Gordon in the morning: Going off at half-cock

Bloody hell, this pre-pubic punnage is harder work than going up the Shard by stairs:

In other news, how is The Saturdays' attempts to break America through the medium of reality TV series going?

THE Saturdays’ TV show following the girls trying to crack America has been canned — leaving their hopes of US stardom in tatters.

The singers failed to secure a second series of Chasing The Saturdays during talks with execs at channel E! in LA.

Insiders said bosses pulled the plug after viewing figures slumped to 100,000.

That rather understates how far the series shed viewers - it opened with nearly a million and dropped a third by week two; by the time the series limped to an end it was being watched by fewer people in the US than were sticking with it in the UK. Not that there were many of them, either.

Not only did the fail to break America; they couldn't even beat Disney's kid's puppet show Crash And Bernstein in the ratings.

E! Online gets all huffy about Michael Jackson stories

The Entertainment channel's stock-in-trade is gossiping about people, which makes its sudden angry outburst at people gossiping about the parentage of Michael Jackson's children somewhat surprising. Like the Pope having a go at people believing in made-up stories:

By all accounts and appearances, Michael Jackson's three children aren't confused about the arrangement, either. They are his children. He was their father. Those were their tears they shed after his death. If someday they want answers as to the particulars of their DNA, then that's their right.

But until that day, and maybe even after it, we don't need the record set straight by anyone other than Prince, Paris or Blanket on something that isn't crooked. Even Klein and Lester have essentially acknowledged, if not celebrated, Jackson's fatherhood.

E! spends some time patiently explaining the difference between being a biological and actual father. Which is all to the good, but... doesn't telling people not to tattle more or less rule out all of E!'s other content?

E!Online gets all haughty at MIA

After Dan Wooton had a go at MIA for being annoyed at the press for getting her baby's name wrong, just because they got it wrong, E! Online has joined in:

You may recall that the recent new mom went all ballistic when the name was announced, saying in her MySpace blog, "My baby is not called Ickitt, Pickit or Lickit thank you very much to all the Hollywood press. Hes a baby, he don't need press!"

The only trouble is, the baby kinda is named Ickitt.

Based on a birth certificate obtained by TMZ, it turns out that the baby's name is actually not Ickitt, but Ikhyd. Yep, the spelling's a little different, but it's pronounced exactly the same. We stand corrected. But only on a transliterated technicality. Woot!

Except, of course, it's not pronounced "exactly" the same. And not having the name spelled correctly is, you know, quite a big deal. And E seemed to have just sidestepped the main point of MIA's complaint, which is not simply that they got the name wrong, but that it was none of their business at all. And TMZ rummaging around to dig out the birth certificate more-or-less proves that point.

Kelly Osbourne discovers scruples, loses job

We don't have much time for Kelly Osbourne round these parts, but we'd like to give her a small ripple of applause for telling E! Entertainment that she wouldn't be part of a show featuring her and Kelly Stewart making fun out of people with "ordinary" (i.e. actually useful) jobs:

A source tells TMZ that after she saw the first show, Kelly decided not to sign on, as it was "demeaning to other people and juvenile."

Unlike the other reality TV series she did, which was just demeaning full stop, of course. We wonder if Sharon will be inspired by her daughter's stand to quit her TV job making fun of ordinary people. Or is The X Factor just too lucrative?