Had I remembered that the movie Deja Vu brought together the unholy trinity of Tony Scott, Jerry Bruckheimer and Val Kilmer, it would not have made it onto my Lovefilm DVD rental list.

I say “remembered” because I suspect I read and heard reviews on its theatrical release in December 2006, made a mental note to avoid it at all costs and consequently didn’t cough up good money to see it.

I cannot recall witnessing such a grotesque waste of money for some time.  Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite, shite, shite.

Two hours of my life wasted.  Well, not entirely wasted – I drank a nice bottle of red and ate some Easter chocolate.

Inexplicably the Minister’s Wife wouldn’t let me eject the damned DVD after 30 minutes, as I suggested, but fulsomely agreed with me as the final credits rolled that the debacle we had just witnessed was indeed inexcusably bad on every level.  (If I’d known the aim of the evening was to expose ourselves to poor dialogue, predictable scripts, patchy acting and pedestrian directing I could have cut out the middle man, saved myself a couple of quid and just left ITV1 playing.)

Depending on which website one chooses to believe, the production budget for Deja Vu was either $75,000,000 or $80,000,000.

If Hollywood wants to produce and release such unadulterated fanny, why don’t they just point a digital camera at a random minge for two hours, project that onto a 40 foot high screen and donate the other $74,999,000 to charity?

Deja Vu grossed $181,000,000 in cinemas across the globe and another $40,000,000 in DVD sales in the US alone.  The Minister and his wife have five degrees between them, so what the fuck do we know?

While I’m spitting venom, it seems it may now be time to confess to my preposterous loathing of Diane Ernestine Earle Ross and everything she stands for.

Don’t get me wrong – I like a lot of music with which Diane Ross has been involved.  I Hear A Symphony, You Can’t Hurry Love, You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Love Child, Someday We’ll Be Together, Upside Down, Chain Reaction – these are seriously good pop records and there are at least another dozen Supremes/Ross tracks almost as good.

And yet, and yet.  Ross is at best a serviceable singer with limited range and a relatively weak voice – Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson were both technically much more proficient and could actually “do” emotion.  The only reason Diane Ross ended up front and centre as Diva Diana is because she was “do”-ing Berry Gordy.

The merest mention of Diane Ross on the TV or radio can send me into an involuntary Tourette’s-style rant that is both irrational and Pavlovian.

The reason for mentioning this is that one of my favourite websites, Popdose, this week published an article that helped me realise that I was not alone.

Berry Gordy is a powerful man. Not only did he found Motown Records, building a musical empire that allowed blacks to crossover into what had pretty much been a white-controlled music industry, but almost as amazing, he was able to convince a young Diana Ross that her crap doesn’t stink, and she has not deviated from that belief one iota over the past 45 or so years. In an industry of big egos, the one belonging to Miss Ross (remember, she must be addressed as such or you will be thrown out — and don’t you dare look her in the eyes!) is likely the biggest, and she has wielded it to not only obtain her huge success, but to build herself into a prick so immense that it would make porn stars gasp.

Now that, my friends, is what you call an opening paragraph.

While neither the best singer nor most attractive member of The Supremes, Ross did have one important thing up her sleeve, namely, Mr. Gordy’s penis. After unsuccessfully pursuing Smokey Robinson, Ross set her sights on (the married and 15 years older) Gordy. As the mistress of Motown’s founder, she was able to gain full power over the group, becoming its lead singer, getting its name changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes, and upstaging the other members, eventually leaving and employing the full power of the Motown promotional machine behind her solo career, while The Supremes were left to sputter out slowly over the course of the ’70s. Ross, meanwhile, ended up bearing Gordy’s child in 1971, but did not publicly acknowledge who the real father was for 22 years, until she released and was promoting her autobiography.

Bravo, Matthew Bolin!  I didn’t need anyone else to confirm what I’ve always thought (though I’ve always planned to be among the first to buy the long-since-written, honest-for-the-first-time Ross biographies that will emerge shortly after her death and she can’t sue anymore) but – on the grounds that there is safety in numbers and that it’s always nice to be proven right – genuinely, thank you.