Bill Keller makes it official this morning: Boldface, the Times kinda-sorta gossip column, will end its amusing and sometimes awkward run Friday. (Related question: What is this damned column actually called? In the current design of the Metro section, it's clearly slugged as merely "Boldface." People refer to it as "Boldface Names," which we assumed that was a mere vestigial holdover from previous layouts, when the column actually bore that title. But now Keller is calling it "Boldface Names" as well, and one would assume he knows. So maybe B2 simply gets the name wrong, and we're wrong to follow B2's lead? We have no idea.) Keller also confirms that bearded Boldfacer Campbell Robertson is having "a romance with the Culture Department," which we're taking to mean his rumored move to the Broadway-reporting beat is in fact in the offing. We've asked Campbell for comment; we hope to have something appropriately witty and narrative — perhaps with a showtunes reference! — shortly.

Katie Couric's deal at CBS may have her making $60,000 per day, but that doesn't mean she can throw her money around — she's got two daughters and hundreds of stilletos to provide for. Couric has no choice but to keep a strict budget, as a reader working with an uptown nanny farm learns:

A tipster writes to tell us that despite what newly deposed Cargo staffers may have been told, finding a new job within the halls of Condé might not be as easy as one would hope. Though we can't exactly confirm much of this, let's just say that we don't find the following completely implausible:

There's no new news on Radar today — nothing on the likelihood of 3.0, nothing on the funders of 3.0, nothing on who'll be around for 3.0. But that's certainly no reason not to engage in ongoing rampant speculation.

We neglected to mention this morning a blind item in Ben Widdicombe's Gatecrasher column:

• For their weepy reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC casting execs are hunting for families with multiple children born with Down's Syndrome — or, even better, kids suffering from Progeria, aka "little old man's disease." Sad, but we always knew Ty Pennington was bad news. Never trust a dude in a hemp necklace. [TSG]
• Through the power of lemonade, one girl will try to save Lil' Kim from the harsh realities of prison life — now in pre-production for Lifetime. [Philadelphia Will Do]
• How to be a really questionable curator, courtesy of those daffy dilletantes at the Whitney. [Art Fag City]
• We're not sure if the author of the following post is really named Jen, but could she actually be the mythical Evelyn the Food Whore? [Craigslist]
• Wearing Prada loafers for your Condé Nast job interview means nothing if your family isn't sitting on piles of money. [Almost Girl]
• Who uses Meetup these days? Rat people, that's who. [Meetup]
• You're not going to believe this, but: Celebrity publicists use gossip columns as PR tools. We know, we know — is nothing sacred? [OPRN]
• Last but certainly not least, the kings and queens of Manhattan now know how to shit like royalty. [NYM]

• Not content with going after Bob Schieffer's sloppy seconds, Katie Couric is now taking Laura Ingraham's as well. [Lowdown]
• Fidel Castro likes Serrano ham. This was Page Six's lead item. [Page Six]
• Crackhead Pete pleads guilty on seven counts of possession, kicks reporter. Ever feel like Crackhead Pete gets more done by 9 A.M. than you do all day? [NME]
• Britney Spears seen pounding shots. At this point her condition has been downgraded from "pregnant" to "gut." [R&M]
• Michael Jackson wants to meet, molest, extraterrestrials. Yeah, that's the joke we're going with for this one. [Lowdown (2nd item)]

Is there anything more delightful than a publicity firm "leaking" you "news" in the form of a pre-written unsourced item? Only when the faux-news involves the intrafamilial goings-on of Donald "If she wasn't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her" Trump:

Yesterday we received the following email:

This morning, we posted an extremely choice blind item taken from the UK's Mirror. The short version: While on vacation with his wife at St. Andrews golf heaven, an American A-list actor exposed himself to a hotel masseuse and forced her to watch as he practiced self-love.

Sometimes you have to cross the pond in order to revel in the sublime. From the UK's Mirror:

Aged and increasingly irrelevant gossipeuse Liz Smith, in today's Palm Beach Post:

As a coda to her controversial column "Nicole Kidman deserves to be happy," antediluvian tattler Liz Smith notes that her own recent appearance on "CBS Sunday Morning" sent her book Dishing (a "little work about celebrity and food"; and here we'd thought Gael Greene had cornered the market on geriatric culinary gossip) soaring toward the rafters of the Amazon rankings. In a subtle dig at the inability of The Post to move merchandise, Liz puts this down to the power of television. We're just impressed that the seven aged viewers of "CBS Sunday Morning" were able to switch from their TV screens to their internet connections and successfully order the book, which, hopefully, is available in large-print format.

We apologize for not quickly posting the answers to Friday's blind item guessing game — but, well, you kids actually have to guess in order for us to post some results! Even if you've not the slightest clue on blind items, we live for you to pull random, nonsensical answers out of your well-sculpted asses.

From Page Six:

Back in September, as you may or may not recall, the Observer reported that Lowdown Lloyd Grove's Daily News contract was for two years, not the previously reported three, that it was set to expire that month, and that the paper likely wouldn't keeping him around. The two-year anniversary came and went, and Lloyd remained at the News.

It can't be mere coincidence that celebrity break-up reports start piling up in the weeks approaching Valentine's Day. One need only catch a passing glimpse of a calendar violated with a red Sharpie-scrawled heart around the 14th, and the words "Dinner with my sweetie!" taunting menacingly from inside, to convince oneself that the grinning, insufferable creature who has been surfing one's coattails for far too long needs to hit the curb. But there's more than merely passion fatigue at play with the epidemic's latest victims—Ralph Fiennes and his partner of 11 years, Francesca Annis there's also the home-wrecking Romanian chanteuse factor, and the question of just who dumped whom:

From this morning's blind items:

We're loath to do two blind item days in a row — just fathoming the possibilities for Cokey Jan was exhausting — but today's Page Six can't be ignored:

Today is something truly special, folks — Cindy Adams' yorkie-gossip column is actually worth reading! She writes of a person on Broadway, who she dubs "Jan" so we won't know whether the person is male or female. And, of course, Jan has a problem: