Dapper Laugh's geezer mate

Dapper Laughs. Has there ever been so much misinformation contained in a two-word name since the government dubbed burning irradiated corpses and shooting looters "Civil Defence"?

Popbitch has a great piece which explains why ITV commissioned the series in the first place - basically, it's not how you treat women, but how ITV treat its few remaining successful entertainers - but there's also this:

The extent of Holly Willoughby’s involvement probably goes no further than getting her mate (Mike Skinner from The Streets) the job of composing Dapper Laughs’ theme tune.

Mike Skinner was working for Dapper Laughs? Oh, Mike. Oh, Mike.

Gordon in the morning: A wing of ITV PR

There's not really much in the Bizarre pages today, which makes it all the more obvious just how badly Gordon relies on the ITV press office feeding him filler is - there's three non-stories about Dancing On Ice, and an awful bit on the launch of a post-show programme for Take Me Out. Yes, Take Me Out:

ESSEX lothario Mark Wright is on a self-imposed dating ban to keep him out of the grasp of girls on his new Take Me Out show.

This is listed as a "TV exclusive by Lucy Connolly" - I suppose it's exclusive on the basis that nobody else would touch it with a long pole:

He said: "Take Me Out girls may be looking for Mr Right — but it's not Mark Wright.

"I'm single but there is no way I am dating anyone from the show. I'm working and I am too professional. It's not happening."

Man who struggles to deliver a line in the trail for a programme on ITV2 spun off a programme on ITV which nobody watches says that he won't be dating people who haven't even shown any interest in him. That's quite an exclusive.

Gordon in the morning: On the brink

Yes, yes, the failure of the Democrats and Republicans to come to an agreement on the US budget ceiling is worrying, but as nothing compared to the threat to something more fundamental to our civilisation: The next series of Pete Andre Wanders About Mugging To Camera While ITV Desperately Hopes He Says Something About Jordan. Gordon's colleague Colin Robertson has a steadying drink and brings us the latest:

PETER Andre was last night ready to pull the plug on his TV show after a split in his management company.

The singer is due to start filming scenes for fly-on-the-wall ITV2 documentary The Next Chapter in the next three weeks.

But insiders say he's reluctant to start work with the two sides at war.

Although this isn't a "war", just a tiresome spat between the people who run Can Management - think Gepetto with a grudge against literacy. Still, it's guaranteed that the behind the scenes bad blood will be a thousand times more interesting than anything that might wind up on screen. I wonder if the BBC could dust down Blood On The Carpet for a special episode?

Gordon in the morning: OMG, it's Lily Allen

Lily Allen knows a thing or two about rotten chat shows, so perhaps it's no surprise that she's rushed to defend Peaches Geldof and her show, the aptly named OMG.

For those unfamiliar with the programme, Gordon explains:

Bob Geldof's 22-year-old daughter made her hosting debut when she launched ITV2 show OMG! With Peaches Geldof this month.

The programme has been met with mixed reactions.

It's not her hosting debut, because she anchored that Teenage Mind thing and her guide to Islam, but perhaps Gordon has had some therapy to help him forget that.

Mixed reactions, indeed, though. Running from "please make it stop" to "I suppose it could have been worse; it's not like she had Fearne Cotton on it".

It turns out someone made a mild a joke about the programme on Twitter:

[O]ne unimpressed fan wrote to Lily on Twitter: "Lets hope that OMG show becomes 'canned Peaches' very soon. Lol."

Lily was as unimpressed with her fan as her fan was with Peaches:

She wrote: "You sound very bitter, give her a break.

"She's not hurting anyone... Why would you want that? You must be jealous."

Yes, that'd be it - the only possible reason for objecting to a poorly-made programme with a useless presenter and a creaking format, where the self-obsession of the host is only out-shallowed by that of the guests would be bitter jealousy.

You might have thought Allen would be pleased that there's a new low point in the 'chatshow knocked up to give a star name something to present' category. But it's nice to see solidarity - perhaps she could start a union of some sort? In fact, there might be a programme for Sky Living It in that. Excuse me, I have a call or two to make.

Olly Murs: they've made a programme about him

There's going to be a big programme on ITV2 about Olly Murs.

I know what you're thinking: who the hell even remembers Olly Murs, never mind would want to make a programme about him?

Funny you should ask:

A source said: "Sony really wants Olly to be a success so they have funded a documentary about him for ITV2.

"The idea is for fans to get to know the real Olly so, hopefully, they will buy his album."

Unless I'm missing something, doesn't that sound like advertising rather than a "documentary"? I'm sure ITV2 won't be showing this programme without a massive 'advertising promotion' caption all over it, right?

Brits nominations announcer announced

A new round of awards ceremonies for a new year, and what could be more exciting than an announcement about the person who's going to read the autocue during the announcement of the people who are in running for the announcement of the winners of the Brit Awards?

Given that last year's shambles on ITV2 was handled by Kelly Osbourne, it was always going to be easy for whoever came next - after all, compared to Kelly, even Fearne Cotton would look halfway competent.

It's going to be Fearne Cotton.

Next year, surely, this announcement should, in its turn, be made on live TV - perhaps SkyReal Lives could bid? - with the name of the person supposed to deliver the clunky links being unveiled to a small audience of half-drunk journalists at one of the swisher branches of Costa Coffee near London's West End.

An ITV spokesperson, revealing the appointment of Cotton, looked worried for a moment and said "hang on a minute... was it her or Tess Daly that does Dancing On Ice?"

Maffia surprised by reality TV: apparently it's not real at all

It turns out that going on a reality TV programme on ITV2 doesn't, as legal experts had hoped, mean you lose your right to be treated as a rational adult. Indeed, despite her appearance on Celeb Air, Lisa Maffia is still being given access to the media to complain that, why, it's all edited together:

The singer insisted that footage which appeared to show her giving "dirty looks" to fellow contestant Mica Paris had been manipulated by the programme's editors.

Maffia also accused show chiefs of encouraging her to act "cold" towards the other participants when the cameras are rolling.

She complained: "I know that they will edit it to look dramatic. But I didn't think they would make me out to be a bitch when I'm not."

James P, who alerted us to this terrible lack of respect for veracity on the part of CelebAir, observes:

If only she'd seen that other reality show where they edited some people to look worse than others. What was it called again? Ah yes, all of them.

Maffia is also, we're given to understand, annoyed that CelebAir isn't a real airline at all and the chances of her working her way up to become a flight dispatcher are sorely limited.

Brit Awards 2009: Can you wait?

The 2009 Brit Awards will, again, be televised live by ITV. Although there's no word yet on who will host, the chances of it being better than this year's horrorshop have to be high. February 18th is the date for your diary; the nasty ITV2 nominations programme is scheduled for January 20th.

Which does give us a chance to ask: what on earth were they thinking they were doing when they kind-of redesigned the ITV2 logo? The ITV family of channels at least looked coherent, if they lacked any other sort of coherence, and now they've got on channel whose logo fits, except it's been turned through about 30 degrees and then made 3D for no good reason. If they really wanted to try and give a sense of personality to the channel, they could have tweaked the 2 and left it in the standard ITV logo layout; this just looks like fifteen minutes before a press launch they got someone to knock something up using the graphics capability of Microsoft Word.

Gordon in the morning: Cheryl's ignored his advice

Having spent a week getting excited at the prospect of Cheryl divorcing Ashley, preparing to share his drawer-full of young men's phone numbers and making it clear only a split could satisfy him, how does Gordon react to, erm, Cheryl Cole giving her marriage a second chance?

By castigating Cheryl, of course, and telling her off.

Sorry, we mean giving "pals" the space to tell her off:

Cheryl's a fool to forgive Ashley

It's not clear if he means Cheryl's friends, or just Gordon's - the byline suggests the latter:

By RICHARD WHITE and GORDON SMART

Considering there's two people writing it, nobody seems to have given too much attention to the writing:

Until Wednesday, Cheryl, 24, had not seen Ashley, 27, since The Sun revealed he bedded blonde hairdresser Aimee Walton, 22 — then offered her cash for an abortion.

The Sun offered Aimee cash for an abortion? Or did The Sun offer the money to Cheryl?

No, we know what happened, but since the paragraph is written on the asusmption of no background knowledge of the story, you think it might be clearer.

Elsewhere, Gary Barlow's moaning that Take That only win Brit Awards voted for by the public and not the Academy is given more space than it deserves because Gordon was able to run the picture of him with the band above it. Barlow could have been calling for Murdoch to be run out of town on a stick and, with that picture, it would have appeared in the paper.

Gordon also has a bizarre little rage at ITV for shifting the last couple of McCartney songs to ITV2:

I FEEL for the viewers who missed out on the full MACCA set from The Brits.

ITV shunted Sir Paul on to ITV2 towards before some memorable tunes.

Viewers on ITV1 did see him sing Dance Tonight and dedicate classics Live And Let Die to his beloved first wife LINDA and Hey Jude to JOHN LENNON.

You feel for them, do you, Gordon? You share the pain of... who, exactly? As long ago as last September, 85% of UK households had digital TV (and it's fairly safe to say many of those that don't aren't that arsed about watching television anyway) so, effectively, you're shedding tears for people who couldn't be arsed to change the channel on their digital remote control. Will you be offering them counselling?

Brits nominations: gird yourself

The organisation themselves haven't got round to actually posting the details yet, but BBC News is reporting the Brits nominations include four for Mika - yes, four, even with the benefit of hindsight - and a similar number of nominations for Take That.

We're a little bemused as to which bright-eyed expert came up with the idea of holding a ceremony on the same day as the Golden Globes which - even in its strike-bound, released-terrorist-hostage-style press conference, still manages to eclipse Kelly Osbourne clumping through Mika's nominations.

The glittering event is "live" (except it's not) on ITV2 this evening, with Reggie 'even in the glittering history of Doctor Who bit parts, man, being on Brighton sea front briefly instead of held captive on the Master's ship, that was some bit part' Yeates.

Shaun Ryder's hearing voices

I suppose the Happy Mondays have never been a band to worry overmuch about the idea of their legacy - after all, they never really bothered that much about survival, never mind how posterity will view them. But even so: Ghosthunting With The Happy Mondays on ITV2?

During the course of the programme - helmed by Yvette Fielding, naturally - they're going to have a seance. Possibly to try and contact Bez.

How low can you Doh?

Surely Pete Doherty isn't so desperate to grub out some cash that he'd sell out Kate Moss for a tittle-tattle documentary on ITV2? Surely not?

Apparently, ITV2 are making a programme - actually, "documentary" is overdoing it - called Kate and Pete: A Love Story, and Doherty is granting an interview. Perhaps it's best for Babyshamble's credibility that he's stopped turning up for gigs.

Long sticky pole

Apparently today's Daily Express is claiming that the Top of the Pops that goes out tonight will be the "raunchiest" ever - presumably because Christina is going to be on, and she must be sexy, she keeps telling us she is; and there's also Kylie, Sugababes and Shakira lined up as well.

Hmmm, maybe the least clothes ever, but raunchiest? We still remember the Imagination incident, you know. Besides, Coldplay are on, which negates any ounce of oomph the show may have had.

While we're talking about pop on TV - ITV2 last night had Shania Twain on Late Night with David Letterman (we suspect this must have been aired Wednesday in the States). What the hell was she wearing? She looked like she was going to finish the song, and then go back to Iceland to finish stocking the fish finger aisle. Orange bodywarmer, Shania? Eh? Is EasyJet chic the next big thing in Canada?

It did, however, draw attention from the dreadful run through of I'm Gonna Get You Good, a song so mish-mashed together its sole hope of survival is being boomed out so loud as to scare mammals in distant woods. On Letterman, live, Twain didn't appear to have the stomach to belt it out, and the backing sounded curiously as if it was being played on the old 1980's Battlestar Galactica handheld games - all clicky and whirring without any coherent tune. Shameful.