Comic Relief

During the huge Comic Relief production Funny for Money (BBC One), the first segment was hosted by Claudia Winkleman and some guy. Try as I might, I couldn't remember Some Guy's name even after I wrote it down, but that could have been because I was so knocked out with the way Claudia looked. At first glance, she looked like a visitor from some planet where the women have beautiful legs and no eyes. But at second glance, I spotted that she did indeed have a pair of eyes somewhere behind her fringe, and at third glance I noticed that she was wearing a perfectly judged frock.

Here were the British showing the Americans how to do it. All we need now is a bit of confidence to go with the manifestly superior sanity. Unfortunately such confidence is hard to come by, because the Americans wield a heavy cultural influence over the rest of us even when they are doing something so glaringly wrong as to load an over-glamorous outfit onto an averagely glamorous woman. It's almost 70 years since the Second World War and the British are still in thrall to that postwar mentality by which it was taken to be self-evident that only the Yanks could build desirable cars.

Rowan Atkinson angers his older brother over sketch

Rodney Atkinson says he was 'appalled' by his brother Rowan's foul language in his Comic Relief sketch about the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Comic Relief: Red Nose night raises record £75m

Celebrities and the public have helped this year's Comic Relief charity telethon raise a record £75m so far.

Red Nose Day BBC1 telethon attracts 12.2 million peak

Last night's Comic Relief telethon on BBC One pulled in a peak of 12.2 million viewers, the latest overnight data has shown.

Comic Relief review: Funny for money - or was it?

No collection of comedians could make us laugh non-stop for nearly seven hours of fundraising, but some moments stood out for the right reasons.

Celebrities in action for Red Nose Day

A host of celebrities are lending their support to this year's Comic Relief to help raise money for good causes.

It's been 25 years since the first Red Nose Day brought amusing people together to do jokes and ask for your charitable donations, so there are some anniversary-worthy treats lined up for tonight. The Fresh Meat gang migrate over from Channel 4, while Miranda Hart is doing a UK-wide jaunt that sounds like a modern version of Challenge Anneka. Russell Brand is back at the Beeb for the late-night presenting shift, and Ricky Gervais will attempt to atone for the last three years of comedy duds with a new instalment of The Office.

Ricky Gervais reviving The Office's David Brent, Miranda Hart giving Call The Midwife a baby comedy makeover, Jessie J shaving her head and Peter Kay in physical challenge and pop promo mode promise to be among the highlights as Comic Relief bigs up its 25th birthday. So if clamping a red nose on your hooter doesn't tickle your fancy, just settle back and raise a glass and a chortle as a raft of hosts, including Rob Brydon, Jack Whitehall and Russell Brand, tackle such dubious tasks as introducing Simon Cowell's wedding video. Someone's having a laugh with that one, surely.

I managed to get an exclusive sneak preview of what Jessie J might look like once she's had her head shaved tonight. It's not great, to be honest.

What I did is, I put Jessie's photo into the hugely amusing Bald Booth app on my iPhone, which magically shows you what anyone will look like as a slaphead. And a few seconds later - hey presto! - there she was, smooth as a pickled egg.

Well, almost. The snag is, this ingenious app doesn't actually erase the hair on either side of a person's head, just on top, so Jessie ends up looking more like my Uncle Norman.

I can't imagine that's the look she'll be hoping for tonight. Having said that, you don't catch my Uncle Norman complaining.

As for the other highlights of tonight's marathon, they include Ricky Gervais returning as David Brent, Jack Whitehall going head-to-head with Micky Flanagan in a special MasterChef, Simon Cowell getting married, sort of, and One Direction treating us to their offcial Comic Relief single, Pledge Fifty Quid And You're Allowed To Give Each Of Us A Good Slap. To donate, call 03457 910910.