Revenge is a dish best served for lunch

Is your heart bleeding right now? Well, it will be when you read about the terrible time poor little Angelina Jolie is having. Apparently Brad took Shiloh to dinner at ex-wife Jennifer Aniston's house and Ange is not happy. Ah, our hearts collectively bleed for you. After cheating on Jennifer, publicly humiliating her and pumping out Brad's baby, a lunch is the least she can have surely. But according to Star magazine, Brad and Ange are over if he ever goes to lunch again.

"Angelina went totally ballistic," said the source. "She was shouting so hard at Brad that the veins were bulging in her neck. She told him in no uncertain terms that they were finished if he took Shiloh anywhere near Jennifer again. Angelina couldn't believe it. She asked Brad what the hell he thought he was doing, and why he was humiliating her like that."

This is the bit I love: "Angelina told him, 'She, Jen, is just loving it. Can't you see? She's in touch with your mom, too. She might as well move in with us.'"

You can see why Aniston is doing it. She's waited long enough to get her revenge, first with Mommy Pitt and now with Baby Pitt. But what is Daddy Pitt up to? No good, that's what.

The Long Game

Jennifer Aniston certainly knows how play the long game. Her husband might have left her for another woman but Jen can still throw a little chaos into his life. By maintaining a relationship with Brad's mother, who clearly yearns for the old days before Angelina, Jen has the power to piss off her replacement. What better way to eat away at Brad and Angelina's relationship than by hanging out with your ex-mother-in-law? You just know Jen and Brad's mother are not going to be talking about how Angelina is the best thing that every happened to him.

When you pitch Jen against Angelina in the mother-in-law league table, you just know who's going to win. Nice, inoffensive, good with parents-in-law versus weird, tattooed, good with perverted obsessives (Billy Bob Thornton). Angelina wins in the beauty stakes but that's not really going to win over all but the most superficial mother. She's going to want to see her son happy and settled not flitting round the world collecting children like this season's must-have handbag.

All those years of carefully nurturing her relationship with the Pitts is paying off. Never let it be said that Jennifer Aniston lacks strategic vision. Angelina might have Brad now but Jen has the trump card: his mum.

Spice Girls MKII

I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. I don't want the Spice Girls to get back together but it looks like it's happening anyway. Posh is on for it and, despite her repeated rejection of the idea, Melanie 'Sporty Spice' Chisholm is on for it too.

There's nothing like five careers in stagnation to trigger a reunion. Sporty may be big in Germany but that's nothing to be proud of. The Hof is big in Germany too. Enough said. With another baby to bring up on her own (Eddie Murphy, you are scum), Scary Spice is clearly on for it too. Ginger can only milk her own child so far for publicity so it's back on the road for her too.

With a camera crew following her every anorexic step, Posh couldn't hope for any greater event than the Spice Girls' reunion. Meanwhile, she's making do with edging other celeb hopefuls into every shot. Check out Paul Sculfor, Jennifer Aniston's latest man toy, in the background on the left. Oh, and it looks like Victoria's forgotten her skirt again.

Take Two

Is it just me or do these pictures look similar? Brad looking down, as if vowing obedience and devotion to someone he's ultimately going to dump. The one with Jolie, from The Good Shepherd premiere last night, has all the hallmarks of a couple in love but then so does the one with Aniston. Ange and Jen might be on opposite sides of the Brad divide now but, a few years down the line, they may well have something to talk about.

For the time being, Ange has extended what she sees as an olive branch to Aniston, saying that she'd be willing to meet her but "that would be her decision, and I would welcome it." For the dumped wife, I'm not sure 'olive branch' would be the best way to describe it. Maybe a 'slap in the face' or 'a way for the adulteress to assuage her guilt' would be? Because peace is surely the last thing you'll get from meeting your ex-husband's new partner, the glamorous, edgy, big-breasted one he left you for and had a baby with.

And I'm sure that Ange's interview in the January issue of Vogue is also not bringing much peace and love to Ms Aniston's festive season. Despite saying that Brad was clearly with "his best friend, someone he loves and respects" when he and Ange first met in 2003, the two developed a "strange friendship and partnership that kind of just suddenly happened. I think a few months in I realized, 'God, I can't wait to get to work.' … Anything we had to do with each other, we just found a lot of joy in it together and a lot of real teamwork. We just became kind of a pair."

By the end of shooting Mr & Mrs Smith, though, their loins had started to itch or, as Ange puts it, "it took until, really, the end of the shoot for us, I think, to realize that it might mean something more than we'd earlier allowed ourselves to believe. And both knowing that the reality of that was a big thing, something that was going to take a lot of serious consideration."

So they entered that phase of being "very, very good friends" (don't you just love the euphemism?) from the time the movie wrapped in 2004 until after Pitt and Aniston split in January 2005.

It's a lovely story, particularly at this time of year; it fits right in with all the other Yuletide fables and myths. And the ending has 'Christmas tale' written all over it. One day, says Ange, Maddox "just out of the blue called him Dad. It was amazing. We were playing with cars on the floor of a hotel room, and we both heard it and didn't say anything and just looked at each other. So that was probably the most defining moment, when he decided that we would all be a family." Aah, now there's a story to warm your cockles on a cold winter's evening. Or, alternatively, a crock of shit to change the public perception of Ange and Brad from adulterers to caring parents. Good humanitarian work, and a sanitised version of your relationship, doesn't cancel out your other misdeeds.

The Pitts

Ah Jennifer Aniston, you're not having a good week, are you love? All this Vince break-up stuff has been a pain, especially as you probably split up a while ago and have just been playing the happy couple for the sake of good PR. But then your philandering ex-husband goes and decides to marry that damned Jolie woman before Christmas. At least he's not planning one of those Tom Cruise media events, complete with a magazine deal and a crazed but handsomely paid bride. At least it'll be in South Africa and only Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Madonna and Guy Ritchie will be attending. That's got to be some small consolation, hasn't it?

The other consolation will be that it will be Angelina's third marriage and Brad's second. Statistically speaking the odds are against them which won't make Jennifer feel better now but might make all the difference when the Lips decides she's over marriage and wants to have an open relationship with a eunuch instead.

The Break-Up

Life is imitating poor romantic comedies again. After enacting a break-up on film, Jennifer 'The Chin' Aniston and Vince 'The Advancing Forehead' Vaughn have split up. No surprises there. They've been working in different countries and according to various catty reports, Jennifer is very needy. Clearly needing to be in the same city is just asking too much for some men.

Now that Jennifer is back on the market - or probably more accurately, back weeping at Courtney Cox's kitchen - she could do worse than hitting the town with newly single Rachel Bilson. The OC actress has split up with Adam Brody after three years. There's nothing like starting the holiday season as a romantic refugee.

And spare a thought for old Spice Girl Mel B. After a whirlwind relationship with Eddie Murphy, Mel is five months pregnant and suddenly single. Not only that, but the gallant Mr Murphy is also contesting paternity. Why not kick a woman when she's down (and carrying your child)?