Gennaro Castaldo Watch meets Gordon in the Morning: It's a special Christmas episode

It's like David Bowie turning up on the Bing Crosby show, as the two titans of filling media space come together to mark the most magical time of the year. Even Gordon Smart knows that if you need an inarguable but unilluminating quote about record sales, it's a call to HMV you need:

Gennaro Castaldo, of music chain HMV, said: "Rage has taken a slight lead, as you'd expect given the size of the Facebook campaign.

"But we believe Joe's cover of The Climb will come storming back over the next few days.

"Chances are that the best part of half a million copies of the X Factor single will be sold over the rest of this week."

Gordon has headlined his piece about the Rage v X Factor sales drive "exclusive", despite consisting of nothing more than mentioning Joe is behind at the moment but expected to catch up tomorrow, quoting Castaldo, and giving the latest odds. All of which everyone was reading yesterday. Apart from the Castaldo quote. Perhaps Gennaro has now become a celebrity who The Sun is buying up.