Helen Mirren, ass over tit

Emmy snobbishness over Helen Mirren's British credentials and accent allowed the actress to get away with spouting a rude Britishism on last night's Emmy Awards that would have gotten a lesser, American actress censured and the network fined. But because she won an Emmy for playing a stately queen, because the guy with his finger on the bleep button probably didn't understand what she said, and because her win followed her director's, who was so up himself in his acceptance speech that you know he celebrated his win by getting spanked, she was able to lighten things up with a saucy mention of falling "ass over tit," a common Cockney expression that's been cleaned up for American ears to "head over heels."

It's worth noting that Dame Helen, who is among our finest actresses and topped all police dramas with her Prime Suspect series, is a real dame: a legendary dirty birdie, a bawdy wench once affectionately known around the Old Vic as "Shakespeare's slut," a game gal who's never been shy about getting off her kit or pulling down her knickers and going ass over tit in any number of movies from Age of Consent to Caligula.

(And if you're interested in more Page Three-style Mirren images, we found some here...)