Gennaro Castaldo watch: Sticks and Stone

Our favourite HMV spokesperson hasn't had a dickie-bird to say about the poor performance of his company - really, doesn't Gennaro's constant presence in the public prints count for anything in the way of customer loyalty? - but that could be because he's been too busy elsewhere.

He's got an opinion about those USB sticks, for example, telling the Metro:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said: 'Success for this format would create a growing case for the Official UK Charts Company to consider making them chart eligible.'

Which is a textbook example of Castaldo being so cagey as to be meaningless: If the USB stick does well, then there would be ground that might make it worth the chart people thinking about including them in the sales, perhaps.

Gennaro's on safe ground when telling the Sunday Herald about Ray Quinn and Ben Mills's album sales:

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for HMV, said: "Ray Quinn has the biggest-selling album this week. That means, based on first-week sales, his album will be up there alongside the biggest-selling albums of the year like the Kaiser Chiefs.

"Ray is outselling both Take That and Ben by about two to one. Take That look like they'll be at No 2 with Ben Mills at No 3 in the charts."

Castaldo said Quinn and Mills's success was down to "clever marketing".

"This is a significant gifting period around Mother's Day. This time last year Journey South and Andy Abraham were selling hundreds of thousands of albums, and before that I think G4 released an album around the time of Mother's Day.

"The reason why Ray and Ben are so popular is as women want to mother Ray and they'd like to seduce Ben."

The logic of Castaldo's remarks here - that Quinn's terrible album has sold well because of "the gifting period" but you can extrapolate sustained sales from this, would suggest that Journey South and Andy Abraham had records amongst the best selling of last year. Since we don't recall the sky turning quite that black over the Christmas period, we'll assume they didn't.

But then, Gennaro seems a little more obsessed with the eye candy on offer from the two interchangable sock puppets. Talking - again - to Metro at the end of last week, he was again thinking about old ladies having sex with Ray:

"This is shaping up to be a close chart battle between the cute lad that women would like to mother and the sensitive hunk they would like to seduce."

But since Gennaro reckons all this is down to people giving gifts on Mothers Day, surely it's academic whether women want to fuck or fuss over the blokes? Isn't it down more to what their kids think they should like (or, more likely, the one discounted most deeply in Tescos?)

Elsewhere, Gennaro held out some false hope to Joss Stone - via LifeStyle Extra - that her terrible publicity campaign wouldn't sink her career like, well, that ever-present stone metaphor:

It had been feared that a string of UK publicity blunders might have left Joss's career in tatters, but Gennaro Castaldo from HMV said: "I think there's every chance Joss will be in the top 10 by the weekend.

"Within a few weeks, Joss's album will easily overtake Ben Mills and Ray Quinn and I can see it making the top five.

"Maybe her British publicity isn't as great as it was but I'm sure people will still buy this album and it will do very well."

Of course, the suggestion that Stone will outstrip Quinn directly contradicts his claims that Quinn's album will be one of the year's best sellers, but never mind - after all, Castaldo's promise of a top ten showing for Stone never showed up, anyway.