Gordon in the morning: He eats a lot of salad

Gordon has closed his entirely pointless poll to find out what his "readers" want Michael Jackson to play, still pretending that it's in some way related to the songs that the famous warning from history will actually feature:

My poll will now be shown to the legendary King Of Pop before he makes a final selection.

Probably. Possibly.

Gordon knows it's been tough for his readers:

This is a man who has had more hit songs than I’ve had hot dinners, so it can’t have been an easy task to narrow down your favourites.

From this we can calculate that Gordon has eaten somewhere south of fifty hot dinners. I'm assuming he meant it literally because nobody would take such a freezer-burnt old cliche and pop it into an article otherwise, would they?

Supposedly, Bizarre readers want Who Is It, In The Closet and Thriller as the encore. Smart gives no indication what size the poll was to cook up such unlikely results. (Fifty quid to go home with Who Is It hanging in the air? Really?)

Elsewhere, the sound of shouting from a distant street:

RAZORLIGHT are gearing up for a head-to-head battle with their ex-drummer ANDY BURROWS.

Really? They're releasing records on the same day, are they?

Not quite:

Andy, whose songwriting abilities helped Razorlight gain their only No1 single with America, will now spend the next few months putting together a backing band to help his new project — and could be ready to record by the end of the summer.

That would put him on a collision course with Johnny and Co, who will have finished their festival commitments by then and will be recording their fourth album.

So, that's "head-to-head" in the sense of "vague chance they might both release fetid albums in the same accounting quarter". Right up there with other great battles, like when Godzilla and King Kong booked hotel rooms in the same city within six months of each other. Actually, I say Godzilla and King Kong. This battle is more like Bambi fighting a Care Bear.

Smart tells his readers that the record label has annoyed Borrell by making it so:

Egotistical frontman JOHNNY BORRELL is furious that his Universal label have signed up the man who jumped ship just when Razorlight were preparing to break America.

But wouldn't Borrell more-than-likely have already been signed to Universal as part of the contract Razorlight signed?

Darkness at 3AM: The Razorlight truce is over

The 3AM Girls surprise the world with something that almost smacks of reporting. Although, to be honest, getting Andy Burrows to withdraw his soft statement on leaving Razorlight probably took little more work than tapping him on the shoulder and pressing play and record:

Speaking for the first time about the rift, Andy tells us: "It was hell. I'm so glad I'm out of it.

"I hated being in the band. Johnny and I didn't get on. Now I've got my freedom.

"He never wanted people to know that we both wrote songs and I couldn't be in control. I'm happy again. Don't get me wrong - I had some fond memories. We achieved some great things together and had amazing experiences. But now at least I'm happy.

"I'm drumming for We Are Scientists, working on my own material and doing stuff for other bands."

It's almost as if Borrell is some sort of control-freak or something, isn't it? Just imagine...

Gordon in the morning: Handing out hugs and blankets to the shocked masses

Gordon, of course, has coverage of the Razorlight split. And there's only one way to sum up the split of a British band shortly before a gig in Cheshire:

Trouble in America...

In order to stack up the headline, the made-up, sorry, unnamed source places the argument that "brought things to a head" between Borrell and Burrows as happening "during a recent trip to America". Although if that was true, you might wonder why Burrows didn't quit there and then.

Elsewhere, Kylie Minogue is getting a stupid sum of money for recording a single track for a Bollywood film - three quarters of a million quid, apparently. Now, I've been keeping up with the news - we're meant to gather and boo when people get paid money completely out of proportion to their work they do and the value they generate, right? C'mon Gordon - let's boo Kylie, shall we?

And as she chats to star AKSHAY KUMAR between filming she looks worth every penny.

Oh. Are you suggesting that Fred Goodwin could have avoided all that bad press if he'd just been a bit prettier?

It's perhaps fortunate that Gordon Smart isn't up a mountain with Cheryl Cole - can you imagine how thin the atmosphere at the top of Kilimanjaro would be if Smart was having to follow up the story about Ashley Cole's latest bit of bother? Especially given that it turns out his arrest-attracting rage was sparked by someone taking photos for The Sun in the first place?

For the paper, Andy Crick and Philip Case are covering the "story", and they do have quite a scoop:

Cole, who earns £82,000 a week, plonked himself on a bar stool. Then as Chelsea skipper Terry and Mancienne mingled, he knocked back a bottle of Japanese Asahi lager.

He clutched a wad of £20 notes as he ordered a round of drinks — and began chatting to a blonde clubber wearing a shiny blue mini-dress and a string of white pearls.

Sadly, the paper's two writers fail to mention if Cole had been wearing the mini-dress when he was drinking the lager, or if he'd nipped off to change.

Still, nobody would be as cheap as to try and get mileage out of his wife being off doing good works, would they?

Fundraiser v hellraiser

It truly is a dichotomy. It's almost impossible to imagine Cheryl Cole ever being in a violent outburst at a nightclub.

Horror! One of Johnny Borrell's backing band quits

Andy Burrows, drummer with And The Borrells out of Johnny Razorlight And The Borrells, has quit the band. It's a sensation:

"The past five years in Razorlight have been an amazing experience," explained Burrows. "I am very proud of everything that myself, Johnny, Carl and Bjorn have achieved together, but for personal reasons I have decided to leave the band. I will be pursuing other musical ventures."

No word on what these other musical ventures might be - perhaps "whistling while refilling the milk counter at Tesco."

Interestingly, despite the warm-sounding statements, the announcement of Burrows' departure came two days after he was replaced - David "Skully" Sullivan-Kaplan turned up drumming during the band's Warrington gig.

Meanwhile, the glorious leader hopes the image of their fallen comrade will encourage the rest of the Razorlights on to new highs, issuing this from his bunker:

"Over the last two albums and five years Andy has been an integral part of Razorlight and we will miss him," he said.

"From the day he walked into our rehearsal studio it was obvious that he was an amazing drummer and he’s contributed on many levels beyond that. He's been a great player and a great friend and I think we'll both always be proud of the music we've made together. As far as the band's future is concerned, we're all looking forward to touring with Skully and getting on with making our next record."

I'm sure the rest of you are enjoying the cute, fifteen year-old-boy nickname for the new drummer as much as I am.

Experts attempting to calibrate the likely shockwaves from 'drummer sat behind man without a shirt quits' suggests the impact on your life will be somewhere between 'having to take a terrapin to a locum vet' and 'that slightly curious feeling you get when you realise your usual postman must be on holiday'.

Razorlighter struggles with concept of 'solo'

Good lord, so much control does Johnny Borrell exert over his minions that even when one breaks out of His Magnificence's shadow to do a solo show, Borrell puts in an appearance. It must be like trying to shake off the unpopular kid in school when we - sorry, they - attached themselves to you.

Burrows on his own

Andy Burrows, who is still a full member of Razorlight with every bit as many privileges as any other member of Razorlight¹, is dipping his toe in the water with a solo side project.

Yes, yes, a solo drummer. It might seem funny, but everyone laughed when Phil Collins said he was going solo. They didn't laugh for long.<sup>2

1</sup> - apart from Johnny Borrell, of course.
² - with apologies to Bob Monkhouse

One of the Razorlights insists he's turning up for work tomorrow, whatever the papers say

Andy Burrows has issued a denial of stories that The Johnny Borrell experience is about to split; it has the ringing confidence of Menzies Campbell's Lib Dem conference speech.

Burrows effectively nods and mouths "you're right"

Although ContactMusic bills it as "hitting back", Andy Burrows' response to Tim Wheller calling Razorlight "terrible" is more of a yelp:

"I don't know Tim so I don't know what he said was out of character or not. I am a big fan of Ash and I think a bit of healthy competition is good."

"Out of character"? What does Burrows mean? Don't mind Tim expressing a harsh but fair musical judgement, he's not himself today, poor love.

And Razorlight seeing Ash as competition is amusing - they're not even playing the same sport, never mind going head-to-head.

Go solo, Borrell, pleads the rest of Razorlight

Oh, sure, Andy Burrows' suggestion that Johnny Borrell consider a solo career sounds polite:

"I really wish he would do a solo record. He's got material coming out of his ears, that guy," Andy told the Daily Star. "He does not stop working. He writes on tour, he writes in his sleep, he writes all the bloody time. There's so much great stuff."

He added: "If Johnny did a solo album I'd like to drum on it. But, if not, I'd have absolutely no problem if he wanted to do a solo album - that would mean I could go on holiday for a while."

It does have the phrase "give us a rest" written all over it, doesn't it?