooney's Conversations With Friends adapted for TV
IRISH author Sally Rooney's debut novel, Conversations With Friends, is getting the TV treatment and the cast has been announced.
Conversations With Friends was an excellent read and Sleb Safari is looking forward to seeing it on the telly. How and ever, Sleb Safari so enjoyed the book Normal People, and its delicate love story, that it couldn't face the TV show for fear of disappointment.
Also, any time it encountered a photo or clip of Connell and Marianne, all Sleb Safari could see were two adults in their 20s wearing school uniforms and its resolve not to watch was further strengthened.
High Five, Dolly Parton
THIS week's hat tip is in the direction of Dolly Parton who is in possession of a great many fundamental necessities, including a titter of wit.
A Tennessee politician had introduced a bill calling for Dolly to be honoured with a statue in the grounds of the Capitol in her home state but Dolly didn't feel that "putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time".
"I am honoured and humbled by their intention but I have asked the leaders of the state legislature to remove the bill from any and all consideration," she said in a statement.
"Given all that is going on in the world, I don't think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time.
"I hope, though, that somewhere down the road several years from now, or perhaps after I'm gone if you still feel I deserve it, then I'm certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean.
"In the meantime, I'll continue to try to do good work to make this great state proud."
High five, Dolly Parton.
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) February 18, 2021
