No Champagne, no bite-sized tasty morsels on a silver platter, no floor-length designer dresses and definitely no limos. This isn’t a January party-detox, it’s the result of the Writers Guild of America strike. This week, the Golden Globes ceremony was cancelled, and the winners announced at a brief press conference instead. (Brits did well, by the way Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor and Ian McEwan?s Atonement carried off Best Film.) There are dark rumours that the much-hyped Oscars could be cancelled next month. If you think that all these over-praised luvvies are hardly being deprived… well, you have a point.

But the strike is threatening to change the climate of Hollywood over the next few months, and I don’t mean the smog. After 11 weeks of striking, pre-written scripts are running out, and productions have closed down. Talk-show hosts are having to write their own jokes, and who knows what that will do to their ratings. And us girlish town mice won’t know what to wear to parties without the red-carpet displays. But there is a silver lining. Perhaps our home-grown stars will have a chance to shine at the BAFTAs instead.