Has a new Hollywood law been passed that women must henceforth get a hard time in trendy, left-field rom-coms? Looking at recent output, particularly the latest US hit, (500) Days of Summer, there seems to be a new trend for female characters being placed in the background or in the wrong, but definitely nowhere women want to be.

Alarm bells should have rung with (500) Days when one found the Smiths featured prominently. Sure enough, the hero (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) turns out to be channelling high-octane passive aggression through a moody indie kid haircut he's far too old for. Meanwhile, the wonderful Zooey Deschanel isn't allowed to become a real character, rather a cipher for his self-important misery.

It gets to the point where Morrissey, wailing on the hero's behalf (to paraphrase: "Please, let him get what he wants because it will be the first time!") creates a problem. I don't think I'll be only female thinking: this guy shouldn't get what he wants. He is a miserable, bitter little freak, and even an under-written girlfriend is too good for him. Then again, what else should one expect from the latest in "vérité rom-coms"?

At what point did supposedly cool, postmodern rom-coms start mainly peddling the male point of view? When did the requisite "refreshing new twist" become casual misogyny? Although engaging in places, this film is a case in point. Never mind (500) Days, one is barely 20 seconds into it before a female is being "jokily" referred to as a "bitch".

From there, Deschanel, the Great Rejecter, is variously portrayed as messed up, strange and cold. Even then, she does better than most heroines in such films who have had guys vomiting over them or had to fall in love while making porn movies. And while Judd Apatow may seem to have started this with the likes of The 40-Year-old Virgin and Knocked Up, to me, it seems more sub-Apatow, many of these rude, crude, shoddy efforts having followed in the wake of the director's generally superior fare.

This is not meant in support of the archetypal formulaic rom-com: (Love Actually? No, frankly). However, at least the classic (female-driven) rom-coms rarely resort to spewing outright misandry. In Bridget Jones's Diary, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant didn't end up sourly slated, with vintage Alanis Morisette screeching in the background. Indeed, the question must be raised: who ever agreed to the sulking, hating, misery nerds taking over the rom-com asylum?

Strangest of all with (500) Days is this sense that women should be grateful for the role reversal - the fact that a man is hankering after a woman. The same hero who refers to his muse as an "evil, emotionless, miserable human being" who "took a giant shit on my face"? Oh yes, we're very grateful.

Indeed, this is the point when you think about it - wasn't this kind of woman hatred once confined to slasher movies? There might even have been more honesty in giving "uppity bitches" axes through the face, instead of sullen character assassinations behind their backs. It's as if Hollywood is saying: "Guys, bring me your nastiest, most screwed-up thoughts about women and we'll turn them... into gentle romantic comedies!" Which appears to be the real (industry-based) "new twist".

At least Lars von Trier's Antichrist is brazenly weird about women - there can be no ambiguity when Charlotte Gainsbourg spends one scene trying to lop off her clitoris. By contrast, the likes of (500) Days try to hide their casual misogyny behind vérité. (This is what guys really think!)

Well, maybe some of us are weary of "what guys really think". What about what women are really like? Indeed, Smiths soundtrack or not, eventually it's going to have to sink in that "chicks" in "chick movies" don't have to be treated so miserably.

Get a life, Madonna, and while you're about it, give Lourdes one, too

How deliciously creepy that Madonna has dressed daughter Lourdes up as a mini-me for her video, Celebration. Or am I just missing out on the latest maternal trend? "Hey daughter, get over here, I want to crimp your hair like it's 1985!"

It might be more forgivable if La Ciccone had chosen another era. Frozen would have worked. Cherish also, if you forgot the waves crashing suggestively between the thighs in the video. However, Lourdes is dressed circa Like a Virgin, when Mum's Madonna/whore boy-toy complex was at full pelt. How old is Lourdes again? Twelve? Lovely.

Then again, it could be that Madonna isn't so "out there" or crazy. She may be just be an extreme example of Generation Ego, a swath of modern parents so self-indulgent they find it unbearable to conceive that their children may end up as completely separate beings. Their children are not props, but human beings with lives and accomplishments of their own? Get out of here!

So let's all send our children into the world as mere DNA replicants, who must exist only to reflect past parental glories, little human memory boxes, discarding fanciful nonsense such as personal destiny and autonomy. As Lourdes might say if the poor mite weren't 12, what's all that beside the honour of being your mother's own second-generation drag act?

I'm living proof that Terry Wogan can be wrong

I have mixed feelings about Terry Wogan saying news-reading is a piece of cake and that anyone can read the autocue. On the one hand, Wogan seems commendably anti-pompous (he was reacting to an incident when Kate Silverton was rubbished for her makeover show background). However, he is wrong. For some, telly stuff is anything but easy.

Maybe you have noticed I am never on TV. Is this because I high-mindedly refuse to sully my craft with tawdry forays on to the nation's screens? Yeah (shifty glance) if you like. The truth is that I'm bad on TV - the sort of shocking car crash bad that doesn't come around very often.

Once, years ago, I did an autocue test for a cultural vehicle where my delivery was so deep-frozen they practically had to melt me with blowtorches afterwards. Another time, lured on to a cable show, I spent so much time twitching, gulping and clawing at my neckline an assistant asked if I was having an asthma attack.

Then there was my stint as host of What the Papers Say. In retrospect, my performance was a fine, postmodern meshing of Albert Brooks's sweating scene in Broadcast News and Ray Liotta having his brain eaten in Hannibal.

Once the tumbleweed had finished bouncing, I was enfolded in a group hug by the production team, apparently deeply moved by my refusal to be held back by my obvious learning difficulties.

This is how I decided that TV wasn't for me (or did TV do the deciding?) Also why, while I get all giddy and flattered to be asked on, say, Question Time, people who know me always say: "Don't do it, you'll be sacked." The consensus is that if I value my career, I should hide myself from public gaze and remain cringeing and snorting in the shadows.

In my defence, I'm not alone. A colleague tells me that whenever he's on TV he's irresistibly reminded of Guy Goma (the guy the BBC famously wrongly interviewed). Indeed, there's no shame in this unless people like Wogan start piping up.

Sorry, Tel, you're mistaken, this TV-autocue thing is a definite and separate talent - you're fortunate if you have it and, if you don't, be advised to steer well clear.

Good times?

It's revealed that supervisors at the US embassy in Kabul have been holding parties featuring abuse, nudity, brawls, urination on guests, and the eating of crisps and drinking of vodka shots from people's "buttock cracks". The west should consider itself mortified. After the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, it comes to something when US staff trying to show Afghans a good time sounds even more grisly.