One half of the richest couple in the world, the only person to wear anything by the House of Dereon and Beyonce Knowles - also known as just Beyonce – has absent mindedly become embroiled in something of an ‘international situation’.

No, it wasn’t because her stage show has been condemned as an ‘insolent sex party’ or that her plans to stage a concert in Trinidad has been met with protest from the island’s residents as it will mean the budget for their annual carnival will be slashed – but, because she chose to spend her New Years Eve renting herself, and her husband, out to the little known spawn of one history’s most famed Libyans, Colonel Gaddafi.

Now, The Sharpener usually prefers to use it’s choice of supermarket and post code as political signifiers, but when it comes to antagonists such as Hannibal Gaddafi (yes, the very same Hannibal who in 2001 attacked 3 policeman with an fire extinguisher in his hotel room) we feel pretty justified in both our bemusement at Beyonce’s decision to persue money at any cost, and in condemnation of her audience.

We can only imagine that Beyonce has been taking advice from the genius publicist who has been behind various stonking A-list moments – including when Jane Fonda was photographed with the Viet Cong in the midst of the Vietnam War, when Mariah Carey shared her views on emaciated children and of course, whoever thought Mylenne Klass should rebrand herself as the next Tony Martin.

I.e. it wasn’t a great move. With American popular consensus not being in the forgiving or understanding mood when it comes to the Gaddafi family, and with Beyonce riding high on a wave of success, it is perhaps unsurprising that the media, at large, has queried her performance, and that the normally PR savvy Knowles-Zs have come unstuck.