Alesha Dixon creates a stink

Alesha Dixon has released a perfume (surely we've used up all possible smells of toilet water by now?). Fair enough, but not sure about the Manchester Evening News claim here:

Pop star Alesha Dixon launches new perfume at Trafford Centre

The Trafford Centre bit is fair enough, but... is she a pop star?

Her last album was three and a half years ago, and got to the giddy heights of, erm, 84. She hasn't troubled the Top 10 singles list since Breathe Slow back in 2009.

Fair enough, she was a pop star once, but not for the best part of half a decade. And I doubt if even the most generous perfume company would be launching a brand off the back of The Boy Does Nothing so late on.

But then 'Game show judge launches perfume' isn't quite such a compelling headline, is it?

Isle Of Wight: Hide! Hide!

Last year, we reckon, was the peak oil year for festivals.

Now, then, we're in the long, slow, steady decline. As if the prospect of Status Quo AND Tom Jones at Glastonbury didn't prove it, here's a headline from the Daily Mail's RSS feed which, I think, shows just how broken festivals have become:

Time to go back to gigs with two, maybe three acts, and no jugglers or felafel stands in a two-mile radius.

Nectar remember they have a music store

Nectar - the Tesco Clubcard for people who don't shop at Tesco - launched a music store a few months back, quickly securing a position as the music download destination which people look most surprised about when they remember it exists.

Now, though, they've decided to try and build some sort of market share, and are doing so with a free Alesha Dixon track and a competition where you can dance with her.

That's actually dance, it's not a euphemism.

Alesha Dixon recently helped Chris Moyles to get to the top of Kilimanjaro, so maybe she's viewing 'making Nectar a music destination' as the next level of uphill challenge.

Gordon in the morning: Leave it Gary, he's not worth it

The continuing stream of Robbie-and-That stories coming from Wapping suggests that we're being softened up for some sort of unpleasant announcement in the New Year. Today, Gary Barlow makes encouraging noises:

He said: “Robbie will not be coming on tour with us next year because he’s got his own things to do.

“But we are not ruling out getting together with him beyond that.”

It's clear that in these difficult times, we must look to Gordon Smart for leadership. Faced with a Sun readership who are split between hating the very idea of Williams arriving late and spoiling the party with his trademark gurning, and people who have the sense of a petrol-doused reveller going to fireworks display, Smart tries to fudge his opinion piece:

ROBBIE’S return to Take That has split the nation.
[...]
For all the problems I have had with Robbie, I would love to see him do one big gig with the band again, for old times’ sake.

A one-off, televised concert is the answer. It would draw a line under the past and give everyone a nostalgia packed high.

Can something simultaneously draw a line under the past and make everyone remember the past?

And this isn't even a compromise: doing one gig? Even Smart admits it would be unlikely to be just the one:

Reading in to the mutual love-in between all the members going on now, one gig would probably open the floodgates to many more.

Of course it bloody will. Still, given that the Take That reunion has now run out of steam (you're in trouble when your Marks and Spencers adverts are more lively than your new records) it's not like Williams' return will actually spoil anything.

Elsewhere, Gordon runs a photo of Alesha Dixon getting out a cab. And what time would that be, Gordon?

Alesha parties 'til phwoar a.m

Yes. Phwoar am. Very good.

This is surprising, though:

She will have to be careful with the late nights and champers – I’ll be joining her for a trek up Kilimanjaro in February for Comic Relief

Hang about... you're going to be on the side of a mountain with a woman in two months, and you think it's a good idea to run upskirt/downshirts of her? I'd keep a careful eye on who you're relying on hold your ropes, Gordon.

Gordon in the morning: We've had lots of letters

Mitch Winehouse, Gordon gravely informs us, has a difficult conundrum this morning:

AMY WINEHOUSE’s husband BLAKE FIELDER-CIVIL has sent a vile and abusive letter to her dad MITCH.

The six-page poison pen note from prison is packed with violent threats and abuse aimed at the cabbie.

Really? It seems a little strange that this would have come from prison, but carry on.

The letter is now in the hands of the police and solicitors as Mitch weighs up a difficult conundrum — press charges and risk his relationship with Amy or let the waste of space off the hook again.

It's not clear how a letter can be in two very different sets of hands at once; nor, indeed, how Winehouse would have thought that the choice about charges would be his after giving the letter to the police - whether he pressed charges or not, surely - if Smart's descriptions of the letter are true - there'd be more than enough for the cops to move with without Winehouse pressing charges?

And wouldn't Amy be just as - more - upset if the whole sorry saga ended up in the pages of the popular prints, with or without a police investigation? Oh.

And how much truth is there in this tale? There's nothing to substantiate it beyond an odd quote from a "close pal" of Mitch's:

“I could hear Mitch physically shaking when he phoned to tell me about the letter."

You could hear a man shaking down a phoneline? Really? How does that work, exactly?

Even Gordon seems to lose faith in the tale by the end, suddenly switching to discuss how, erm, Sharleen Spiteri's daughter likes Amy Winehouse. For some reason. Perhaps there's going to be a run of 'what pop music the children of 1990s stars likes'. If there's a lot of space to be filled, anyway.

And there is a lot of space. There's no other explanation for this sort of thing:

Alesha turns flirty

Or rather "thirty". Do you see what he... oh, you did?

Gordon in the morning: So much news...

It's an action-packed Bizarre this morning: Britney Spears in hospital, handled by US editor Emily Smith; some made-up figures about what Cheryl Tweedy's divorce settlement might be, written by Richard White (showbiz reporter rather Bizarre team) and news of Amy Winehouse being put on a drip - which, again breaks Gordon Smart's promise at the weekend that Winehouse would be left alone now, although it, too, isn't actually written by one of Smart's enormous team.

So, what has left Gordon and the team too busy to write the main stories? Um... he's been looking at Alesha Dixon's new video. Gordon is outraged that it's actually an advert for a car:

WHEN I first saw these glam shots of ALESHA DIXON, I thought I was looking at a pop video.

But have you ever seen one with a Ford Focus in it? No, me neither.

The Strictly Come Dancing winner posed by the motor in an internet-only video for her track 4 U I Will.

A Ford spokesman said that the video was to “celebrate” the car.

That’ll be an “advert” to you and I.

Now, he might have a point - although this isn't quite as tacky as the My Chemical Romance advert-video, where the main video featured product placement and the plot was dictated entirely by the advertistser, this is more of an ad based on the video, but it's still a bit clunky. But is Gordon really so angry at this creeping commercialisation? Is he about to join Adbusters?

Erm... not quite; after all, the advert might be an advert, but it does have a young woman showing her legs in it. Gordon bravely swallows his objections to run the pictures anyway.

Gordon in the morning: Flogging the Swede

By, Gordon might not have much to work with, but he's certainly spinning what little he has out, isn't he? Having made a lead piece yesterday out of an alleged off-the-cuff remark by Sven Goran Eriksson about how he thought Alesha Dixon was "his type", Gordon makes the story his lead today as well, asking Alesha what she thinks of it.

Her response:

You’re winding me up? Sven, who is, like, 100? Oh my God! He’s older than my dad!

“All I can say is Jose Mourinho is the only football manager who is good looking.”

Doubtless the empty Bizarre pages on Monday will be filled with a response from Jose.

Gordon's also struggling this morning with his response to Britney Spears' ever-unfolding world:

Last week I had a lot of sympathy for Brit as she was rushed to hospital. But she clearly has no intention of getting herself back on the straight and narrow.

It must be frustrating that she tends to morph into her latest form of off-kilteredness after The Sun has gone to print, but since the 'being rushed to hospital' is part of the same mental health crisis that led to yesterday's pink-wig-and-seven-hours-in-Mexico excursions, isn't it a little odd to be sympathetic for one and not the other. Is it really fair to be patient with someone suffering from an illness dependent on what symptoms they're presenting? Is Gordon like this with the people he lives with? "Sorry, mam, when it was just sneezing I had sympathy for you, but now it's that hacking cough it's time for you to mysteriously get better somehow".

Gordon has also run an advert for the latest Maxim in the form of pictures of Petra Nemcova from the latest issue. Aware that this might look a little gratuitous, Smart attempts to construct a news-based rationale:

Are you missing me, James?

PETRA Nemcova flaunts Beautiful curves – to show James Blunt what he’s missing
[...]
Supermodel Petra, 28, was the pop heart-throb’s Czech mate before 30-year-old James dumped her to play the field with a string of other stunners.

So, she's doing this "to show James Blunt what he's missing", is she, Gordon?

Erm...

Now she has hit back by unveiling her ravishing form in a new ad campaign as the face of undies firm La Senza.

Ah. So it's her job rather than anything to do with Blunt at all. Curious that Gordon believes everything women do is something to do with men, isn't it?

Gordon in the morning: Sven watches TV

Let's take a moment to praise Gordon this morning: most people would have an unsourced quote from someone supposedly related to Man City that Sven had muttered something nice when Alesha Dixon had come on the television and thought "well, that might make a small piece if there's a tiny gap on the page when we come up to deadline".

Not Gordon, though: he's built his entire page around the remark:

The snake-hipped shagger from Sweden has set his roving eyes on Strictly Come Dancing champ ALESHA DIXON.

And when Sven wants a woman, he normally gets her.

All he said, apparently, was:

"how impressed he was by her dancing and that she was definitely his type."

From this, Gordon "bets" that Sven has "studied [Alesha's] form in detail" and makes a grisly suggestion that Dixon is like some sort of Frankenstein-cum-blender amalgam of women Sven has had relationships with.

If this is enough to lead the page, everyone should be on their guide. Tell someone you think Kate Nash has a nice smile, and Gordon will deliver 300 words speculating that you've been stalking her.

Gordon in the morning: Watched telly. Got up.

In common with other papers, Gordon Smart has got very excited about the Williams story, turning the top story over to something he's read on the internet. The rest of Bizarre this morning is fairly typical: there's something from another part of the paper about Cowell telling Britney to go home to her mother; a story which seems to be "I saw Alesha Dixon on the television" and a photo of Rhydian off the X Factor, which is borderline bullying:

ALABASTER X Factor flop RHYDIAN ROBERTS – or, as I like to call him, ROBOKNOB – beamed down to make his first public appearance, eight days into his Mexican getaway.

Earthlings appeared terrified upon seeing the excessively muscled albino pop oddball clasping a rugby ball.

Why would you call someone Roboknob because they've got pale skin? Why would being albinoesque make you a robot? Am I missing something?

And away we go. A-bloody-gain.

It's hard to believe there's a media outlet - with the possible exception of The Tablet - that hasn't run some quasi-exclusive based on the slight Alesha-Harvey-Javine love-muddle, but the Mail reckons there's still more revelation to be had. It's MC Harvey who's walked off with a big cheque this morning.

Of course, with Alesha now one Strictly from being an official National Treasure, Harvey's in an awkward position. He doesn't want to look too bad, but he did dump her:

'Why I walked out on Strictly's Alesha,' by her unfaithful husband

The reason, of course, was that at the time she was pop-dumper's Alesha rather than Strictly's Alesha, and Harvey had wedding vows that ended "...as long as we both shall appear in Heat."

Harvey tries to act like he's abashed:

"What I did was 100 per cent wrong," Harvey says. "But I'm not perfect - no one is.

"Before I met Javine, no matter how many beautiful girls there were, not one of them meant anything to me as much as Alesha did."

As working definitions of "not being perfect" go, being "100% wrong" would be a useful one. But who couldn't fail to warm to Harvey's solid commitment to his wife, refusing to look at anyone else besides his wife. Apart from Javine. Who he dumped his wife for, of course.

"Our wedding was fantastic. I've still got a DVD that I watch by myself.

"Alesha looks amazing. When I saw her walking down the aisle I was gone. I cried my eyes out and my best man, Premiership footballer Sean Davis, was crying too.

"It hurts when I watch it. I'm not going to lie to you. Naturally it hurts, because I've got a lot of feelings."

One of them being: Alesha is now more famous than Javine again.

We imagine, by the way, that it must delight the seven-months gone Javine that Harvey sits watching his marriage to another woman over, and over, and over, and over.

"Last time I watched it I was looking at the DVD going: 'Flipping hell, from that to me now going to be a father with another woman.'

"I didn't see my life going that way."

Funny that - at the wedding ceremony, Harvey didn't expect to be dumping the woman he was marrying and run off with someone else.

Harvey is eager - desperate, even - to set the ever-increasing record straight:

Javine and Alesha were never friends and I never got caught in bed by Javine's boyfriend.

"It's utter bullshit. That's the thing that's got to me, all these lies."

Yes. Let's get totally clear why Harvey is a self-serving, hounding shitbag. There's plenty of reasons without the need to make stuff up.

"Javine's ex decided to make a quick buck and he never loved her because you don't make money against your girlfriend."

Your ex-wife, she's fair game to sell stories about for cash. But selling your girlfriend? Why, could a man drop any lower?

It's true our relationship was physical before I discussed it with Alesha and that's where I was wrong.

"It was physical once - not three times or five times. It wasn't an on-going affair.

It must be terrible for Harvey to be thought of as someone who shags another woman behind his wife's back repeatedly.

"I thought: 'What have I done?' The real story is that Javine's ex saw my car outside the house and told Alesha I was seeing Javine.

"Alesha asked me when I got home.

"I could have lied, but I didn't want to be in the marriage anymore."

We love the way that Harvey can't quite decide if the marriage was dead and his heart was with Javine - his wife, presumably, not understanding him - or if it was a one-off with Javine that he couldn't do any more.

Not to mention the bold claim that he "could have lied" - although, what with Javine's recently ex-boyfriend having told his wife what was going on, it's not entirely clear how.

Harvey, though, didn't find it easy, bless him:

"I knew I loved someone else and my heart was gone from my home. So I told her the truth. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

"I've performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people, presented national television, I've done films with Hollywood actors, but this was ten times worse, telling her I'd slept with another woman."

There's a handy rule of thumb: it's ten-times more difficult to confess to adultery than it is to be a guest panelist on The Wright Stuff, or to play "King" in the 2003 movie Out For A Kill (a role that got star billing, or at least billing one slot above "DEA Agent".)

After running through the "life in a Ghetto in Battersea" stuff, and the wedding - he knows a lot about it, what with the having watched the DVD repeatedly and all - Harvey stresses to the Mail readership how important his relationship was:

At the end of the day, with celebrity comes responsibility.

"Our relationship was iconic. Black people had never had somebody they could call their own."

Yes. That's what did it for Harvey - being the Queen and Philip and Posh and Becks for the black community all rolled into one. How could mere humans cope with so much pressure?

Harvey - like the Rabbi Lionel Blue - ends with a story to illustrate his point:

"I was standing outside a nightclub and two 16-year-old boys came up to me and said: 'You're so lucky. You've gone out with the two most beautiful girls in the industry.'

"Then one said: 'I think Alesha's fitter.' The other one goes: 'I like Javine.' They're 16. They don't get it. They just see beauty. They don't see the person."

Sixteen year old boys saying "the most beautiful girls in the industry"? Even without the self-aggrandising angle, there's something there that doesn't ring true. Like the whole of Harvey's proud grandstanding, come to think of it.

Javine-Harvey-other one: round we go again

Now, we know that everyone pretends to not be interested in most items of celebrity gossip, but when it comes to the Javine-Harvey-Alesha love triangle, is there anyone at all in the world who is still interested really? Especially since for the last six months nothing new has happened and it's just a constant churning over of the same not-especially-fascinating breakdown.

Even as the Sunday People churns again this morning, it admits this is the third to-and-fro. When the paper stretches and yawns half way through the article, it's probably a sign the story should have been spiked.

So Solid spills

MC Harvey must be feeling at least slightly ashamed this morning - when he was in the So Solid Crew, he probably expected to have a lifetime of glittery fame. Now, he's reduced to grubbing out kiss and tell stories to the News of the World because his ex-wife is on a celebrity dancing show.

The charmer doesn't just moan on about Alesha Dixon, though, finding time to complain about having got Javine pregnant, too:

"It's hard having sex with a pregnant woman," he said.

"It's challenging but interesting. You have to try lots of new positions. I go to the gym so much now because I've got to get the frustration out somehow."

Apparently he's never heard of masturbation, then. Which would explain how he got himself into so much trouble in the first place.

And so, what exactly is he kissing and telling? Very little, it turns out:

"It was fantastic with Alesha, wild and interesting. As she has said in the past we used to explore different places and take many risks. I won't deny that. I remember we had sex in a car and a ladies' room of a posh London bar."

Sex in a car? Harvey, everyone who's ever borrowed an Allegro Coupe has had sex in a car. And a toilet, come to that. This is almost akin to saying "we had an interesting sex life; we once did it in a double bed. In a bedroom."

Still, Harvey's not really here to talk about women. Because there's only one love of Harvey's life. And that's Harvey:

"I'm not going to lie. I attract a lot of attention off women. The older you get the worse I find it.

"I have to be mature about the situation. I've got to say, ‘As good-looking as you are, that can't happen'.

"I'm a strong guy—even the fans that said, ‘You are so out of order', I'm killing them with excellence. You can judge me but you can't take my talent away from me."

Not unless you have a very, very fine net in which to catch it, no.

Leave it, Leesh, she's not worth it

Alesha Dixon has told Lily Allen to be quiet:

“I like Lily’s song but I don’t like hearing her putting down other artists - we should all support each other.

“It’s wrong to do it as it misleads the public.”

Apart from the awkward fact that, actually, when you're signed to a major label, you're actually competing with other artists, not supporting them, in what way are the public (that's us) "mislead" when someone says how they really feel about something? And even if we were, what would the problem be?

"Doctor, I keep having bad headaches"
"Ah... have you been mislead by how Keith Allen's daughter really feels about Amy Winehouse?"
"Oh... yes, that's it."

And away we go...

Alesha Dixon is, it seems, a canny lass. Many women, watching their husband go dancing off Javine Hilton, would cut their wedding dress up into pieces and force it into Harvey So Solid's mouth. Perhaps while bouncing up and down on him in size ten boots.

Not Aleesha, though: She's flogging her dress on eBay. Obviously hoping to find a buyer who doesn't believe in jinxes and so on.