In the women's mags: Wheel out Katie and Tom when gossip is scarce

Adoption fight over Angelina Jolie's son Maddox in New Idea.

We can't get enough of those Katie and Tom clinches and Woman's Day knows it. In a week where the gossip pickings are as slim as Paris Hilton's lunch, Woman's Day devotes its cover and a four-page photo spread to an analysis of the oddities of the relationship between movie star Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Without any new paparazzi snaps of the pair, the mag gets a psychologist to go back on the ones we've already seen and tell us what we already know.

Her body language: juvenile and childish. His: insecure and clingy. He has a weird tendency to grab her by the back of the neck - is this why Nicole always wore her hair up?

Odder still is the transformation of Katie into a sort of modern day Stepford Wife of the sort recently played by Cruise's ex, Nicole Kidman, in that rather dull film remake.

Katie is not allowed to choose her own wedding dress for her July 7 wedding. At these nuptials a lineup of blue-uniformed Scientologists will form part of the congregation, on the face of it as a tribute to L. Ron Hubbard, but probably more to stop Katie from bolting.

"Run, Katie, run," is what her friends would say to her if they could ever get hold of her. One person who did manage to get through the Cruise Control System was Kidman, who met secretly with Katie to pass on some coping skills so the Tom Cruise machine doesn't run her over.

If only Dawson of Creek fame was a real live character. Katie might listen to him.

The hard yards are evident in New Idea, which has resorted to bikini shots of Princess Stephanie and fuzzy shots of Athina Roussel-Onassis' wedding. These B-list Europeans make way on following pages for the latest turn in the Angelina Jolie affair.

Her previous husband, Billy Bob Thornton, is about to play tug of war with Brad Pitt over the little chap called Maddox.

While Pitt has signed a petition seeking to adopt the first two of Angelina's globally sourced brood, Billy Bob won't give up the rights to Maddox without a fight.

With so little fresh gossip, the Woman's Weekly takes a punt on a local cover story, taking twinkle-toes Norm Hewitt for a spin with rather too much information about his newborn daughter, an umbilical cord and a pair of scissors.

It wouldn't be the festive season without at least one marriage on the rocks.

According to the Weekly, Britney Spears hit the roof over her husband Kevin Federline letting someone called the Weed Man into the house, and he wasn't there to mow the lawn. So incensed her new baby had been exposed to illegal drugs, she had her husband's new $240,000 Ferrari towed back to the dealership.

New Idea also takes Britney's side of things, saying she is playing hardball, but leaves room for Kevin to clean up his act.

In case you are overwhelmed by indifference, at least New Idea has trawled through its photo archives to give us a fix of stars in before-and-after-stylist shots. The ancient one of Liz Hurley, chowing down on what looks like a cake made from a stack of pikelets, with calves to match, is the cream of the crop.