It comes as a great relief to learn that Sir Elton John has laid to rest his public and, quite frankly, childish feud with George Michael, a British pop star of lesser stature. The bloody hatchet having been buried, we are free to move on to other, more pressing, matters . . .

Hot off the press: Joe Eszterhas, the man who gave us Basic Instinct, has published his autobiography. It’s called The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God . . . He means it as a compliment: In his own newly published autobiography, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, Rupert Everett suggests there is a "male quality" to Julia Roberts that is in large part responsible for her success in the male-dominated world of movie-making. In an excerpt that appeared recently in The Daily Mail of London, Everett describes Roberts as "a kind of she-man, a beautiful woman with invisible balls." . . . Now, that’s scary: Kevin Federline’s debut album, the appropriately titled Playing With Fire, will be released on Halloween. The husband of Britney Spears has a distribution deal with Sony BMG through his own label, Federation Records. "PopoZao," the first single from the album, was released earlier this year to less than critical acclaim, and that’s putting it mildly. Federline himself has since dismissed the single as a prank . . . Lost in translation: Linguistics is not our strong suit, so please correct us if we’re wrong, but isn’t "PopoZao" a cutesy colloquialism our Portuguese pals use in praise of the female derriere? Does the expression "nice ass" ring a bell?

A friend indeed: On her 25th birthday earlier this month, Beyonce Knowles received the key to a 1959 Rolls-Royce convertible. It was a gift from her close companion Jay-Z. According to the New York Post, the classic car cost the rapper a cool million US . . . Can’t tell the players without a program: David Spade and Heather Locklear have decided to go their separate ways, as have Ashlee Simpson and her guitar player boyfriend Braxton Olita. Ashlee is now dating Pete Wentz, bass player for Fall Out Boy, who recently dumped rising starlette Michelle Trachtenberg. Our thanks to Us Weekly for keeping tabs on these developments . . . She’s calling the shots: The Irish Times informs us that Gwyneth Paltrow, star of stage and screen, is now directing music videos for Coldplay, the British rock band for which her husband, the temperamental but talented Chris Martin, sings lead vocals . . . In Hollywood, anything’s possible: Ridley Scott tells the World Entertainment News Network that he plans to direct a sequel to The Gladiator, with Russell Crowe taking a break from tossing telephones to reprise his title role in the Academy Award-winning film. This, despite the fact that Crowe’s character, Maximus, died in that movie.

Nice work, if you can get it: It says here in the New York Post that Jenny Phillips, a makeup expert with the Portofino Sun Spa in Beverly Hills, moonlights as a beauty consultant to Mariah Carey, applying a spray-on tan to the pop singer’s body before each and every concert . . . On again, off again: According to Entertainment Tonight, Orlando Bloom and Kate Bosworth are splitsville. Which could make things very interesting indeed on the set of Seasons of Dust, a Depression-era drama in which Kate portrays a woman who seeks refuge with a farm family after her grandfather commits suicide, and Orlando plays a crook who is one step ahead of the law . . . Great expectations: Marcia Cross, of Desperate Housewives fame, and her husband, Tom Mahoney, are looking forward to the arrival of their first child together. The baby is due in April . . . We know the feeling: Jessica Simpson has been unceremoniously dumped by John Mayer because she talks too much. At least, that’s the word from the blabber-mouths at Us Weekly magazine . . . Christmas cheer: According to The Sun newspaper in London, Lindsay Lohan’s 12-year-old sister, Ali, will have a CD out in time for the holiday season.

We’ll give the final say this week to an unidentified but presumably credible spokesperson for Brad Pitt, who curtly denounced the rumour circulated in a recent issue of In Touch Weekly that Pitt’s wife, the breathtakingly beautiful Angelina Jolie, is pregnant. "It’s so stupid," the spokesperson told the New York Daily News. "That magazine is a joke."