Geri Halliwell: Auteur

You know what the movie world needs? How about Geri Halliwell: Producer?

She's keen to bring her unlovable children's books to the screen and has set her sights high for casting:

“I have not met Brad Pitt so realistically he’s unlikely to take part but I am desperate to get the gorgeous George on board.

“I’ve got an actor character called Bradley Litt and a Dr. Clooney who delivers Ugenia’s baby sister in a store called Garrods. Hmm, I wonder who and what these could be based on?!”

Goodness... now you mention it, Geri... I'd not spotted the deftly disguised characters and places in your book, until you pointed them out. Doctor Clooney - of course! And Garrods - clearly, that must be the Army and Navy store, right?

But there's more:

“Crazy Trevor, Ugenia’s friend in the series, reminds me a lot of Wayne Rooney in both looks and personality.

“I am really hopeful he will agree to voice the part. I get the impression he’d be up for doing it just for fun.”

Yes. For fun. You take care of the money-making; everyone else will be in it for fun.

Geri added: “George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Wayne Rooney – how’s that for an A-list line-up?!”

Except none of them have agreed, have they? You might as well invite Fred Astaire to play a character called Fed Astare and stick his name on the proposal for all the basing in reality your plans have. Or, better yet, just put the idea back in the drawer, close the drawer, and set fire to the desk.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Gordon in the morning: Kensit moves on again

The wedding of Jeremy Healy and Patsy Kensit is off, according to this morning's Gordon Smart column, but it's not a story that Smart himself dirties his hands with. Oddly, though, there are two bylines:

By JENNA GOOD
and PETE SAMSON

It seems a bit heavy for a 'story' which is little more than an unsourced quote and a list of her ex-husbands.

Patsy had reportedly asked film star friend LIZ HURLEY to be bridesmaid. The pal added: “She must be devastated.”

The pal isn't actually Liz Hurley. And it isn't clear if "the pal" is suggesting that Kensit will be devastated, or if Hurley will be upset at not having to wear a bridesmaid dress.

It's very kind to call Hurley a film star - even if you count films that nobody saw, she's not troubled a trailer since 2004.

In the paper, Gordon's big story is about Amy Winehouse's new album, a story he splashes despite having run it last week:

The troubled star has almost become a recluse since contracting an ugly skin condition and friends are terrified about her negative state of mind.

'Has almost become a recluse'? How do you "almost" become a recluse? Only venturing outside covered in a tent? Since Gordon was reporting at the start of the weekend she was turning up at Pentonville wearing a large, look-at-me badge and last week on trips to kebab shops, you'd have to ask exactly where the almost-reclusedom is showing itself.

Meanwhile, Gordon has some sexy snaps of Sarah Larson. They're clearly mucking-about-on-a-night-out shots, and they're being run because she may or may not be dating George Clooney:

I always knew Sarah was a great catch, and these pics of her...

Yes, Gordon, what do "these pics" do?

...just confirm what I already thought.

We're scratching our heads as to what Gordon means when he says that he "always knew" Sarah was a great catch? Does he mean 'since I heard she was going out with Clooney'? Or has he really always thought she was a great catch and has been working diligently behind the scenes to set her up with someone? Or is it merely he had some vaguely raunchy out-of-focus photos he wanted to print and was just going to write any old blurb to make it look like there was reason for them to be in a newspaper?

Gordon in the morning: It's only 36 hours after the Oscars

Remember the 2008 Oscars? Gordon Smart's pages this morning take a nostalgic look back at the event this morning. Apparently, the most interesting interesting thing that happened was Russell Brand "pulling" Dita Von Teese. Gordon calls it pulling, anyway - although since Brand's tale involves getting her phone number and, erm, sending her a couple of texts, it's not quite a relationship of From Here To Eternity beachfront proportions.

What is astonishing, though, is the headline for the story:

Brand gets new nookie wook

Well, yes, it's almost a pun on his book title, My Booky Wook, but isn't quite as a pun has to have a second meaning. And there was no "nookie" and wook doesn't mean anything at all in this context. Had Brand bought a cabinet in which to store his Star War figures, Brand gets new Wookie nook might have worked, though.

Tilda Swinton's amusing acceptance speech delighted Gordon, too, although we're not sure it was quite the reaction she'd have hoped for:

OSCAR speech of the night goes to Brit TILDA SWINTON — for slipping in the words “buttocks” and “nipples”.

He's getting all excited and giggly because someone said nipples. Seriously, is he eight years old? And isn't Swinton's suggestion that George Clooney is a secret rubber fetishist more the point anyway?

Diversion: George Clooney on his knees

We don't normally bother with non-music-related people who get caught in Victoria Newton's net, but we're going to make an exception for the George Clooney's hands and knees story. This is running under Newton's Bizarre branding, but is credited to Gary O'Shea.

The nub of the story is that, while doing the Chinese Theatre wet-cement ceremony with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Jerry Weintraub, George essayed a rather weak joke:

“If I had to be on my hands and knees with three other guys, I can’t think of three better guys to do it with, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

Mr O'Shea seizes on this throwaway line:

BACHELOR GEORGE CLOONEY had fans bent double with laughter — with a joke about sexuality.

"Bent", do you see? Bachelor, do you see?

Because he made a vaguely gay gag, Mr O'Shea feels he has to ask, like an appalled bruiser in a bar: Does this mean he's gay or what?

No, he really does ask:

He divorced actress TALIA BALSAM in 1993 and wooed beauties including LISA SNOWDON and RENEE ZELLWEGER.

But he admitted recently he had “failed miserably” with women. So does he prefer men? Here we look at some jokey Cloos . . .

Yes, there's a sidebar of "Cloos". Seriously:

For ...

GEORGE wore TIGHTS as the Caped Crusader in Batman and Robin.

He provided the voice of a GAY dog in cult cartoon South Park and played a TRANSVESTITE in 1993 movie The Harvest.

He owned a 300lb MALE Vietnamese black bristled, potbellied pig named Max.

and against

WHEN asked if he would consider moving into politics, he confessed: “Run for office? No. I’ve slept with too many women, I’ve done too many drugs, and I’ve been to too many parties.”

He was married (though just once!) and dated movie beauties and models.

Let's leave aside for now Mr. O'Shea's apparent inability to tell the difference between transvestism and homosexuality, and the even more surprising inability to tell the difference between acting and real life. Let's not even wonder if Mr. O'Shea has ever heard of bisexuality, and just focus on the suggestion - "jokey" or otherwise - that owning a male pet somehow might mean you're gay. The Sun and other tabloids have spent decades subtly trying to suggest that homosexuality was in some way connected with paedophilia; this is the first time I can remember a British newspaper trying to suggest that 'gay' and 'bestial' are pretty much the same thing.

And here's an example of how the record labels invest their money

One and a half million pounds chucked into the bucket to sign up Victoria Hart, then, most of which has presumably already been pissed away on the marketing stunt of getting her to sing at some Cannes party or other. By a really strange coincidence, though, Hart doesn't sign her contract until today and yet, erm, there's a single ready to release. At least the PR company haven't totally insulted our intelligence by pretending that George Clooney found her humming in a kitchen and asked her to sing at the party, but it's hoping that nobody thinks to closely about how an "unsigned" singer turns up in a eight hundred quid dress to sing for the Hollywoodite massive.