What do you give the pop star who has everything?

Back in the day, it was easy. You'd send George Michael a teddy bear, or a handmade card, or a shaky Polaroid of your cock, or a hat, and that'd be that.

Nowadays, if you're shopping for a pop star's birthday gift, the stakes are a little higher:

Fans give $61,000 forest to K-pop star for her birthday

To be fair, actually fans bought hundreds of trees as part of an environment project in Iu's name:

Soompi and Allkpop reported that fans who contributed to her gift managed to raise around 5 million won (S$61,000) for the IU Forest Project.

Their environmentally-friendly efforts saw them plant more than 250 types of trees since January so that they were able to give IU her very own forest.

The stakes are raised, Directioners. If you don't get Harry Styles his own estuary, you're not real fans, right?

Gordon in the morning: Liam Gallagher at 40

Today, Liam Gallagher turns 40, and Gordon is in a laudatory mood:

THERE is only one man truly qualified to pass comment on Liam Gallagher. His brother Noel.

Despite Gordon kicking off with this claim, he then proceeds to pass comment, and then invites Alan McGee to do the same. Despite admitting that neither he nor McGee are actually qualified so to do.

Smart trots out the usual "one of the best frontmen in music history" line (which, if you're mostly going to see The Spice Girls and Kasabian, is probably the sort of thing you'd genuinely believe) and then shares an anecdote through which we can get the measure of the man:

Jon McClure, from band Reverend And The Makers, told me: “When we supported Oasis, Liam asked me what my favourite type of peas was. I said garden. He said, ‘Don’t you like mushy?’ I said, ‘No, I prefer garden.’ He said, ‘You’re all right, you are.’ I think that’s how he susses folk out.”

It's interesting that although Smart has met Gallagher frequently, he has to fall back on someone else's anecdote. Even if it's one that doesn't really mean anything; a profile built on a throwaway story about a throwaway line.

Gordon does offer one story about meeting Liam. The scene is him, talking with Noel:

By that point I knew Noel quite well. Liam bowled over and said: “You’re mates with arr kid, right? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a c*** in a nice coat.”

Arr kid? Arr kid? Did this happen on talk like a pirate day?

Still, we've at least established that Liam is a pretty good judge of character.

McGee's piece is actually quite sweet, sharing a story about how - after McGee's return from his drug hell - Liam was the first person to talk to him in a normal way:

Even people from my own record company, Creation, didn’t know what to say. But Liam was the one to say, “Are you all right?” For that I will always love him.

He warns us that Gallagher will be playing in a band until he dies. Happy birthday, Liam, and heaven help us all.

If you haven't done so yet...

On Freddie Mercury's birthday, Google have produced a - naturally - flamboyant Google doodle to mark the day.

Why do people bother with Bing?

Gary Barlow marks his 40th

I suppose when you reach 40, you might start to feel your age, and perhaps even worry that you have little time left before you feel the hot breath of death upon your neck.

TAKE THAT star GARY BARLOW enjoyed a memorable 40th birthday on Thursday (20Jan11) - he performed with CHRIS MARTIN for a star-studded audience and received a special message from SIR ELTON JOHN.

Or, perhaps, if you're Gary Barlow, you might feel that it can't come quickly enough.

Happy birthday, Daniel Johnston

Daniel Johnston turns 50 in a couple of days. Forgot to send a card? Brooklyn Vegan reports there's something you can still do:

Call (936) 463-4688 now to hear a message from Daniel and to record your greeting. People are encouraged to "tell a story, sing Daniel a song, cover one of his songs, or anything else that lets Daniel, and his fans, know how much he means to you and to the world of music. Throw on a party hat if you got one, and leave any message you want. Any length you want. Anything goes."

Daniel will get all the messages, and most of them will air along with special musician guest messages, on a 50th birthday show happening on the new Daniel Johnston Radio (Radio.hihowareyou.com) on January 22nd at 8pm CT. The live birthday show will also include Daniel's music and stories from the man himself.

Our idea was to send him half a telegram from the queen, but this is better.

Gordon in the morning: A half-cooked takeaway

We're firmly back in the era when anything Take That does is treated like it's part of the run-up to the That/Gurner redocking. Even when they've not really done anything, like Jason Orange's 40th birthday party.

Guy Patrick is dispatched from Team Gordon to cover the celebrations, which were fitting for a man entering middle-age. Actually, they were fitting for a man about to enter sheltered accommodation, but Patrick does his best:

Bandmate HOWARD DONALD, 42, arrived at around 6pm carrying a spare set of clothes - and the rest of the lads were due to arrive later.

Man staying overnight in hotel turns up with suitcase. Possibility of the ones that people care about turning up later on.

Last night a source close to the star said: "Jason and Justin are up for a mad one.

"Everybody's wondering whether there will be 40 or 80 candles!"

Why would there be 80 candles? Am I missing something? Does Orange age twice as fast as ordinary people? Has he been lying about his age? Or is the idea of twice-as-many-candles just an indication of how KER-AZZZY things might get?

One odd thing, though - Patrick clearly is writing before much has happened - Barlow and Owen haven't turned up, the food is going to be this and that, people are up for it being 'mad'. And yet:

Even No Regrets by ROBBIE WILLIAMS was played - in a tribute to the singer who is rejoining the band for a tour and new album.

That's written in the past tense. Curious.

Happy birthday, Allan Williams

A heartfelt happy birthday to former Beatles manager and Aigburth legend Allan Williams, who turns eighty tomorrow.

Classy

You might have thought that Frances Bean Cobain would have had enough of suicide dominating her short life, but no: apparently her 16th birthday party was suicide-themed:

The website Gossip Rocks managed to track down Frances’s invitation to her “Suicidal 16,” which reads: “My one and only sweet 16 . .. eerrrr actually it’s my suicidal 16. .. We are also having a contest, it’s the ‘who can look most dead contest.’ If you dress up dead and are picked as the top three, you will receive an iPod Touch and a $200 gift certificate to Amoeba. So get that face paint on, and try to make it as realistic as you can.”

I wonder who won the parent's race.

Sixteen, nervous and shy - and yours for $250

Thanks to MTV, there's been a push on parents to splash some serious money on their kids' sixteenth birthdays. To make it memorable, on the basis, presumably, that by the time their eighteenth comes round they won't be able to remember any celebration they take part in.

But how can you fund that sort of extravagance? Billy Ray Cyrus has had an idea - get the guests to fund the event. An email from James P explains:

It's been a while since the last Miley Cyrus story, so I thought I should send you this: Her 16th birthday is coming up, and she wants all her fans to celebrate with her. Well, all her fans with a spare $250 knocking around, anyway.

Apparently her parents, much like every other parent on the planet, have glared at that unshiftable stain in the living-room carpet, remembered the unpleasant discovery at the back of the airing cupboard two weeks after the last birthday party, and decided it might be better to hire out a venue this year, so that someone else can deal with the clear-up. Disneyland, to be precise.

"The Disneyland event will be called Miley's Sweet 16 - Share the Celebration and tickets that go on sale on 30 August are expected to sell fast", it says here.

That's 'Share the Celebration', using the word 'share' in its less well-known sense, 'Pay $250 to attend'. I'm not sure what $250 gets you beyond entrance to the venue (bit of cake wrapped in kitchen-roll which pulls off all the icing? Access to a bottle of Thunderbird?), or whether a second tier of tickets will go on sale for $100 which permit you to spend the whole event sitting sobbing in the kitchen. Maybe they'll knock off another $50 if you claim you're a mate of Miley's brother and wave a four-pack of Skol at the door. I'll keep an eye out...

Two things, of course: first - how cynical would you have to be to turn one of the milestones in your child's life into a money making event?

And secondly: Disneyland? For a sixteen year old? Seriously? What are you planning for her 18th, Billy? Chuck E Cheese and a clown?

The hidden subtext is 'just send money'

Pete Wentz has just turned 29 - thereby making him twice the age of his oldest fans - but doesn't like the gifting involved:

"The truth is I hate my birthday. I don't like it at all. It's because I realized I'm bad at receiving presents."

"I'm really bad at receiving presents so I get really nervous around my birthday and I really don't want people to give me presents."

He hates his birthday because he is nervous about getting gifts? What, is he so inept the idea of unwrapping a box of his sponsor's male grooming products sends him into a fit of the vapours?

Perhaps he just knows that his Mum will send him off to write thank you notes straight after.

He does seem to enjoy presents, though:

"My wife gave me a motorcycle for Christmas, and that was pretty awesome. I haven¹t learned how to ride it really that well. For our wedding she gave me a Mickey Mouse Rolex, which was really hard to track down. So that¹s pretty cool."

We imagine he hasn't learned how to use the watch really that well yet, either, but we love the idea of him and Ashlee, poring over the instruction book, trying to work out how you can tell if Spongebob Squarepants is on.

Embed and breakfast man: Happy Birthday, Tim Burgess

Tim Burgess was born - not on Christmas Day at all, but May 30th, 1967. Just one day after Noel Gallagher. To celebrate, we're going to speckle today's postings with some glorious Tim action. As you do. (With, obviously, apologies to those of you who hate The Charlatans.)

First, Tellin' Stories, live at the 2006 T in The Park:



Today's other Tim-related videos:
Tim Burgess reveals his underwear in a Guardian interview
How High - Sheffield Octagon, 2006
Then on Granada TV, 1990s
A Town Called Malice - The Charlatans with Paul Weller in Manchester, 2007
Tim plays Manchester Charades for a Virgin Mobile promo

Eh?

We've tried to understand the headline on the non-story on Newton's coverage of Kylie's birthday:

Kylie's 39 with her No1 Dannii

The best we can imagine is that "Dannii" is meant to sound like "fan" and "39" is meant to sound like "fine", and that all of the paper's subeditors have basically given up.

Still, it was nice of Victoria to think of Kylie:

The Sun came out for the Aussie beauty as we delivered a birthday cake, complete with candles, to her plush flat in Chelsea, West London.

How sweet. And not, we're sure, a pathetic attempt to try and get Minogue to come to the front door long enough for a long-lens shot or anything.

Only one thing was missing on her big day — a man.

Oh, for god's sake, Newton, she only broke up with Olivier Martinez three months ago; perhaps she was quite happy having a birthday without some clod-hopping bloke hanging about. Are you really suggesting that a person not in a relationship is, by definition, somehow missing something?

Happy birthday, Britney

We're as delighted as Blogcritics that Britney is twenty-one, but... how on earth could a twenty year old provide "kiddie porn fantasies?"