British pop star Lily Allen was back in the tabloid spotlight this week with what reports described as a very drunken appearance at Glamour magazine’s awards. Her hair dyed bright pink, the 23-year-old was photographed being carried out of the venue, suggesting her condition could be fairly described as “legless”.

In a blog on her Web site shortly after the event, the singer of 2006 hit “Smile” who has a reputation for partying hard admitted she had gone too far.

“Last time I wrote here, I was defending my honor and dignity, explaining my innocence and also outrage at the press for insinuating my behaviour was embarrassing,” she wrote. “This time I’m putting my hands up, I got very drunk last night, too drunk. It’s not cool getting that drunk, I feel awful and I have to thank my little brother Alf for getting me home safely.”

She had a few words of advice for fans and peers: “Kids, drink responsibly or you’ll end up looking like this, not pretty!” But Allen concluded the blog post with the words: ”Was quite fun though, from what I can remember. Need fry up now.”

While Britain cannot claim to be in the same league as the United States when it comes to troubled young starlets, if you consider Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton to name but a few, Allen and troubled jazz singer Amy Winehouse are giving the London-based paparazzi a run for their money.

Safely back in the UK it’s time to bid farewell to another Cannes film festival. It’s the kind of event that you get excited about before, are fed up with while it is happening, never want to experience again by the end, and then long for a few months down the line. Does that make it like many marriages?

Unlike some of the miserable, grim and ultra-serious movies that Cannes likes to showcase, this year’s festival had a more Hollywood-style ending. After a competition of 22 films that started well, then deteriorated markedly, the 12-day festival was saved at the death by “Entre les Murs”, a stirring drama set in the classrooms of a tough Parisian high school.

It was the last competition film to screen to reporters, many of them long-faced, exhausted and slightly depressed about the string of duds they had sat through. Then, all of a sudden, as if from nowhere, they had something to get excited about. Called The Class in English, the film was remarkable for the realism that the teacher and untrained teenage actors brought to the screen as well as for its exploration of hot political issues like immigration, ethnic integration and violence.

It also underlined the power of language, pitting the street talk of the children against the classical French taught by the school and asking whether one is more valid than the other. When the teacher oversteps the mark in a heated argument and calls two of the girls a French word translated as “skanks”, it is a shocking moment of high tension.

The fact that the film went on to win the top Palme d’Or prize, a prestigious award in world cinema, made us all feel much better about life. Sean Penn and his jury made a popular choice. The only thing that baffled many critics, was why “Waltz With Bashir” won nothing. The Israeli animated documentary was hailed as a ground-breaking way of looking at one of the darkest passages of recent history in the Middle East.

As a mere reporter, it is not often I get to mix with the rich and famous on the red carpet. But I got a rare chance this week when the organisers of the annual amfAR AIDS charity bash asked me and a few other reporters along to cover their star-studded event just outside Cannes.

After waiting an hour in a traffic jam just outside Mougins, where the giant marquee for 700 dinner guests is put up, the short walk along the packed red carpet to the entrance felt almost as long. Rows of reporters, including several colleagues, shouted out to just about everyone except me, or so it seemed. When one cameraman I know did finally acknowledge my presence, it was not to take a picture of me but to ask if I would take a picture of him. With a sigh and a smile, I did.

Treading on the back of elaborate and doubtless expensive dresses was a major concern, as was getting hold of a cocktail or two before the dinner and charity auction began. No surprises for guessing that the organisers put me in the far corner from the stage and we even had different crockery from the rest of the tables. But that’s not a complaint. Most of the guests paid for their places at the charity event to see Sharon Stone, Madonna, Dennis Hopper, Sean Combs and others on stage. The food and wine was the same, at least.

In one of the more bizarre mixups at this year’s Cannes film festival, the makers of Clint Eastwood’s competition entry did not actually know what it should be called.

Years of planning, casting and shooting, and Clint and his team could not even agree on the title by the time the world’s press descended on Cannes to see it.

They could agree on one thing — the title in French, which is “L’Echange”. Originally the movie starring Angelina Jolie as a 1920s mother who loses her son was down as “Changeling” or “The Changeling”, depending on who you asked. OK, I can just about handle debate over a “the” or two.

But then the production notes arrive in our press boxes and the translation is “The Exchange”. The problem came up at the press conference this week, when Clint and Jolie both added to the confusion by failing to confirm it either way.

When told that “The Exchange” had been put down in writing, Clint would only reply: “It may be in writing, but is it the truth?” Watch this space.

Welcome to the world of the movie junket. Ever see “Notting Hill”, where Hugh Grant waits around in a swanky hotel waiting for his few minutes with the stars of a new movie?

It’s a reasonable representation of the “junket”, a rather unflattering but nonetheless apposite term to describe the short TV interviews studios organise to give news channels and agencies access to stars. The reason: news media need soundbites for their stories.

 Today was another “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” day on the junket front, and the blockbuster which had its world premiere in Cannes has taken over the 7th floor of the plush Carlton hotel for the last few days.

Overhearing actor Jim Broadbent asking “how many more?”, I learned that there were seven, four-to-five minute slots left with 17 already done, and that was all by lunchtime.

Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and crew all did their best to sound fresh and new at the end of a gruelling few days of media over-exposure, and bleary-eyed reporters waiting in crammed rooms and corridors shared the usual grumbles about life in Cannes.

It could have been worse. One early round of interviews here took place before the film was even shown, and despite the size of the operation on Monday morning, I was out of the hotel in under two hours, six “junkets” in hand.

So, we finally saw the new Indiana Jones movie, which is the biggest show in town at the Cannes film festival this year.

There was a scramble to get into the packed press screening, with reporters waiting up to two hours to ensure a spot, and reviewers were sending out their opinions on the internet within an hour of it finishing.

OK, there was warm applause at the end of the screening, which for Cannes’ fussy reporters and critics is good going for a family blockbuster. But it also has to be said that the cheers at the start of the movie were far louder than those at the end.

This makes me think that once the euphoria and hype in Cannes settles down, and more considered opinions are printed, we are actually going to get a much more mixed reaction that at first seemed the case.

Not that this matters much to the movie’s box office prospects. Even critics who were less than impressed expect that the popularity of the original films and the anticipation that has built among movie goers will ensure a huge commercial return.

The Jolie show is in town.

Angelina is in Cannes and Cannes has gone crazy, well, the media has, and as she graces the red carpet for two films featuring at this year’s festival, the fans will soon get their chance to join them.

Of course, public and press alike all love an A-lister, but the interest has grown along with Jolie’s bump, and she has just confirmed she is expecting twins. Her flowing white dress is a valiant attempt to keep our focus on the films, not the family, but it will be to no avail.

The normally tranquil, albeit crowded Wifi press room in the main festival building predictably descended into chaos as photographers and cameramen clambered over furniture, as well as startled writers peering into their laptops, to get a shot or 50 of Jolie crossing a walkway just outside.

Security guards slid windows shut and journalists slid them open again. Guards slid them shut again … and so on and so on. There was the inevitable tantrum as one man holding a video camera had his shot ruined by the window passing in front of the lens. Swear words were exchanged, the reporter stormed off, Jolie left, so did the snappers, and tranquility was restored.

Cannes jury president Sean Penn defied French anti-smoking laws on Wednesday, lighting up a cigarette at a news conference at the start of the Cannes film festival.

Joined by French actress and fellow jury member Jeanne Balibar sitting next to him, Penn needed little persuading after one of the journalists present asked facetiously whether people with medical needs would be allowed to smoke.

Smoking in public buildings has been banned in France since 2007.

Around 40 extras dressed in giant panda suits waddled on to the pier outside the Carlton Hotel in Cannes with actor Jack Black on Wednesday to promote Dreamworks’ animated feature “Kung Fu Panda”.

The stunt, carefully orchestrated and watched by dozens of photographers and camera crews, underlined the importance of the world’s biggest film festival for promoting movies which have nothing to do with the main competition.

Black, who provides the voice of the main character Po, capered about with a series of kung-fu moves and posed with actors who voice the film in French, Portuguese, Japanese and Spanish. “Together, we’re creating an international panda sensation,” he remarked.

It is just over 12 hours until kickoff for the world’s press in Cannes covering this year’s film festival. Looking out from a swanky Wifi cafe at the Palais des Festivals, the view is the picture of tranquility — gleaming yachts bob up and down in the marina, couples stroll along the Croisette seafront as the sun sets, and glamorous girls serve coffee to reporters still tapping away at their laptops.

The calm won’t last. Reporters are advised to start limbering up for their first scrum. That is likely to be a “media event”, otherwise known as a chaotic stunt, to publicise “Kung Fu Panda“, a Hollywood animation comedy coming to town. Minutes later, there is the press screening of the opening film “Blindness”, which officially gets the 2008 edition of the festival underway.

The list of potential “flashpoints”, when sleep-deprived, highly-strung hacks attempt to get into venues more often than not too small to accommodate them, is endless.

But, as the old saying goes, someone’s got to do it, and few, if any, here in Cannes, would want to give up their place.