Never Mourn The Buzzcocks

Yeah, it's probably no surprise that, finally, a BBC Two controller has decided that Buzzcocks has delighted us enough and swung the axe.

What is odd, though, is the timing. The series spent a good five years or so post-Amstell years looking like a knackered warhorse; the most recent series, though, with a fixed host in Rhod Gilbert, was still warhorse, but was at least able to break into the odd gallop or two.

What we have, then, is a series that was able to survive having Eamon Holmes pretending to be Elvis Presley as guest host (or whatever the hell that was) but got axed just as it healed itself.

The news, though, is most grim for any drummers from mid-90s indie acts who were looking for an easy way to make a few quid and promote their new self-released album/tour of Shropshire pubs. The easy route of a Buzzcocks line-up has been cruelly wrenched away; it'll be back to sticking fliers under windscreen wipers.

Gordon in the morning: Oh well, whatever...

There's a round on Buzzcocks where the panel are going to be invited to spot the grown-up who was once the baby on the cover of Nevermind - this is meant to be a challenge, despite the way Spencer Eldon turns up on television and online more regularly than adverts for the Money Advisory Service.

They're on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. There's the baby from the Nirvana album. They have pixelated squares over their genitals. The headline, surely, is Nevermind The Bollocks?

It’s a case of Nevermind the Nirvana boy on the Buzzcocks

What?

If that sounds clunky, here's the teaser text designed to tempt people from the front page of Bizarre to the story:

PHIL Jupitus and Noel Fielding had to attempt to identify the 21-year-old version of the nude baby that was photographed in a swimming pool and would go on to be one of the most iconic images within music for many years up until the present day - in a new episode of the hit music-comedy panel show

I understand in one of Michael Gove's new exams, students will be invited to try translating that into English.

Gordon in the morning: It was on the television

Appearing not just in his column, but also under his byline, Gordon Smart reveals this:

IF there's one man who should have been let on Blind Date, it's Angelos Epithemiou.

The former burger van owner admitted to Cilla Black he tried to get on her old telly favourite a few times but was knocked back.

Angelos was a guest on Never Mind The Buzzcocks last night, which our Cilla hosted.

She's not your Cilla, Gordon. The Sun long ago forfeited any right to pretend it had an interest in Scouse heroes.

You do realise that Angelos isn't a real person, and that he was telling a joke, by the way? I know you probably think that you're playing along with the character comedy, but what you've done here, Gordon, is just transcribe a gag that everyone saw on the TV last night.

I know that copying down stuff from electronic communications is Bizarre's house style, and that these days it's harder to justify actually listening to phone calls, but I'm at a loss as to what the point of this is. Maybe tomorrow it'll be a shaggy dog story Gordon hears in a bar.

Longpigs Weekend: Never Mind The Buzzcocks

Oh, how much younger we all were then; from the early days of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Crispin Hunt attempting to decipher Meat Loaf lyrics:



[A slight bonus for the Longpigs weekend]

Gordon in the morning: Never Mind The Buzzcocks not an easy gig for Jedward shocker

Could Jack Dee meets Jedward on Never Mind The Buzzcocks really be one step short of Abu Ghraib?

And the stand-up veteran spent the entire recording ribbing gormless John and Edward Grimes.

Producers now face a delicate editing operation to make the show suitable for broadcast amid fears Dee might be accused of bullying.

Really? It was that bad, was it?

Jedward said last night: "Jack Dee was a bit rude but we've had worse. At the end of the show he asked for a picture with us so we think he's secretly a massive fan."

So, erm, no, then.

Fielding a captain

To be fair to Gordon Smart, you'd have to admit you did read it in Bizarre first that Noel Fielding was to be a team captain on Buzzcocks.

And it turns out to be happening.

Gordon could bask in the glory. If only, erm, he'd not announced that Noel had been axed as a team captain before the announcement was made.

Gordon in the morning: Two Gallaghers and another Noel

For some reason, both in the paper and web version of Bizarre, the lead... well, let's say "story", shall we? The lead story is an offer from Carlos Tevez to teach Noel Gallagher latin dance.

Tevez and his brother Diego are Buenos Aires' answer to The Gallaghers, notching up a bit of chart success in their homeland with hit single Lose Your Control a few years back.

God, I don't like Oasis much, but that's a low jibe. Surely a pair of footballers having one hit makes them more akin to Hoddle & Waddle than Oasis?

If that's not Oasis being stretched thin enough, there's a secondary report about Noel Gallagher. And the U2 aftershow.

The picture says it all:

Surprising that Gordon has all those Photoshop Boffins he's always talking about, and yet doesn't seem to know anyone who can do redeye removal. Unless his eyes really are that colour.

Elsewhere, Noel Fielding has supposedly been axed as team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks following some sort of 'young man takes drugs' story at the weekend:

But when details of his drug taking emerged over the weekend, Beeb top brass withdrew the offer.

The Mighty Boosh funny man confessed on Sunday that over the past couple of years he had become a heavy cocaine user as his fame grew, but stressed he'd put his wild days behind him.

It seems a little unlikely that the BBC would have moved with that sort of speed. On a Sunday. And in such a definitive direction.

Oddly, the only reports that Fielding was to be a captain on the new series came, erm, from The Sun in the first place.

Barat makes solo return

Dirty Pretty Things pretty much done - save for one last fleeting farewell gig - Carl Barat is preparing his solo career. First business? support for Glasvegas in Hollywood.

Is it just me, but with a gig on Santa Monica Boulevard and that shades-on Buzzcocks appearance, haven't Glasvegas managed to catapult themselves to the 'slightly disappointing' status that it took years and years of diminishing self-awareness for Primal Scream to achieve?

Collateral damage: Manda Rin jinxed by Sachs suspensions

As the perplexing over-reaction to the Brand/Ross phonecall show continues to gather pace, it's the innocents what suffer. Manda Rin had gone through the Never Mind The Buzzcocks line-up round torture to help push My DNA but - because Brand is a guest on the programme, it cannot now be shown and the episode is being sealed in lead and buried in a deep storage unit under the Lake District.

Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?

Bill Bailey has had enough, and given up his chair on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. He's been a captain since 2002, except for that season where he wasn't and Noel Fielding did it some of the time.

This time, Bailey is going to be replaced by an ever-changing stream of people. This means Phil Jupitus - the only survivor from the original line-up - is starting to look like he needs a word or two with his agent.

Of course, Bill saw it coming:

Potty-mouthed Amstell turning kids into foul-mouthed rudesters

Why are kids today so bloody rude? You might think of putting the blame on the people who are paid money to teach them, but teachers have decided that they don't fancy carrying the can for this one. Instead, they put the blame on, erm, Never Mind The Buzzcocks:

Pupils are increasingly using sexist and offensive language, making comments about classmates' sizes or the perceived sexuality of a teacher, Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, told the union's annual conference in Manchester yesterday.

He said that quiz shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and They Think It's All Over fuelled the casual use of bad language. "Programme makers and celebrities need to reflect on what's taking place," he said. "Too much cruel behaviour can be seen on television programmes."

Well, perhaps.

Although singling out Buzzcocks rather than, say, Heat magazine or the Daily Mail seems a little strange.

Although you might wonder if - since Buzzcocks sits on the watershed-side of the schedule - the problem is less about what is happening on television programmes aimed at adults, and more at why parents are allowing their kids to watch such programmes. And if older children are watching the shows, then surely by then they should be able to understand the rules whereby 'real life' isn't like 'a game show presented by Simon Amstell' - and if they can't... well, that would be back to the people who should be teaching them the skills to tell the difference, wouldn't it?

Gordon in the morning: Kylie and the Brits

There's are tow different leads in Bizarre this morning. The newspaper version splashes with the Brits - "Chart acts rule the show" says the paper, although by the time the page appeared on the internet, someone apparently realised that the number of acts who get nominated for a Brit without having obtained some chart success is probably so close to zero as to effectively be none, and the headline morphs into:

Brit Awards go pop for 2008

- which at least makes sense, although Smart's summation that this is a year when pop rules the nominations is a little undercut by, erm, his own commentary:

ARCTIC MONKEYS, KAISER CHIEFS, MARK RONSON and KATE NASH should be in for a good night too, with three nominations each.

And fair play to the academy for nominating the brilliant RICHARD HAWLEY in the Best Male category.

Indeed, surely the line-up of nominations mean that this is the year pop doesn't rule the Brits, with Girls Aloud and Take That outnumbered by three rock (albeit Tesco rock) acts in best group; Leona Lewis the sole pop act up for best female; and Mika the closest thing to pop in the best male category.

Online Bizarre, though, knocks the Brit nominations into second place to make way for a throwaway comment Kylie made elsewhere:

“I enjoy dating, so I’m not totally alone. Don’t worry about it.

“It’s not that long ago that I came out of my last relationship.

“A year had gone by really quickly with me running out of illness and trying to just embrace health as much as possible.

“So I haven’t really had that much time to sit and feel like, ‘where’s Mr Right?’ I’m sure he’s making his way.”

Now, this, to us, makes it sound like Kylie's nipping out for the odd drink-and-baked-potato for laid-back dating, but is neither looking for, nor expecting, to have a big romance right now.

Gordon reads it in the opposite way:

It’s time for guy to get so lucky

Lads! Kylie's looking for Mr Right

But it doesn't matter anyway, as it's really just an excuse for bunging in a bunch of photos of Kylie in her knickers.

Aware that this isn't quite enough, though, Gordon tells us about something he saw on television a week ago:

One fella who has been trying to make his way is E4 presenter and actor MATHEW HORNE.

SIMON AMSTELL grilled him during TV’s Never Mind The Buzzcocks the other week, forcing Mathew to confess to sending Kylie his phone number and flowers.

If that’s all it takes, I’ll be on to Interflora tomorrow.

Hang on a moment, though, Gordon: according to the MySpace someone shared with us in the comments yesterday, wouldn't you also have to come to an arrangement with your wife before dialing the flower shop?

Elsewhere, a photo of Victoria Beckham wearing a headscarf leads Gordon to surmise that, erm, she should be given a lead role in the new Rambo movie:

THE fourth Rambo film is out next month – and after seeing this snap of VICTORIA BECKHAM I reckon she’d make a terrific leading lady.

Gordon, presumably, does understand that when a major Hollywood movie has a release date less than a month in the future, it might be a little late to be casting lead roles.

But it's not just the bandanna, Gordon is also excited by Victoria's unbuttoned shirt:

I couldn’t give a monkey’s about what the fashion critics say about the outfit – a shirt showing off the assets is absolutely fine by me.

You have to feel sorry for his wife, don't you? It can't be that great having a husband whose job is publicly drooling over women out of his league, like a circle of embarrassment, can it?

I'm off: Preston turns his back on his career

For all the glitz and glamour and excitement and - yes, the very real sense that anything could happen - that hung around the neck of the Brits last night, it's interesting that the most entertaining pop music moment of the night on the TV was recorded two weeks ago and had already been blogged and written about.

Preston on - or rather off - Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

It had been puzzling us as to why he walked away when Simon Amstell read his own wife's autobiography out to him. Could it be that he was defending his wife's honour? But since he effectively said "not only is my wife's book embarrassing, but it is so embarrassing I can't think of anything to say about it when it's read to me in a public place", it wasn't so much a defence of her honour as a retreat beaten in shame.

He could have had a comeback. He could have even just sat there and taken it. Instead, he got up and walked. Could it be that he finally realised he'd become little more than "rock star boyfriend" in someone else's bad Jackie Collins novel life?

Still, let's enjoy the moment again, thanks to the magic of YouTube.

It's a wonderful moment - it's like Vinnie Jones dressed as Morrissey recreating John Nott on Nationwide.

For the record, the Brits wasn't even the second most enjoyable TV-pop moment last night: that would go to Westlife, and the looks in their eyes as, having been invited on to sing a special Valentine's song on the lottery draw, the football overran and shoved them back to the wrong side of eleven o'clock. After all, if they wanted to sing to sixteen disappointed people, they could get a support slot on an Ordinary Boys tour.

What a difference a stiff letter of complaint to your plastic surgeon can make

Pete Burns on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, 2002

Pete Burns on Liquid News, last night.

True, his lips still make Leslie Ash look like she's pursing, but even so... you wouldn't stare at him in the street anymore. You'd give a second glance, but no rude staring.

Something we forgot

We hope that Natasha - apparently she considers herself too famous for surnames - the XFM dj is being made to feel like she's been shunned by her friends and families after a shameless attempt to pass off Jump The Shark as her own concept on this week's Buzzcocks. The conversation had got round, somehow, to something outliving its prime, and Natash - in the past thirty seconds she's become even more famous and doesn't need the final 'a' to identify her - said "It's like that show Happy Days where Fonzie had to jump the shark..." - Natas, did you really think there was a person alive who'd go "what an invigorating observation; a novel concept; a witty new coinage"? Everyone's visited Jump The Shark, you daft pooty - it's like trying to pass off "it is like a dog walking on its hind legs" or something as your own. Bah.