Walsh confuses hindsight, second sight

Talk about going out on a limb: Louis Walsh has revealed he's not sure Nadine Coyle has much chance of a solo career taking off:

"It's going to be very hard for her to cut it as a solo star," Walsh said. "She needs to get a really big record producer or manager behind her, or it doesn't matter if she's written the greatest songs on the planet because not enough people will be exposed to them."

After this, Walsh looked into middle distance. "You know who does have a good chance, though?" he continued. "That David Cameron. I reckon he might get to be Prime Minister one day. But..." - here he dropped his voice to a gravel whisper - "... I wouldn't put money on the Titanic ever arriving in New York. Just a feeling."

Gordon in the morning: Well played, Ms Coyle

So Nadine Coyle's album fell short of making the top 40. How to stop more crowing from The Sun?

Did I tell you, Gordon, about the time I nearly died to death?

Yes, Nadine Coyle has become the first person to be lucky to have a dodgy boiler:

The star said: "Everyone could have died. We're lucky still to be here.

"My mouth erupted in blisters. I couldn't sleep or eat or think straight.

"Everyone got really drowsy and we kept having to go to sleep.

"We all felt like we had really bad flu. My older sister got so ill we thought she was dying.

"It was the worst time of my life, being ill while looking at everyone I cared about getting sick as well."

So, yes. Nearly dead. All my loved ones nearly dead. In a horrible way.

What were you going to say, Gordon?

The star, whose debut solo album Insatiable failed to reach the Top 40, has now moved out of the mansion.

Just one line at the end. If only Team Nadine had handled the launch of the record so slickly.

Gordon in the morning: Limited release leads to limited sales shock

Gordon has some fun poking Nadine Coyle with a stick this morning:

NADINE COYLE has sold an embarrassing 117 copies of her debut solo single.

117 is quite disappointing. Although a couple of paragraphs later, Gordon admits that she hasn't actually sold 117 copies at all:

The singer, who released Insatiable exclusively through the supermarket, flogged 117 copies, according to official first-day sales figures on Monday. Digital sales were dire too - just 2,439.

So, "sold 117 copes of her single" if you ignore all of Tuesday's sales and all the download sales. And you can only buy the physical record in one place - a store which tends to do most of its business at the other end of the week. And you can't find the mp3 everywhere, either - Amazon don't have it, for instance.

So, in that context, perhaps not such a terrible result.

CHERYL COLE's sales figures rub further salt into Nadine's wounds.

The X Factor judge has shifted 566 hard copies of track Promise This and 27,643 on t'internet - in her second week of sales. And she sold a whopping 157,000 copies in the first week.

T'internet? You're still doing that, Gordon?

Given that Cole is everywhere - both metaphorically and in terms of stockists - and it's only the second week of sales, I'd say those figures are probably more worrying for Cole than Coyle.

RIHANNA racked up 47,000 downloads with new song Only Girl (In the World).

That doesn't really sound like many. Sure, Nadine's not shifted much, but isn't the story here that all the sales figures are pretty grim here?

Smart pegs Coyle at 35 in the midweek charts - which is more interesting in its own right. If you're down to about 3,000 sales before you get out of the Top 40, how many singles do you have to sell to make the top 100? I feel as if I should be turning up there. I've not sold any singles at all, but it looks like that should guarantee an entry in the low 80s.

But Gordon's story isn't about the state of the music industry; it's all about kicking the heck out of Nadine Coyle:

At this rate she'll be in the reduced aisle with stale muffins by Thursday.

There's no mistaking Nadine's got a good set of pipes, but she's about as endearing as malaria.

Maybe if she'd put some work in over here instead of keeping her head down in LA, it would have fared better.

Most people who Gordon write about go to California, and they're living it large, Hollywood-style. Nadine Coyle goes there, and she's sneaking away in some posh foreign hidey-hole.

Her increasing rift with popular bandmates SARAH HARDING, NICOLA ROBERTS, KIMBERLEY WALSH and Cheryl can't have helped either.

She's in a rift with the popular ones.

Popular with The Sun, clearly.

Smart's bullying looks like a desperate attempt to keep in with Girls Aloud and The X Factor mothership.

It also makes you warm more and more to Nadine Coyle.

Nadine Coyle: Too sexy for TV. Apparently.

The suggestion that Nadine Coyle's video was "too sexy for TV" is the absolute god's honest truth, and not merely a desperate ploy to try and get people interested in Nadine Coyle's solo career.

The Irish singer flashes the flesh as she writhes around in a tiny black dress in the promo for Insatiable, but TV viewers won't be able to see the saucy scenes after the footage "failed" a standards test.

Coyle admits producers will now attempt to re-edit the video to make it suitable for TV audiences.

In a post on her Twitter.com page, the singer writes, "Crunch time on the video front, apparently it has failed a test for TV. We have to go back and re-edit or you can't see it!"

Actually, that makes it sound like the video didn't pass the test for photosensitive epilepsy, doesn't it?

Gordon in the morning: No Cher' Cole by the charcoal

Having thrown his lot behind the idea that Nadine Coyle is heading out Girls Aloud, Gordon is now scouring information to try and support his hypothesis:

NADINE COYLE has denied there's a problem with her and the rest of GIRLS ALOUD.

So why wouldn't she invite CHERYL COLE round for a tasty chargrilled sausage when they were just a few miles apart?

The singers are in the same neighbourhood in Hollywood but the Geordie's invite for her Irish chum's barbie must have got lost in the post.

Or maybe she was invited and had something else to do. Or maybe it's ridiculous to suggest that because they work together they have to socialise as well - I'll be Dominic Mohan has loads of parties that he doesn't invite Gordon to. All the time, I'll bet. But just because Dominic breaks out the grill, and is throwing on fat juicy steaks and opening the second-best wine without Gordon being there wouldn't mean that there's some sort of rift, surely?

Gordon in the morning: Nadine Coyle is the new Robbie Williams

The really strange thing about the coverage of the decision of Nadine Coyle to quit Girls Aloud (or, rather, the rest to quit Nadine) is the way it's being pitched.

Gordon, having already restored Cheryl's married name, seems to be running some sort of party line. This isn't a split in the band, it's merely a reunion to which one person is not going to turn up:

GIRLS ALOUD are definitely getting back together next year - but not all of them.

The fantastic five will be slimmed down to a fabulous four as NADINE COYLE will have no part in the reunion.

SARAH HARDING, NICOLA ROBERTS, KIMBERLEY WALSH and CHERYL COLE have begun sketching ideas for their comeback - but their Northern Irish bandmate does not figure in their plans.

It's been something of a running joke how quickly bands reunite after their splits these days, but I think Girls Aloud might have the record for having the reunion before they've even split up.

Whoever has fed the story to The Sun is keen to rubbish Nadine:

A source said: "It's been a painful decision for Sarah, Nicola, Kimberley and Cheryl but they have decided that the future of Girls Aloud lies without Nadine.

"They've all been on a roller-coaster ride since 2002 and have just grown apart from Nadine.

"Relations with her had been strained within the camp for a while."

And if they weren't before, they will be now.

Darkness at 3AM: Nadine Coyle gets a job offer

The 3AMies are excited this morning about Nadine Coyle adding something to the KitKat advert that's already on her on acting CV. She's vaguely being considered for a movie that doesn't exist:

Nadine Coyle, 24, is not just a big hit in the pop world. Our insider on Brit flick Shank (out tomorrow) says: "There's a real buzz about Nadine. Execs have asked about getting her involved in Shank 2."

Judging by the lukewarm reaction the film is getting, I suspect it might take more than getting Nadine onboard to make a Shank 2 happen. Perhaps Nadine needs to ask Nestle if they need her for anything else.

Gordon in the morning: Thin day

Coming this spring to Channel 4 - a whole new season of Dharma and Greg. She's a free-flowing free spirit who loves life; he's an uptight, buttoned-down kind of guy who finds intimacy and spontaneity awkward. Can their love survive their crazy mismatched coupling?

Oh... hang on a moment, it turns out that's actually a photo of Gordon Smart meeting Nadine Coyle for a chat.

I bumped into her yesterday in London's Air Studios

What a strange coincidence - and just a few hours after Gordon published a story about how thin Coyle looks these days. Just happened to bump into her, with a photographer alongside him.

Gordon, of course, doesn't really understand all this obsession with weight:

I'm a fella writing a column and I find the obsession with female celebs' weight a bit odd.

Really, Gordon?

Except when it comes to Colin Farrell, presumably:

COLIN FARRELL looks like a man who has been hanging around with AMY WINEHOUSE.

Colin was snapped after a dip in Malibu, showing off the body of a man who hasn't had a sniff of Guinness in months.

Or when reporting on a song telling Keira Knightley she's too thin:

The lyrics go: "Keira, Keira, eat your dinner. Keira, Keira, you can't get much thinner. Go to a restaurant with Michael Winner. Keira, Keira, eat your dinner."

Brilliant.

I can't imagine weight-conscious Keira will be too pleased with the tune though.

It might even put her off her dinner.

To see if you agree with Jilted see more pics of Keira in our slideshow.

And, naturally, if it'a about Amy Winehouse, well, you'd have to chip in:

AN emaciated AMY WINEHOUSE partied in London last night in scenes that have become worringly familiar for the skinny star.

And, obviously, you can't write about James Corden without mentioning it:

EDDIE LARGE, LES DAWSON and RONNIE BARKER are comedy giants in every sense of the word.

Big guys with huge personalities who got to the very top.

The latest in this noble line of plus-size funnymen to find fame is Bizarre Award winner JAMES CORDEN.

But alarming news reaches me - the cuddly comic may not stay tubby much longer.

For a man who doesn't understand the obsession with weight, he seems to write about it a hell of a lot. Perhaps he doesn't really like Kasabian, either.

Still - despite not really understanding the obsession - Gordon carried out his fearless investigation into Nadine's body shape:

To give the size of her legs some scale I put my thigh next to hers. Nadine is tiny but she didn't look unhealthily skinny.

That might just sound like a chance to rub your thigh on a pretty woman's leg, but actually - since the body mass index was revealed to be flawed - comparing your leg with a model of Gordon Smart's has become a recognised medical test.

Naturally, Gordon didn't spend all his time wondering if he should suggest comparing chest sizes, but the Ashley Cole part of the conversation was so groundbreaking, it requires its own URL:

[T]he Girls Aloud star insisted she would blank love rat ASHLEY COLE if he walked into the studios where we were chatting.

She said: "I'd just sit here and say nothing."

Woman not prepared to tolerate mate's cheating ex. Front pages, surprisingly, unheld.

Gordon in the morning: Uncoyling

Gordon has something of a scoop this morning - if it's true - pointing out that Nadine Coyle's attempts to spin her a solo career has failed:

Nadine was even turned down by Girl's Aloud's OWN record company, Polydor, and other labels in the same Universal business group.

Polydor had the first rights to sign any of the five ladies if they wanted to go solo.

A source said: "Nadine had meetings but none of the Universal labels wanted to take her on. She's tried to get a deal elsewhere but with no luck."

This seems a little odd; Nadine being a better singer than Cheryl Cole. Perhaps she's less keen on jumping through hoops? Or maybe she had her own ideas about what she wanted to do, which run contrary to the record company model (= push-up bra, short skirt; whack some shop-bought tune through a computer; promote on Loose Women and GM:TV. Repeat until fade.)

Oh, let's hope she's being difficult. But surely she must have the money to pay for a studio and self-release some stuff?

Still, Gordon seems pretty clear that failing to land a record deal is the end of the dream.

Up to a point, though, as elsewhere it's not even a setback:

Boomtown Brat PIXIE GELDOF is yet to sign her record deal but will be releasing a single soon.

Gordon in the morning: The next battle

Having actually been able to report on a chart battle that actually involved two records going head-to-head, Gordon is keen to bring us another one. But, returning to form, this one is a bit more nebulous:

GIRLS ALOUD star NADINE COYLE will square up to bandmate CHERYL COLE in what is set to be one of 2010's most fierce chart battles.

Really? So what day do their records come out on, then?

Erm... well, actually, Nadine hasn't even started work yet. She's just putting together a team. And Cheryl? Well, no firm plans beyond the current stuff there, either.

Gordon's chart battle is a bit more 'who would win out a monster squid and a shark with an eyepatch' than an actual event, then.

In other non-news, Gordon runs a claim that the X Factor might end a week early next year:

A source said: "If a show that gets 19million viewers can't muster enough support to beat an online campaign of music snobs, then maybe there is no point aiming for a Christmas No 1 next year."

Oh, the "music snobs". Them again. Music snobs who'd buy Rage Against The Machine? Isn't that like gourmets who only buy Tesco's Finest?

The apparent lesson of the last few weeks - that ITV and Cowell shouldn't assume a number one as a right - seems to have been a bit mislaid:

ITV1's plan for next year means the winner would be guaranteed a No 1 for at least a week.

Would it? Why, exactly?

Darkness at 3AM: One day, it'll be right

Since, by the law of averages, sooner or later Girls Aloud will have to split up (if only to allow the lucrative reunion tour) you can almost understand the 3AM Girls taking a regular punt on predicting the end.

It's like weather forecasting. You should always predict rain; often, you'll be right, and it's better to send people out with umbrellas on a dry day than vice-versa.

The latest prediction is based on Sarah Harding making a solo record - which consists of providing a vocal for a track by the Filthy Dukes that's going to be slapped on a movie soundtrack.

The 3AMies list the other's solo projects, including, erm, Nadine Coyle's candle shop.

There's also this, this morning:

It was the kind of wardrobe malfunction that would have had most guys lusting with excitement.

But as Estelle performed on stage at GAY club, the singer's flash of boob went largely unnoticed.

Hmm, we wonder why?

Actually, isn't more likely because most people would have been looking elsewhere at the time?

Girls Aloud will eat your hard-drive

We're not surprised fake Girls Aloud mp3s are at the heart of the current spike in trojan software criss-crossing the globe. In fact, we shouldn't be at all surprised if Nadine Coyle herself hasn't created the web nasty as part of some ploy to use botnet voting in next year's Brits best single category. Or maybe the FHM 100 sexiest women poll.

Gordon in the morning: Brits ahoy

Of course, for the papers, the live transmission of the Brits is a bit of a nightmare - the morning titles are now sent for publication so early, the presses start rolling before the ceremony finishes, which means that the paper version of Bizarre is quite lucky to have any shots of the event at all - although the sharp-eyed will spot that the onstage shots come from the very start of the event. Given the chance to pick from all the live performances, would they really have chosen Ditto and Mika rather than, say, Kylie or Rhianna?

The Sun gets some coverage onto the news pages under the headline Leona Lewses, which is both a rubbish pun (unless she's planning to move to the county town of East Sussex out of shame) and a really odd angle to take.

As Pete Samson points out, though, the much-predicted "Pop hits back" story for the event proved to be a duff sell, with the Monkeys, Foos and Nash scooping armfuls of prizes for the rock-ish tendency.

With deadlines working against him, Gordon fills his spread with Cheryl Cole, of bloody course, burbling esxcitedly about a "secret summit" between Cole and Cole "just hours before" the Brits. Once again, though, Gordon's lead story points out that his big claims on Tuesday were useless, as it turns out that not only was Ashley not in the UK on C-Day, but, erm, neither was Cheryl, as she flew in yesterday:

Yet just hours earlier she held the secret summit with England and Chelsea ace Ashley after he begged her to see him when she jetted back from Los Angeles yesterday afternoon.

So, the big C-Day summit and the participants weren't even on the same continent. Still, it's apparently finally happened.

So, what was the outcome, Gordon? (Actually, we say Gordon - he shares the byline on the story with Richard White, but we suspect Gordo's bits are the gossips nuggets from the Brits.)

“Cole knew this was his last chance, but he still hasn’t been forgiven. Just a couple of hours before the Brits they had a showdown and Cheryl was a wreck.

“All the recovering she has done in the last three weeks was blown away by seeing Ashley again.”

So, nobody really knows.

The actual interesting part of the story isn't anything to do with the Cole circus:

Cheryl’s band-mate NADINE COYLE failed to attend the lavish Brits ceremony in Earls Court.

She was expected to claim she had lost her passport, preventing her from flying in from LA.

But band sources said it was her way of saying she wants no more to do with Girls Aloud, who were up for Best Group.

Perhaps she just didn't want to be on the plane with Cheryl running through her speech for Ashley over and over.

Nadine foiled

You'd have to have a heart of stone, etc: Nadine Coyle was about go on again with the tedious on-off publicrelationship she has with a man whose first names do seem to be Desperate Housewives Hunk Jesse, only to discover that you need to have a visa to go to India. Who knew, eh?

Nadine re-Coyles from ITV2

ITV had been happily putting together a programme in which the various Girls Aloud would be given the chance to "perform the activity of their dreams" (because, of course, being millionaires, how else would they ever get the chance?).

The terrible news, though, is this latter-day World In Action isn't going to quite work, as Nadine Coyle has pulled out. Apparently, this is a high-minded stand against modern British television:

"I'm not really into reality things or things that aren't to promote Girls Aloud."

Yes, it's hard to see how a series about Girls Aloud featuring the women from Girls Aloud could, in any way, promote Girls Aloud. Still, it's lucky that Coyle has only just decided that ITV programming is unacceptably trite - she'd have been in trouble if she'd felt that way before going on Popstars.

It turns out, though, that this is more a strop because ITV tried to tell her what her dream was:

Nads was supposed to be learning how to be a classical orchestra conductor for the show.

But she complains: "I wanted to do something with a charity in Bolivia that got kids off the street, but it didn't sit with the programme."

Of course, Nadine, if you really wanted to do something with that charity - well, you're well-off, you're young. Why not go and do it rather than complain that ITV haven't sent a hapless researcher to sort it all out for you?

You can't put your memory round your arms

Most people, if they wanted to see naked images of Nadine Coyle, would probably type "Nadine Coyle naked" into Google, before getting frustrated and collapsing in sobs of tears.

Jesse Metcalfe, thought, just rolls up his sleeve and looks at his tattoo. Since he got it done after they'd split, he probably collapses in floods of tears, too:

"It's not that I'm not over the break-up, it's just that I really wanted to remember what it felt like to be in that relationship so that I never really go there again.

"Everyone has had their heart broken but this is just a reminder not to let it happen again.

"I went through a hard break-up. Every tattoo is a memory. I chose to get that tattoo, especially with the heart on the arm, because I choose to wear my heart on my sleeve. "It fits with my personality. I really couldn't be happier with the tattoo. It's the best I have."

Isn't it going to be difficult when he finds himself in another relationship and has to explain having his naked ex on his arm? Or, more precisely, has to explain this:

[Nadine] Coyle, nude and lassoing a heart in front of a sun shaped like a map of Ireland

Girls Aloud could have done with another day, too

As you head back to your desks and swivel chairs at the end of a too-short bank holiday weekend, spare a thought for poor Girls Aloud, trapped in drudgery:

Nadine Coyle, 21, moans: "Your time's not your own. It's the other things that come first.

And the early mornings - we can't get used to them." And Sarah Harding, 23, chips in: "I'd much rather work from lunchtime right through the evening, rather than morning till five."

How unlike the happy little elves at play in Britain's factories and offices, who might work the same hours, but at least have the dignity of doing it day in, day bloody out, over and over, until they die, and don't have to cope with the shame of taking hundreds of thousands of pounds to the bank.

So, Girls Aloud haven't split... yet

Now the News of the World has finally updated its website (why is their online offering so poor? It's not even Web 1.0; it's more like ARPANET+), the Girls Aloud split story is a little more puzzling: it's a detailed rundown on what the girls will do when they split. This summer, apparently:

An insider said the girls, who have a Greatest Hits tour coming up in May and June, will go their separate ways in September after a series of summer festival appearances.

"Like the Spice Girls, they won't announce they've split, just that they have ‘taken a break'."

...which sounds like a pre-emptive attempt to explain away why they don't split if they're still going next year to us.

So, what can we expect next, then?

Sarah Harding, 25, wants to break into acting—and dreams of becoming a Bond girl.

Sarah said: "Acting is an avenue I want to explore. I'd love to be in a Bond film."

It's perhaps unsurprising that the NOTW assumes this means she wants to appear in a bikini, get shagged by Geordie off Our Friends In The North, and then have herself killed by an evil henchman - but could she not mean she'd quite like a crack at M or Q? Or perhaps Oddjob. She'd make a smashing Oddjob.

Irish babe Nadine Coyle, 21, wants to act too. She hopes to move to Los Angeles and appear on the small screen — and be near boyfriend Jesse Metcalfe, the Desperate Housewives hunk.

The small screen? She wants to to work on mobile-only projects? We're sure Nadine will be a wonderful success. We'll keep scanning the extras in the background of How I Met Your Mother to see if she fulfills her potential.

Kimberley Walsh, 25, and Nicola Roberts, 21, both plan to become high-flying businesswomen.

How does one do that? Do you put it at the top of your business plan?

"I intend to run a business of some sort and become a high-flying businesswoman."

It's a little bit like stage two... stage three: profit, isn't it?

Cheryl Cole, 23, will stay in the music business, aiming for solo success.

We notice the paper has carefully worded this to suggest it ain't gonna happen.

Nadine should have tried for the solo career; Cheryl could have had a crack at a presenting career (two years on ITV2; half a decade on Sky Sports; then a gentle decline into Gems TV2 and a weekend breakfast show on BBC Radio Wiltshire)... the others? Well, Marks and Spencers seem to need a lot of people for their ads these days. And there's always George at Asda.

Nadine makes knicker pledge

If you're anything like us, you'll have been fretting about exactly what Nadine Coyle thinks about these celebrity upskirts which reveal they're not wearing any pants.

Oh... you haven't? Never mind, she's told us anyway:

“I’d never do it. I wear underwear at all times. I don’t think being spotted out without it is very nice to look at.”

That's a nicely mangled sentence there - it's not nice to look at being spotted?
Jesse Metcalfe, who Coyle is apparently "seeing" and cannot be mentioned without the supporting phrase "Desperate Housewives hunk" is even more censorious:

“If Nadine went out without knickers I’d be mortified. It’s low class.”

There seems to be a bit of a confusion here - going out without knickers can, sometimes, be quite sexy; it's different from going out without pants and waving your bits in the direction of people with cameras. And we suspect that Metcalfe is less worried about the class implications, more about the world getting a peek at a place he feels only he should be visiting.