Sony Awards honour 6Music, shames self with nominations

First, the encouraging news: 6Music has received seven nominations in this year's Sony Radio Awards. Amongst the shortlisted names are Jarvis Cocker, Lauren Laverne, Adam & Joe, Huey Morgan and Steve Lamacq.

It's a nice acknowledgment of the high regard in which the station is held. And only slightly undermined by Nick Ferrari getting five nominations for his rotten show. And - oh, sweet jesus - even nominated that toe-curling Bono poem about Elvis for something.

The recently downsized Radcliffe and Maconie show has been nominated for best music programme.

Here are the nominations in full - deep breath:

Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus)

5live Breakfast
BBC Radio 5live News for BBC Radio 5live

Kiss Breakfast with Rickie, Melvin & Charlie
Kiss 100

Nick Ferrari at Breakfast
LBC 97.3

The 1Xtra Breakfast Show with Trevor Nelson & Gemma
BBC Radio 1Xtra

Today
BBC Radio News for BBC Radio 4

========


Breakfast Show of the Year (under 10 million)

Breakfast with John & Jules
BBC Radio Kent

Dixie & Gayle, The Real Breakfast Show
Real Radio Yorkshire

Heart Breakfast With Tom, Lynsey & Jack
Heart Sussex

Steve & Karen at Breakfast
Galaxy Network Imaging for Galaxy North East

The Andrew Peach Show
BBC Radio Berkshire

========

Best Music Programme

Dermot O'Leary Show
Ora Et Labora for BBC Radio 2

In Tune
BBC Radio 3

Lauren Laverne
BBC 6 Music/BBC Audio & Music for BBC 6 Music

The A-Z of Classic FM Music
Classic FM

The Radcliffe and Maconie Show
Smooth Operations (Productions) for BBC Radio 2

=========

Best Specialist Music Programme

Huw Stephens
BBC Radio 1

Jools Holland
BBC Radio 2 Live Music for BBC Radio 2

Sounds Of The Sixties
BBC Radio 2

World Routes
BBC Radio 3

Zane Lowe
BBC Radio 1

=======

Best Entertainment Programme

Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio

Heart Breakfast with Jamie & Harriet
Heart 106.2

Steve & Karen at Breakfast
Galaxy Network Imaging for Galaxy North East

The Capital Breakfast Show
95.8 Capital FM

The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show
Absolute Radio

=======

Best Speech Programme

Behind Bars
Prison Radio Association for Electric Radio Brixton

Nick Ferrari at Breakfast
LBC 97.3

Nihal on BBC Asian Network
BBC News for BBC Asian Network

Witness
BBC News & Current Affairs for BBC World Service

Woman's Hour
BBC General Factual for BBC Radio 4

=======

Best Sports Programme

Blue Remembered Thrills - Everton at Wembley
BBC Radio Merseyside

Sportsound
BBC Radio Scotland Sports for BBC Radio Scotland

Sportsweek
Front Page Media for BBC Radio 5live

The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast
talkSPORT

World Football
BBC World Service Sport for BBC World Service

========

Best News & Current Affairs Programme

Newshour
BBC World Service News & Current Affairs for BBC World Service

PM
BBC Radio 4

The Andrew Peach Show
BBC Radio Berkshire

Today
BBC Radio News for BBC Radio 4

Victoria Derbyshire
BBC Radio 5live News for BBC Radio 5live


===========

Best Breaking News Coverage

Alzheimers' Tragedy
BBC Radio Current Affairs for BBC Radio Ulster

Corus Teesside Mothballing
BBC Tees

Cumbria Floods
BBC Radio Cumbria

The Peckham Fire
BBC London 94.9

The Release of the Lockerbie Bomber
BBC Radio Scotland News & Current Affairs for BBC Radio Scotland

=========

Best Live Event Coverage

Absolute Blur
TBI Media with Absolute Radio for Absolute Radio

Comic Relief: The Kilimanjaro Climb
BBC Radio 1

London Jazz Festival
BBC Radio 3, BBC Scotland, BBC Wales, Unique Production Co & Somethin' Else for BBC Radio 3

Test Match Special: The Ashes
BBC Radio Sport for BBC Radio 5live Sports Extra, BBC Radio 5live & BBC Radio 4

The Funeral of Harry Patch
BBC Somerset & BBC Radio Bristol

======

Best Community Programming

Ali Booker's Cancer Diaries
Oxfordshire's 106 JACK fm

BBC Academy Great Ormond Street Hospital Audio Podcasts
BBC Connect & Create for Children First for Health

Behind Bars
Prison Radio Association for Electric Radio Brixton

The New Ballads of Reading Gaol
BBC Radio Berkshire

Yvette's Early Christmas
Beacon Radio for Beacon Radio (Black Country)

=========

Best Internet Programme

Answer Me This!
answermethispodcast.com

Hackney Podcast: Water
Hackney Podcast.co.uk

Media Talk
Guardian News & Media for guardian.co.uk

Remembering Hillsborough
Real Radio North West for Real Radio.co.uk

Richard Herring: As It Occurs To Me
Sky Potato, Avalon & Ben Walker for The British Comedy Guide Podcast

=======

Music Radio Personality of the Year

Chris Moyles
BBC Radio 1

Christian O'Connell
Absolute Radio for Absolute Radio & Absolute Classic Rock

Lauren Laverne
BBC 6 Music/BBC Audio & Music for BBC 6 Music

Mike Toolan & Chelsea Norris (Mike & Chelsea in the Morning)
Key 103 Manchester for Key 103

Scott Mills
BBC Radio 1


=======

Music Broadcaster of the Year

Huey Morgan
Wise Buddah Creative for BBC 6 Music & BBC Radio 2

Loz Guest
Kerrang! Radio

Mark Lamarr
BBC Radio 2

Steve Lamacq
BBC 6 Music/BBC Audio & Music for BBC 6 Music

Zane Lowe
BBC Radio 1

========

Speech Radio Personality of the Year

Adrian Durham
talkSPORT

Eddie Mair
BBC Radio 4

Frances Finn
BBC Radio Nottingham

Jon Gaunt
SunTalk

Nick Ferrari
LBC 97.3

=========

Speech Broadcaster of the Year

Andrew Peach
BBC Radio Berkshire

Melvyn Bragg
BBC General Factual for BBC Radio 4

Nick Ferrari
LBC 97.3

Sir David Attenborough
BBC Natural History Unit Radio for BBC Radio 4

Victoria Derbyshire
BBC Radio 5live

========

News Journalist of the Year

Andover Sound News Team
Andover Sound

Ian Pannell
BBC Newsgathering for BBC Radio 4

Lyse Doucet
BBC World Service News & Current Affairs for BBC World Service

Nick Ferrari
LBC 97.3

Real Radio North West News Team
Real Radio North West for Real Radio

========

Best Specialist Contributor

Alan Dedicoat
BBC Radio 2

Chris Skinner
BBC Radio Norfolk

Mark Kermode
BBC Radio 5live

Maxwell Hutchinson
BBC London 94.9

Steve Levine
Magnum Opus Broadcasting Ltd for BBC Radio 2 & BBC 6 Music

=======

Best Interview

Eddie Mair interviews John Hutton
PM Programme for BBC Radio 4

James O'Brien speaks to Frank Lampard
LBC 97.3

Jenni Murray interviews Sharon Shoesmith
Woman's Hour, BBC General Factual for BBC Radio 4

Toby Foster interviews the Mayor of Doncaster
BBC Radio Sheffield

Victoria Derbyshire interviews Peter Bacon
BBC Radio 5live News for BBC Radio 5live

======

Station Programmer of the Year

Ed Baxter
Resonance FM

Euan McMorrow
Radio City 96.7

Paul Jackson
95.8 Capital FM

========

Best Use of Branded Content

Coca Cola - The Gift of Giving
95.8 Capital FM

NME Radio for Skins Radio
NME Radio

NME Radio Topman Takeover Show
Carat Sponsorship for NME Radio

One Last Dream with Guitar Hero
Absolute Radio for Absolute Radio & Absolute Classic Rock

The Southern Comfort 'Big Easy'
Jazz FM Productions for Jazz FM

=========

Best Single Promo/Commercial

Bristol's Big Give
Heart Bristol

Capital's Summer Time Ball - Boris Johnson
95.8 Capital FM

Dear Stan
talkSPORT Creative for talkSPORT

James Neale (for The Stop Smoking Service)
Maximum Productions for Pirate FM

Tourism Ireland: Apology for Apology for Jedward
750mph for Heart 106.2 fm, Magic 105.4 fm and Capital 95.8 fm

=========

Best Promotional/Advertising Campaign

BBC Radio 3: Composers of the Year
BBC Radio Cross Trails and Pure Tonic Media for BBC Radio 2 & BBC Radio 4

Capital's Jingle Bell Ball - I can't get tickets
95.8 Capital FM

MI6: A Century in the Shadows
BBC World Service Promotions for BBC World Service

Save JACK
Oxfordshire's 106 JACK fm

Vote Joe
Real Radio Programmes for Real Radio North East

=========

Best Competition

Battle Of The Boroughs
Heart 106.2

Beacon Radio's Midnight Drop
Beacon Radio for Beacon Radio (Black Country)

Chain Gang: Paper, Scissors, Stone.
BBC Radio 7

Sunday Sinners on Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio

Who's Calling Christian?
Absolute Radio

==========

Best Station Imaging

Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio

BBC 6 Music
BBC 6 Music

Gold Network
Gold Network

Kiss 100
Kiss 100

Oxfordshire's 106 JACK fm
Oxfordshire's 106 JACK fm

=======

Best Music Special

Angel of Harlem: The Billie Holiday Story
Document Productions for BBC Radio 2

Elvis By Bono
White Pebble Media / Ten Alps for BBC Radio 4

Liquid Assets: Tracing Handel's Thousands
BBC Radio 3

The Elbow Story
TBI Media with Absolute Radio for Absolute Radio

The Woodstock 40th Anniversary
Ten Alps Radio for BBC Radio 2

=========

Best News Special

Crossing Continents: Chechnya
BBC Radio Current Affairs for BBC Radio 4

Hacked To Pieces
BBC Bristol for BBC Radio 4

Passport To Murder
BBC Birmingham for BBC Asian Network

The Afghan Diaries - On The Front Line
Radio City 96.7

The Return to Hillsborough
Real Radio North West News Team for Real Radio North West

==========

Best Feature

Archive on 4: Working for Margaret
Brook Lapping Productions for BBC Radio 4

Child of the State
Above the Title Productions for BBC Radio 4

Kegworth 20 Years on
Trent FM Programming for Trent FM

Now Wash Your Hands
Loftus Audio for BBC Radio 4

Six Minutes Past Three: Hillsborough Remembered
BBC Radio Merseyside

=========

Best Comedy

Adam and Joe
BBC 6 Music/BBC Audio & Music for BBC 6 Music

Bleak Expectations
BBC Radio Comedy for BBC Radio 4

Down The Line - Credit Crunch Special
Down The Line Productions for BBC Radio 4

Mark Steel's In Town
BBC Radio Comedy for BBC Radio 4

News Quiz
BBC Radio Comedy for BBC Radio 4

========

Best Drama

Daniel and Mary
BBC Radio Scotland Drama for BBC Radio Scotland

People Snogging in Public Places
BBC Radio Drama for BBC Radio 3

Restless
BBC Radio Drama for BBC Radio 4

The Day that Lehman Died
BBC World Service Drama & Goldhawk Essential Production for BBC World Service

The Loop
BBC Radio Drama for BBC Radio 4

===========

Station of the Year (up to 300,000)

Andover Sound
Andover Sound

BBC Guernsey
BBC Guernsey

Moray Firth Radio
Moray Firth Radio


=========

Station of the Year (300,000 - 1 million)

BBC Hereford & Worcester
BBC Hereford & Worcester

BBC Radio Derby
BBC Radio Derby

Oxfordshire's 106 JACKfm
Oxfordshire's 106 JACKfm

=========

Station of the Year (1 Million plus)

BBC Radio Wales
BBC Radio Wales

Kiss 100
Kiss 100

Real Radio Scotland
Real Radio Scotland

========

Digital Station of the Year

Absolute Classic Rock
Absolute Classic Rock

BBC Radio 5live Sports Extra
BBC Radio 5live Sports Extra

Planet Rock
Planet Rock

========

UK Station of the Year

Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio

BBC Radio 5live
BBC Radio 5live

talkSPORT
talkSPORT

When your life can't get any worse, there's Lil Wayne

As if being in prison and suicidal wasn't bad enough, for some prisoners in the US, they're now going to have Lil Wayne in charge of making sure they don't kill themselves.

Couldn't they have put him in a position where if he makes a slip it won't be quite so fatal? Isn't having Wayne in charge of making sure you don't die a bit of the cruel and unusuals?

Tennessee t-shirt tussle

The splendidly named Cole Goforth tried to go to school wearing his Lady GaGa t-shirt. The school - Greenbrier High School - decided that I Love Lady Gay Gay was an offensive slogan, and sent him home.

It's now become a cause celebre - or, at least, picked up by Perez Hilton, and has turned into some sort of storm:

“I think they are singling him out… They’ve made statements that if he wore this in California, he’d fit in just fine,” Cole’s mom, Julie Gordon added.

Yes, California is known for its tolerant embrace of gays. Providing they don't want to get married, of course. You do have to love the idea of a student being told he can't wear his t-shirt because it isn't California.

Nobody seems to have pointed out the t-shirt is a bit rubbish and the slogan is poorly thought-out. Maybe that's why he was sent home.

The illustrated Hello: Little Neepsie, Chris and Do

"... and anyone else who knows me." One of two lines which are just the band name checking their mates.

It reflects back well on them, and makes them look good. Here, then, are the band looking good:



[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

The illustrated Hello: Paris Grey

Paris Grey - or Shanna Jackson, as her mam knew her - is another legendary vocalist. Her breakthrough came with this definitive Chicago House hit, Don't Make Me Jack (Tonight I Want To House You)



(That might very well not be an official video.)

The peak of her career, though, came when she joined up with Kevin Saunderson to form Inner City. You remember Inner City:





[Buy: Best Of Inner City]

[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

Twittergem: Digital Economy Bill

Interesting tweet from Nick King:

@madmezza Sorry I hadn't properly understood #debill Made some enquiries last night - strong opposition on our side to it passing in wash up

Who's Nick King? Tory candidate for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

That's not been the general picture emerging from Westminster, where the Conservatives have seemed quite happy to help push things through - perhaps the depth and breadth of opposition that was being shown on Twitter yesterday has spooked them?

Gordon in the morning: Man wears hat

Man wears hat.

Downloadable: New Young Pony Club

I can give you what you want. Oh, except that NYPC are basically trying to make us all forget that first, day-glo, kiss-chase first album to be better prepared for the new stuff.

Stuff like We Want 2, downloadable for free from RCRDLBL. Or out of this widget:



They won't be this generation's Younger Younger 28s.

Digital Economy Bill: Everyone is elsewhere

The constant mantra, both in the Commons and when Labour justify trying to rush the DEBill through in the closing hours of business of this parliament, is that it is important.

That it is vital. That it matters.

And yet how many MPs have put on hold their trips back to their constituencies for this important bill?

Bugger all. There's - what? - about a dozen, top whack, in the chamber.

If it's so important, where are the debaters?

NME on the eve of another revamp

A lovely big, positive piece on the NME and new editor Krissi Murison was the highlight of yesterday's MediaGuardian - the newspaper's enthusiasm for the magazine in no way influenced, of course, by the magazine's sponsorship of the newspaper's student media awards.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the article was this:

Now it is tempting to think of the magazine as a 58-year-old who, having given birth to numerous offspring, nme.com, NME Radio, NME TV, NME Awards tour and Club NME, is being eclipsed by them. [Paul Cheal, the publishing director of NME and Uncut], who masterminded this brand diaspora, begs to differ: "The magazine is the cultural heartbeat of the brand and a lot of our journalistic integrity resides in the magazine and then spreads out." But he admits the mass of readers has "shifted online", with nme.com enjoying 4.5 million unique users a month. Cheal maintains the magazine is profitable and attracts a healthy number of music and lifestyle advertisers.

It's not entirely unlikely that the magazine makes a profit - there is a fair degree of advertising and fluffy advertorial set against editorial which doesn't suggest too much in the way of Time Warner resources being burned through to create it - and if Cheal is being straight, a couple of thousand extra readers might be all anyone needs at the weekly to sleep well at night. For the next couple of years, anyway.

Mind you, if the title is in rude health, it makes you wonder why there's the need for a wholesale revamp. Perhaps it was part of the deal to bring Krissi Murison in.

And - from the first glimpses on MediaGuardian today - the overhaul doesn't seem too bad.

Sure, it's disappointing that the logo has been reduced to a single block of colour - but on the other hand, the words "New Musical Express" have been restored to the masthead.

Yes, the idea of ten different covers has been done to death, and doing a multicover for no reason other than your own redesign suggests there's not much else to shout about. But, the other hand shows, the design of all ten covers looks bloody great - even the Kasabian one would be lovely, if it didn't have Kasabian on it. These are acts of love.

The choice of the ten cover stars is quite the Curate's egg, too: a handful of irk-the-purists choices (Rhianna, albeit with a sweary word), a few of the sort of interesting and intriguing new acts you never saw on the front page during the McNicholas years, and some thudding, dull, safe choices (the aforementioned Kasabian, and Jack White.)

It's intriguing - from this distance, it's hard to tell if the aim is a steady-as-she-goes don't-scare-the-horses attempt to change the ship's direction, or merely adding some shading to try and give the impression of depth to a 2D publication. Murison's issues so far have been mixed - generally with one cracker followed by three ho-hum editions - but now, surely, this is going to have to be a new era?

The illustrated Hello: Barry Humphries

Creator of Les Patterson, Dame Edna and Barry McKenzie, Humphries also invented Australian experimental music - creating "Wubbo" in the 1950s as something between a dadaist prank and a full-on jest while a member of the Melbourne Dada Group.

There is a grim black mark on his record, though. In the guise of Dame Edna, he managed to get himself involved - briefly - in this:



Yes, he turned up in the Bee Gees' Sergeant Pepper movie.

[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

What is the NME's target market these days?

I only ask because... well... their sponsored advertising suggests they might not be quite aimed at the youngest audience any more:

Gordon in the morning: When friends fall out

Oh no, it must be Gordon's nightmare:

THE battle lines have been drawn between JLS and N-DUBZ.

The rival bands are competing for the same roles in a major new BBC drama.

Really? Who knew the BBC were working on a docudrama about the Outhere Brothers. That's surely it, isn't it?

Gordon always knew this day would come:

I was wondering when they would clash.

It was only a matter of time. It might have been Celebrity Gladiators. It could have been Come Dine With Me. But instead: it's here. On the streets of a major BBC drama.

What drama, actually?

The drama follows the lives of kids living on the fictional Rockindale and Brookdale housing estates in Hackney, east London.

Sounds a bit like a southern version of The Street to me.

In the sense that it will have people pretending to be other people saying words that have been written down, yes, Gordon, it sounds exactly the same.

Brookdale, eh? Rodney Bennett, where do they come up with these names.

It turns out the role that JLS and N-Dubz are scrapping for is only a cameo in one episode. Who is in the lead, I wonder. Does Gordon have an insider who can give us a hint?

N-Dubz have got the edge now. They are more gritty and more street.

I suppose so, yes. In the same way that out of Sooty and Sweep or Pinky and Perky, one of those pairs is going to be slightly more convincingly like the animal they're based on.

Mini liveblog: DEBill debate on Today

Geoff Taylor of the BPI has just been on Today talking about the Digitial Economy Bill. It's impossible to tell if he really is an idiot, or just happy to try and take people for a ride.

Amongst his strange claims were that it didn't matter that there wasn't enough time for proper debate in parliament as "there had already been a lot of debate in the media" and that it didn't matter the elected chamber would look at the legislation properly as the Lords already had, and that that was where most revisions to legislation took place. (He didn't mention that was where a BPI patsy had dumped some of his trades group's own words into the legislation.)

Taylor also claimed that all the parties supported the bill being jumped into law through wash-up - when it was pointed out to him that the Liberal Democrats didn't, he stuttered that they supported the general principle, as if that was the same thing.

When David Babbs from 38 Degrees raised the question of the risk of public web services being hit by the law - clearly talking about internet cafes and services like coffee shops with wifi - Taylor dealt with this point by ignoring it completely and talking about "technical measures" which "householders" could use to "secure their connection" - again, it's unclear if he really didn't understand the difference between 'protecting a home network against someone sitting outside in a car downloading files through an unlocked connection' and 'a public wi-fi service that would be useless if it had to be locked down to stop people accessing it', or if he was deliberately confusing the two. Neither option is particularly edifying.

In the topping of his call to trust the idea of legislation being chucked together as MPs pack their bags, though, was his reassurance that we don't need to worry about customers being targeted unfairly, as Ofcom would be drawing up the rules and overseeing how they work.

That's alright then. It's not like the man likely to be the next Prime Minister has effectively announced that the Tories intend to junk Ofcom and build a new, light-touch regulator. Apart from perhaps being told that nothing bad would happen without Stephen Byers saying it was alright, I can't think of a less reassuring piece of reassurance.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: He's got a red hot twelve inches

How many times now have we seen reporters suddenly "discovering" that vinyl sales rising again? There's another piece in the Times doing pretty much that this morning. Naturally, HMV's apostle of Lazarus formats Gennaro Castaldo is waiting by a phone to sort-of explain this:

Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said: “It’s pretty much a niche product compared with CDs and downloads, but a reasonably healthy one that you can see carrying on into the future. It’s seen off cassettes and you get the feeling it will also be around after CDs as well, mainly because it has an emotional appeal.”

I've read about two dozen pieces like this over the last few years, and nobody - not even Gennaro - seems to have thought that the real reason vinyl sales have started to grow, slowly, over the last couple of years has been the spread of digitising turntables simply making it easier to play and capture vinyl after a decade or so where anyone trying to buy a record player would have looked like Griff Rhys-Jones in that Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch.

The illustrated Hello: Brian Hayes

Brian Hayes is the man who was edged out of Radio 2 to make way for the return of Terry Wogan, when Wogan returned from TV. Oddly, they didn't invite him to pick up where he left off when Wogan quit again last year.

His phone-in show was quite popular with Snipe fanzine - his no-nonsense "well, you obviously haven't thought through your point, so I'm going to cut you off" approach was unusual back in the 1980s, in a world yet to have been touched by the joy of Talk Radio UK and James Whale being given a show.

There's not much Brian Hayes stuff around the internet - but, had Hayes not been busy keeping the seat at Radio 2 warm, Wogan would never have been free to run around the TV doing Historic Interviews like this, with Ken out of Bros:



And, likewise, without Hayes softening up British ears, James Whale would never have got to take his radio show to late-night TV, and we would have been denied this meeting with Wayne Hussey:



[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

Bob Dylan discovers forbidden city in Beijing

The Chinese authorities have decided that they don't want Bob Dylan playing Beijing. Or, for that matter, Shanghai. His China tour is thus off.

Apparently the Chinese government heard he'd let his music be used in ads for the Co-Op, and concluded that sounded a little too much like socialism for them to be comfortable with him turning up.

Whatever the actual reason, Dylan has scythed off a whole slew of other dates:

The verdict scuppers Dylan's plans to play his first dates in mainland China. The singer, who plays around 100 concerts a year on his Never Ending Tour, had hoped to extend a multi-city Japanese leg with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. All these would now be called off, Wu told the newspaper.

"With Beijing and China ruled out, it was not possible for him just to play concerts in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan," he said. "The chance to play in China was the main attraction for him. When that fell through everything else was called off."

I'm not sure that quite makes sense - "yeah, I really fancied playing Beijing so somehow organised a date in Seoul to make it happen"? It's not like Dylan's putting on a U2 style epic, and surely once the stuff has made it to Japan you might as well take it to Korea? Wouldn't the dates in China have been the more expensive part of the jaunt, given that there's less rock and roll infrastructure there - wouldn't axing those two dates make the others more lucrative?

And besides: allowing the Chinese government to effectively deny the people of Hong Kong and South Korea a gig they'd like to see? Is Dylan really sure he wants to play along with that?

How is EMI's panic going?

EMI's suicide-to-save-self plan to give its American records business away to a rival, in return for enough cash to stop the bank taking it over isn't going well. Variety reports that Universal didn't offer the sort of cash EMI needs, and a sniff from Sony failed to turn into any formal talks.

Which is probably just as well, saving them the horror of this conversation:

Guy Hands: Here, Mr Bank Manager, here's the latest part of the loan payback
Bank manager: Thank you. How did you fund this?
Guy Hands: Well, I sold off the rights to the entire US catalogue business for five years
Bank manager: Right. Um... you know that business was part of the figures we used when we decided if we'd let you have a loan to buy EMI, don't you?
Guy Hands: Uh... I guess?
Bank manager: And the income from the US catalogue business was part of how we expected you to be able to pay back the loan?
Guy Hands: I... um, I suppose...
Bank manager: And now you don't have that income.
Guy Hands: Oh! But... um...
Bank manager: So it's unlikely you'll be able to pay the loan back next time.
Guy Hands: Well... uh, now you put it like that...
Bank manager: I think you're a bad risk. I'll get Mrs Lewinsky from credit to start calling in the balance on your loan. Good day, Mr. Hand.
Guy Hands: But... I got a kidney! I could sell a kidney...

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: The Doors

In the Guardian, Ben Myers suggests The Doors don't get the respect they deserve:

I think I like them for the same reason most others hate them: Morrison's pretentious poetry, his messiah complex and the underlying belief that rock music could actually change society. And because it annoys people. Even Oliver Stone's accidentally comical biopic or the fact that loads of backpacking Eurotrash students seem to like them, too, is not enough to put me off. It's their music I keep returning to. It's just so baroque and velvety. So dramatic. You can keep the later drunken bluesy stuff, but I'll never tire of the swaggering call-to-arms of Five to One or the anxiety-inducing Not to Touch to the Earth.

Myers has a point, sort-of, if you ignore the suspicion that had Morro lived, he'd not have had much more to offer in the way of inventiveness, and that - far from being forgotten and underrated, every few years there's a fresh bout of Morro-cultism, and for the last forty years that poster of him with his shirt off has sold pretty well at Fresher's Fairs. Far from being underrated, The Doors are probably the only band who get probably just about the amount of respect they deserve.

Gordon in the morning: N-Dubz spraying for Easter

Normally, yobbish louts firing paint pellets at innocent bystanders would be the sort of thing The Sun would rail against - broken Britain, don't you know? - but what do you when it's one of Gordon's chums doing the shooting?

The result is a slightly strained report into N-Dubz firing on their own fans. Not a word suggesting that it's a bloody dangerous thing to do, or that people who aren't earning money for old rope might be less than thrilled that their gig-going outfits have been destroyed by rich kids with paints "having a laugh". Gordon restricts himself to just the facts:

Northumbria Police said: "Police were called to a coach at the back of the O2 Academy following a complaint that pellets were being fired.

"The two people involved had been firing plastic guns at each other which discharged a 6mm-sized pellet.

"They were very apologetic and handed the toy guns over voluntarily.

"No complaint of injury has been made.

"No arrests were made. Advice was given to the parties involved."

You'd have to wonder at the sort of twits who fire paint at their own fans. Most bands at least try to disguise the contempt they feel for the people who pay their wages.

The illustrated Hello: Mork And Mindy

Aah... Saturday morning TV:



For reasons that I don't think were ever completely explained, Mork and Mindy sold their house in Boulder to Larry and Balki from Perfect Strangers.

Mindy would have been Pam Dawber, who didn't have the most glittering post-Mindy careers. To be honest, the way the ratings for Mork & Mindy tanked after the first series, she didn't have the most glittering Mindy career, come to that. Here she is touring in Oklahoma:

Robin Williams did have a bit more success. There was that one where he dressed up as a woman. No, not Tootsie, his was the other one. And the one where he was a teacher. And even now...



... even now he can turn up on TV being a bit insufferable.

[Buy: Mork And Mindy series one]
(Don't buy season four, where they get married and chased by other aliens... it's a 'please don't cancel us' nightmare. Actually, it doesn't seem to have even been released.)

[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

The illustrated Hello: Kim Mazelle

In-jokes ahoy - Kim Mazelle was providing backing vocals on Hello, so strictly speaking they could have just waved hello instead of singing it.

Mazelle has had a solo career which wouldn't shame anybody, but really her strength has been adding depth and atmosphere to other people's work, either as named collaborator, or small-print lurking back-up person. You just hope getting a mention in the lyrics doesn't mean ten quid off the fee.

She even managed to bring a splash of magic to Doctor Robert's post-Blow Monkeys attempts at a solo career:



Mazelle provided the heavy lifting for Soul II Soul on Missing You:



And here she is when she's over at her own farm, feeding her own chickens:



Mazelle turns up - misspelled - in Blitzed, Steve Strange's autobiography:

The singer Kim Mayzelle was so out of it one night she went into my office and had a pee on my chair. It was a strange time.

[Buy Kim Mazelle's The Pleasure's All Mine]

[Part of The illustrated Hello]

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Bikini Kill

Highly recommended: Andy Folk's piece for the Bikini Kill blog on being white, a boy, and loving BK:

My invasion of privacy is somewhat disgusting to me now. Instead of acknowledging Jackie as a real, albeit absent, person, I though of her as 90s archetype like Jane Lane or Angela Chase, retired along with the decade. Still, I would not tell Kat that I was reading her sister’s diary, or that I had turned her into a folk hero in my mind. She had done what hundreds of misfit teens like me constantly dreamed, but such a thing was unthinkable now. We were post-Columbine, post-9/11, it was an age of zero tolerance where being sad or angry meant being accused of plotting a school-shooting. So instead of replicating her actions I replicated her style. I bought the Huggybear split at Generation records, and wore the shirt to the local hardcore and emocore shows. But the shirt was huge on me, and the kids at the show that actually knew Bikini Kill seemed confused, even startled, that a chubby 15 year-old would be wearing a Bikini Kill shirt. At one show an older girl from a lower-Westchester band even asked me why I was wearing it. “I just like Bikini Kill, I guess.” I didn’t understand the question.

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Juliana Hatfield

Juliana Hatfield takes to the Huffington Post to call for help with stray dogs in Puerto Rico:

Strays are referred to as "satos" in Puerto Rico. "Sato" is a derogatory term for "street dog" and usually refers to mutts. Purebred dogs are generally more highly valued on the island. Many islanders treat the satos as a nuisance, as pests, vermin to be kicked away. Satos are routinely abused -- poisoned, shot, beaten, cut by knives, burned by acid or hot oil or boiling water, deliberately hit by cars -- or simply neglected, left to fend for themselves. And, on their own, they breed; strays are born to strays and the problem literally grows.

Jedward: Maybe it's time to let it go

Look, I know when your future holds little more promise than the chance to discover what it's like being turned down for panto, you'd grab at any straw, but remaking the Shake N Vac advert? Jedward, you never had dignity, and you had little goodwill left to squander, but all this is doing is making it a couple of weeks longer until you have to go for your first Back To Work interview.

The illustrated Hello: Salman Rushdie

When he was the subject of a fatwa, this nation rallied round Salman Rushdie. Protection on a daily basis; official denunciations of the threats to his life; condemnation of the idiots burning his books.

And how did Rushdie show his thanks?

By collaborating with U2, that's bloody how.

Let's get this over with, then:



You'd have thought that Rushdie would have steered clear of U2, after he was a victim of Bono's tiresome attempt to cross crappy Halloween costumes with Noel Edmond's funny phone calls:



Sadly, the entire internet seems to have offered no place for Jasper Carrott's Rushdie parody of the JR Hartley advert during the fatwa, which was actually not quite as funny as Carrott's observation afterwards: "you know, it was really difficult to find a Salman Rushdie lookalike for some reason..."

[Part of the Ilustrated Hello]

The illustrated Hello: William Tell

A long-dead Swiss legend, best-remembered for being slightly better at shooting things off people's heads than William Burroughs turned out to be. To be honest, he doesn't really seem to have done much more than the shooting-the-apple thing. Sure, he was doing it as part of a complicated act of defiance against the Austrian colonialist who were occupying his part of the country, but it's hardly a full-on Robin Hood, is it?

Nevertheless, he got a whole opera out of it, and it's probably thanks to the cracking overture Rossini came up with that Tell managed to land a couple of TV series:



William Tell is also a singer songwriter in the sludgy mid-everything American market. He plays in a band called - in a desperate attempt to sound ironic - Something Corporate, but also does solo stuff, too.



He really is called William Tell, though, which is a surprise. And he's not even named after the apple bloke; he's named after his Dad.

[Part of the illustrated Hello]

Woot-ton: An exclusive Lee Ryan exclusive

However does Dan Wootton do it? He's only gone and managed to land an exclusive interview with Lee Ryan. I'll bet old Larry King is tearing strips off his researchers for having missed that one:

He's a top guy because, unlike many stars, he says exactly what he thinks - even if it means hitting out at a legend like GEORGE MICHAEL (most singers wouldn't dare). Lee said: "I actually had a song from George Michael called Medicine Man. He took it off me at the last minute. Thanks George, you wanker!"

It's not really being brave if you're not really capable of understanding the consequences of your actions, is it?

And, frankly, "George Michael thought that giving me one of his weaker songs would be a waste" isn't that great a claim, if you stop to think about it.

It's like a newsagents putting up a poster bragging "Cadburys wouldn't even let us sell their mis-shapes."

Still, there is some good news:

Lee also revealed the Blue reunion is on hold. "There were some issues with the label," he said.

Yes, there must have been. What with the world slapping a label on the plans that read "desperate, pointless and unwanted".

The illustrated Hello: Willy Wonka

Willy Wonka. The famous, fabulous, fictional factory owner who made a special invitation for a lucky few to come inside his sugar walls...



No, no, Sheena Easton, not now.

Wonka was created by Dahl, brought to life by Gene Wilder, and then destroyed by Johnny Depp in a pointless remake (Kind of the Nestle buyout version, I'd guess). Wilder got to sing in the 1970s version, in this clip which represents, I think, the first-ever appearance of Roy Kinnear on No Rock:



One of the winners of the golden tickets allowing a trip round Wonka's factory was Veruca Salt. A spoiled brat who got everything she demanded (and, you'd have to suggest, more than a little cribbed from the mighty Violet Elizabeth Bott) - what better name could you pick for your indie guitar band?



By law, that had to be played on every edition of The Evening Session, that did.

[Buy: Resolver - Veruca Salt
Manthology - Gay For Johnny Depp]

[Part of The illustrated Hello]

This week just gone

Looking for Jesus on No Rock - top Jesus-mentioning Google searches:

1. Jesus And Mary Chain at Coachella (& variants thereof)
2. Madonna Jesus
3. Jesus Mesquia
4. Mung Bean Jesus
5. Jesus Of Cool rapidshare.com
6. Jesus And Mary Chain blogspot
7. Jesus And Mary Chain reunion
8. Jesus in a box
9. Jesus Lizard
10. Teenage Jesus And The Jerks - Shut Up And Bleed

A special mention to 'how do you spell Christmas', though.

These releases were interesting:


Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be

Download I Will Be


To Rococo Rot - Speculation

Download Speculation


Shakespear's Sister - It's A Trip

Download It's A Trip


Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Wonder Show Of The World

Download Silent City


Wedding Present - Live 1988

Download Live 1988


Bonobo - Black Sands

Download Black Sands


Sly Stone - Listen To The Voices

Download Anthology

Cruel headlines: Peter Andre

ContactMusic with a headline that's all punchline:

Peter Andre Planning Picture Book

The rest writes itself.

The illustrated Hello: Little Nell

Little Nell, those of you who had to Dickens at school will remember, was a character in The Old Curiosity Shop. There is another Little Nell, though. Little Nell Campbell.

Her Dad wrote a column about family life in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and dubbed her Little Nell in that, a nickname which would stick with her through her adult life as an actress and singer. She was in the Rocky Horror Picture Show - which as far as I can tell is a device men use to wear skirts and stockings in public without having to ask themselves questions about why they enjoy doing so - but also released a series of records of her own.

This is I Wanna Be A Beauty Queen, which appeared on the opening titles of a documentary about the 1978 Alternative Miss World:



[Part of the illustrated Hello]

If it wasn't for Bob Geldof, people would still be living in poverty

More4 is showing a documentary on Monday which includes a segment that takes a hard look at celebrity anti-poverty campaigns:

The film that appears to have angered Geldof is Starsuckers, a polemic against media and celebrity that will be broadcast on More 4 on Tuesday. A section of the documentary makes a string of allegations about singer-turned-campaigner.

They include the suggestion money raised from the 1985 Live Aid concerts to tackle famine in Ethiopia was mis-spent, leading to deaths, and criticism that the successor concerts two decades later, Live 8, overshadowed a mass movement of campaigners in the Make Poverty History coalition.

Now, you know how much Bob Geldof likes being challenged on his views."Fair point" he chuckled, "but we do our best..."

Did he buggery. Oh, no, it's all angry letters and complaints to Ofcom:

In the letter, seen by the Guardian, Geldof claimed to have had significant influence over world leaders, including Tony Blair, in the run-up to the 2005 G8 summit, and contrasted the achievements of his Live 8 campaign with the global coalition of anti-poverty campaigners, which he characterised as "a bit lame" and almost entirely ineffectual.

If it is true that Geldof had enormous influence over world leaders in 2005, you'd have to ask why. At the time of Live Aid, arguably Geldof could claim he had some sort of mandate to speak for everyone. By 2005, though, there were quite enough media industry millionaires pumping their unelected viewpoints into the ears of world leaders; having another one isn't the unquestionable good thing that Geldof seems to think. Surely he wasn't claiming Make Poverty History as his mandate?

Still: if Geldof does want to take the credit for Gleneagles, maybe we should let him?

Then Geldof turns to how GRATE it is to have FAMOUS PEOPLES involved with campaigns:

Claiming that "all that the combined lobbying might of the total NGO community" failed to ignite public opinion over global poverty, Geldof drew attention to the powerful impact of the Live 8 concerts, which were televised simultaneously to audiences around the world. "They are the vast billions watching," he said. "Brought together around the electric hearth of the TV or computer screen by the Pied Pipers of Rock 'n Roll."

Nobody would deny that putting Coldplay and U2 on the television gets lots of people to watch. But that's putting on a show, it's not actually making poverty history, is it Bob? That's the difficult bit.

I haven't seen the programme myself - obviously, it's not been on yet - but from the sypnosis, part of it's contention seems to be that it's incredibly easy to get lots of people looking at celebrities, but much more difficult to actually turn those crowds from passive lookers into agents of change. Simply going "we got lots of people to watch TV" actually supports the arguments, not destroys them.

And holymotherofallthatisholy, did you really think what a knob you'd look like saying "brought together around the electric hearth of the TV or computer screen by the Pied Pipers of Rock 'n Roll"?

His stupid boat stunt - you'll recall Geldof calling for a second Dunkirk, with people paddling from the continent to Scotland - turns out not have been a toe-curling embarrassment, but instead a stunt:

Fearing that Make Poverty History, a global coalition of development agencies, was failing to galvanise public opinion, he said he embarked on a publicity drive. It included "pretending" that millions of activists were headed to Edinburgh from the continent to "re-enact a sort of Dunkirk", he said.

There's two problems here. First is that MPH wasn't "failing to galvanise" anything - it was doing really well, until it suddenly found its focus shifted away to a lot of fluff about if it was going to lead not to a new deal for the developing world, but whether Status Quo would open a London pop concert.

More importantly, Geldof didn't "pretend" there was a flotilla - he called for it. It just didn't show up. The Age was just one of the papers which carried his original calls:

Speaking at a boatyard, Geldof appealed for English boat owners and even rowers to sail across the Channel for "Sail 8" and pick up thousands of European protesters trying to get to Edinburgh for the demonstration on the opening day of the summit on July 6.

Geldof alluded to events during World War II in 1940 when hundreds of thousands of troops were rescued from the German advance in France by a fleet of privately owned craft sailing across the Channel.

"What we are asking people to do is not re-create D-Day but re-create Dunkirk, which is one of the great national legends of our country where normal people got in their boats to rescue our soldiers, 380,000 of them, who were surrounded and came back to fight another day," Geldof said.

It would be the biggest collection of little boats seen since Dunkirk, he said. "This time we are asking that people take to their boats in their thousands and pick up the people of France for a friendlier invasion. It will be beautiful and amazing . . . I think if you have a little rowing boat that would get across, then jump in it and get as far as you can."

If he had been "pretending" they were coming, that would have been dubious enough - sure, there is much bluff-calling at international summits, but using your poker face to claim that dozens of pedalos and sunbeds are about to arrive on the beach seems to be designed to do nothing other than make yourself and the cause you're fighting for look ridiculous.

Geldof, though, appears to believe that he's so much better than the masses he claims to have been mobilising:

He contrasted the success of the Live 8 initiative with the efforts of anti-poverty demonstrators who "were never mentioned" at the summit, where they wielded "not a single shred of influence".

"The G8 has become a pointless ritual where the marchers and the wankers dressed as clowns (wow! Radical) get to throw stones at cops miles from the decision makers, who can't even hear them, and the cops get to crack some heads," he said, adding that he suspected other campaigners knew that his methods were simply more effective. "I can do rock n roll, they can do marching."

It's true. Dressing up as a clown and standing half a mile from a hotel might do bugger all. Is getting Pete Doherty to sing a duet with Elton John in a totally different country really a better strategy, Bob?

The illustrated Hello: Little Richard

I guess the oddest thing about Little Richard announcing his plans to retire this year is the discovering that he's not yet 70. I suppose because it feels like he's been around forever, if you'd asked me when I didn't have Google to hand I'd have put him at at least half a decade over that.

Little Richard, then. You don't need me to tell you about him, do you?

He's kept himself busy recently - he even had a job helping the former President get his message across:



[From The Daily Show, of course.]

But this is him doing what he does best - no, not losing members of his backing band to James Brown:



[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

Gordon in the morning: Fails mainly on the plain

Gordon passes a large chunk of his space over to the awfully-named Eliza Doolittle this morning, mainly because her management team have sent over a photo of her in shorts.

NEW face ELIZA DOOLITTLE certainly is one Fair Lady.

Well, to be fair, at least Gordon's gone for a gentle joke and is flattering his readers by assuming they'd be familiar with... oh, hang on:

The singer-songwriter - named after the lead character of hit musical and film My Fair Lady - is all set to release debut single Skinny Genes on April 12.

Gordon, if you have to explain the joke you just made quite so clunkingly in the next paragraph, you might want to think about coming up with something a bit more in tune with your key audience:

With LILY ALLEN-style lyrics and a love for very short shorts, she's definitely one to watch.

That'll do it.

So how did "Eliza" come up with her kerrr-azzzzy name?

Eliza says: "I love my real surname but it isn't very pop-starry. So I became Eliza Doolittle and now everyone calls me it."

Righto. That really explains it.

Still, nice to see someone getting massive record company investment despite not having any industry connections, isn't it?

Her dad is theatre director JOHN CAIRD and her mum Tony Award-winning actress FRANCES RUFFELLE.

Oh.

The illustrated Hello: Tommy Cannon, Bobby Ball

In the last couple of years, Cannon and Ball have started to get the sort of relocation in the nation's affections that - simply by not dying - stars sometimes do as those who were kids when they were famous get old enough to book television and radio programmes.

And although they might be popping up on Sport Relief and not-too-bad on Simon Mayo's Radio 4 comedy quiz, it's worth remembering that their double glazing advert is closer to the true spirit of what they were like.

Very much of the second string of double acts - somewhere between Little And Large and Lennie and Jerry in the pecking order - their awfulness was pretty much summed up in their first LWT programme, where an early sketch required the knowledge that Rock On Tommy was Bobby Ball's catchphrase for the punchline to work. Maybe at the end of the series. Maybe in the middle. But first programme?

Still, they were popular enough for a while, and even managed somehow to get a film made. The Boys In Blue, which was effectively a remake of a Will Hay movie about the police. Wisely, they updated the plot to the present day. Somewhat foolishly, they forgot to add in any jokes.

Somehow, The Boys In Blue managed to generate a spin-off ITV sit-com. But just as substandard policemen tend to drift into the private security business, a police comedy that didn't quite make the grade got reinvented as a sit com about security guards.

However, while The Boys In Blue is a footnote in C&B's career (a staging post on the route to losing all their money and getting born again), it also marks the point where they tried to launch a career making comedy records too. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cannon And Ball - the single:



They should have just got Tommy to sing a song, and have Bobby in the background going 'rat-ta-tat-ta-tat'. That got them through most of their Saturday night shows.

[Part of the Illustrated Hello]

Downloadable: Hot Chip & Bonnie Prince Billy

Yes, it's a bit like that Sherry that Harveys made for making mixed drinks with - it doesn't feel like it should work.

The difference is that Hot Chip and Bonnie Prince Billy does work, unlike the mixing sherry which even the guys under the bridge wouldn't touch.

RCRD LBL are offering Billy-doing-vocals for Chip I Feel Bonnie. Enjoy, but don't put lemonade in your sherry.

Bearded Festival: Face the facts

Last year's Bearded Festival was the one that got hit by a tornado. Which means, what with lightning never striking twice and everything, that it's probably going to be the safest festival of all this year.

If you need more encouragement, Dreadzone are playing. So are Banco De Gaia. And, in increasing order of "oh... are they still going, then", so are The Wonder Stuff, Dodgy, New Model Army and The Cheeky Girls.

There's also going to be a world record attempt for the most false beards in one place at a time - i think the current record is held by the backstage area at the last Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.

It's 14th-16th May, in Hulland Ward near Derby. No screens playing international football at all - guaranteed.

The illustrated Hello: Saints and sinners

Yes, yes, The Beloved mean they're welcoming you whatever your track record of morality is like. But Saints And Sinners are also a not-quite-glam, not-quite-hard rock band from Canada.



"The band released one album, Saints & Sinners in 1992, but the grunge movement in the early 1990s ruined the bands chance of having a big breakthrough" complains Saints And Sinners' Wikipedia entry, happily overlooking their not being much cop as a greater liability.

[Part of the Illustrated Hello

The illustrated Hello: Peter and Paul

Oh. The first one is a bit of a challenge. Peter and Paul.

The general assumption is these are the Saints of the same name - how apt for today.



You could throw in a Mary and then you'd get this:



Saint Peter was the first Pope - and probably the only one who didn't preside over a Catholic Church that was full of financial and sexual irregularities; Saint Paul was a large city in Minnesota, birthplace of Charles Schultz - who crops up later on in the song via one of his more famous creations. And, across the river in the twin city, there's this chap:



And, erm, they're all saints, aren't they?



Hmm. Two names in and I'm already stretching it a little.

[Part of The illustrated Hello]

The illustrated Hello

It's a Bank Holiday weekend, and how better to mark the *checks Wikipedia* crucifixion and resurrection of a chap than a slightly strained special feature?

Hello by The Beloved is one of the truly great list songs. Clearly, Jon Marsh is of an age where he would have spent much of his youth listening to the Annie Nightingale Request show on Radio One, and as such would have been more than familiar with The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's Intro And The Outro, to which Hello owes a Joe McIntyre-sized debt:



[The Bonzos doing The Intro And The Outro on Do Not Adjust Your Set]

It's something of a surprise to discover that Hello only made it to Number 19, although that was still quite a lot of money in those days - January 1990. It's also a bit of a surprise to discover that it wasn't the Beloved's biggest hit - that would be Sweet Harmony, which came three years later.

Still, their finest hour, even so:



The question, though, is who were all these people and - more to the point - how tenuously can they be linked back to pop?

so welcome to the world, yeah...
all you late-comers, just step onboard
i'm happy, glad you came
so welcome home again!
sometimes i feel we must be going mad
hello peter, hello paul
saints and sinners, welcome all
tommy cannon and bobby ball
hello, hello, hello, hello
consider, if you will
this great big question, unanswered still
oh, can you spot the difference that lies between
the colour blue and the colour green?
sometimes i feel we must be going mad
little richard, little nell
willy wonka and william tell
salman rushdie and kym mazelle
hello, hello, hello, hello...
so welcome to the team
oh, have you worked it out yet?
yeah - the riddle, i mean
what's the answer?
it's plain to see - blue is blue and it always will be
sometimes i feel that the whole world's going mad
mork and mindy, brian hayes
barry humphries and paris grey
little neepsie, chris and do
hello, hello, hello, hello...
billy corkhill, vince hilaire
freddie flintstone, fred astaire
desmond tutu, steve and claire
hello, hello, hello, hello...
charlie parker, charlie brown
leslie crowther, come on down
mary wilson, di and flo
hello, hello, hello, hello...
sir bufton tufton, jean paul sartre
zippy, bungle, jeffrey archer
andre previn and the lso
hello, hello, hello, hello...
hello!

Over the weekend, we'll be obsessively finding out.

[Buy: Single File: The Best Of The Beloved
Cornology - The collected Bonzos]

Gordon in the morning: Perhaps you should have taken the day off

Always difficult to fill a newspaper on a Bank Holiday - even if you usually just make stuff up and copy out press releases - but Gordon's really scraping around today, splashing with a N-Dubz story that combines Frazer having some of his stupid jewelery robbed:

A source said: "He's gutted it was robbed in the scuffle. It cost him a lot of money and he wants it back.

"He's too embarrassed to go to the police. It's not the way he does things."

and this side-splitting story:

Although Fazer's dispossessing episode is no laughing matter, DAPPY being "nicked" yesterday is.

As the band were about to begin a book signing for Against All Odds at Lakeside in Essex, two officers led him away saying they needed to quiz him.

Once they'd got a horrified and confused Dappy into a private room, they announced: "April Fool!"

Dispossessing episode? Had Gordon briefly forgotten which paper he was typing for?

The idea of the joke is alright - clearly a 'you had to be there' moment rather than something you'd want to tell people about. Gordon, though, can barely contain his mirth:

Brilliant. That's something I would have loved to have seen. Can the comical bobbies reveal themselves please?

Oh, yes, please do. Maybe we could stage some sort of reconstruction.

The only thing that could improve on this is a long description of an even less funny joke.

TULISA was also stitched up yesterday.

Oh. Go on, then.

On the way to the signing their tour manager rang ahead to see how many fans were there. When he relayed "only about three," Tulisa wanted to cancel the event and go home.

She didn't realise it was a prank until they saw the 500-strong crowd waiting.

Oh, how they must have laughed.

Elsewhere in The Sun today - seemingly ignoring the idea that my enemy's enemy is my friend - the paper has a go at the nanny currently suing Heather Mills for constructive dismissal. The Sun perked up when the court case mentioned some photos the woman did as part of a modeling portfolio:

Mucca Nanny in mucky pics

Mucky pics, you say, The Sun? What would they be?

Sara Trumble, 26 - seen proudly posing in undies but who also had TOPLESS snaps taken for a portfolio.

Ah, so pictures of models with their breasts out are "mucky", are they? I don't really need to finish this thought, do I?

Gordon in the morning: Curse him, he's right

Credit where it's due: this morning, Gordon Smart gets The Libertines story right while the NME comes across all print the legend.

Smart boils yesterday's press conference to the big idea behind the reunion:

PETE DOHERTY admitted yesterday he has been persuaded to reform THE LIBERTINES because the £1.2million fee will pay off his tax bill.
[...]
Pete said at the press conference: "What's appealing about the money is what's left after tax obviously. Which turns out is just enough to pay last year's bill."

The NME seems to have left that bit out in its extensive coverage of the reunion. But then if their reunion special edition had gone 'why get back together?' 'it's the cash' it might have taken a bit of the shine off the event.

Sarah Palin meets LL Cool J in the past

This had the air of something that might have been an April Fool, but it appears to be genuine - rather than actually interview people for her Fox News Show, Sarah Palin is merely lobbing in old versions of other people's interviews.

Not in a Wogan Now And Then way. Simply using old stuff, and pretending it's new.

Toby Keith's in it, for example:

Elaine Schock, his publicist, said a radio reporter contacted her seeking details about the programme.

"I said, 'You're wrong. There is no Sarah Palin special with Toby Keith on it on Fox,"' she said.

She said the reporter then e-mailed her the press release issued by Fox News, which said Keith would "explain the inspiration behind his song 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."' Ms Schock said she believed the interview was conducted in January 2009 in Las Vegas but she had received no e-mail or phone call from Fox News informing her it would air on Mrs Palin's show this week.

LL Cool J is also suprised to find himself in it:

The LL Cool J interview was from 2008, his spokesman said.

"Contrary to what was reported, LL Cool J was never scheduled to be a guest on 'Real American Stories' with Sarah Palin this week," spokesman Rhett Usry said.. "The show had planned to use an interview from 2008 that was being repurposed without LL's permission.

"This statement is not a reflection of any feelings LL has toward Fox News or Ms. Palin, whom he has never met, rather a clarification of what we have seen published in the media."

There's no problem with making a programme up out of old interviews. Trying to pass old stuff as if it was all-new and specially made, though: that's dodgy.

Could there be a final irony?

Oh, yes. The programme is called Real American Stories.

[via @culturalsnow]