Damon Albarn not quite the troll he's been presented as

It sounds like a fairly obvious attempt at annoying former Blur fans when seen through the headline prism:

Even the BBC were pushing this line, as that was the line being pulled for the front of the BBC site yesterday.

But... it's not quite what he said, is it? He was jumped at the end of a Newsnight interview and asked the question; first he dismissed it as "not a very grown up question" for the programme (he clearly hasn't seen Newsnight much recently) before answering.

Yes, he did say that Oasis were better. But then, as the film ended...

... he explained that he was saying this in the context of "communicating who they were". Which is actually a pretty clear dig at Oasis' one-dimensional nature rather than a capitulation that the shoddy plod of Be Here Now was of higher cultural value than, say, 13.

Note to the BBC: next time, you should try stipulating what you'd like to know what Oasis might have been better at.

Blanco death: CCTV suggests he was dropped from the balcony

You remember how Pete Doherty told the NME that the police had CCTV evidence which showed Mark Blanco fell "unassisted" from the balcony the night he died?

Newsnight have had forensic experts review the CCTV footage, and their opinion is that someone dropped Mark Blanco over the balcony:

Grant Fredericks, a leading US video forensics analyst who trains FBI agents, says the images of Blanco coming off the balcony are "very consistent with a person being carried and literally dropped over the edge of the balcony".

John Kennedy, who has given video forensics testimony in scores of cases in the UK and overseas, says of Mr Blanco's fall: "There's no defensive movement whatsoever. It's literally a drop from outside the rail.

"The only explanation I can think of is that somebody might have dropped him off the balcony. He doesn't climb over the railing himself. He doesn't jump. He just suddenly appears outside the railing and falls."

The suggestion of no defensive injuries - consistent with unconsciousness - is in line with a bio-mechanics investigation and a neurobiologist's report, both commissioned by Sheila Blanco, Mark Blanco's mother.

We're no closer knowing what really happened, of course.

Pete Doherty's blog still has this claim on it:

WHEN HE [Blanco] LEFT THE FLAT HE Was alone and when he fell or jumped he was alone. THAT is what happened. he either fell or was making an extreme point about the nature of life imitating art.

It doesn't seem to be a story that will simply go away.

Watch with No Rock: The XX

If you missed The XX doing the BBC's election theme (titled 'Bring Back King Arthur As I'm Pretty Sure An Election Result Not Preceded By Rick Wakeman Doesn't Count'), you can enjoy it on the Newsnight website.

The XX: they'll tell us what to do

For reasons that are as unclear as they are welcome, Newsnight's election special at 6.30 tonight is going to feature a live performance from The XX.

Possibly they had to be promised junior ministerships at the Treasury to secure the booking.

Gordon in the morning: Won't someone sign Simon off?

As we come to terms with the apparent paradox that, the duller the X Factor blood-sausages are, the more people watch them straining to grab at a tune, what news this morning of Simon Cowell?

Leigh Holmwood has news, and it's not pretty:

SIMON Cowell has admitted he can feel so overloaded with work that he suffers dark moods and feels "trapped" by his fame.

The X Factor boss, 50, claimed his job was sometimes like a "tidal wave" due to all his responsibilities - and it can "get too much".

I imagine this includes quite a lot of sitting round with his head in his hands, sobbing "what have I done? What have I done?" while the ghost of Gareth Gates rattles at him.

Oh, but it gets so much worse:

He said: "I get to a point where I get overloaded, where you can have a week or a month where you're responsible for so many things. You have to deal with so many people.

"This can go on from leaving the office until five or six in the morning.

"You just have enough and it's just too much information and at that point I will go on my own somewhere and work it out in my head.

"Sometimes you feel it's like a tidal wave of stuff that continues to come."

Good news, Simon - we've checked, and - on all current projections - if you didn't turn up at work for a period of all the years you have left on the Earth, nobody at all will die. There would also be positive results: the supply of low-cost childrens' entertainers would increase, and the entire world would be happier. There are even suggestions that people might start to wonder what the point of Piers Morgan is.

So, please, feel free to take some time to yourself. Perhaps a hunting holiday with Dick Cheney?

The source of this story is interesting, by the way:

In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight to be shown tonight, presenter Kirsty Wark asked if he ever suffered "dark moods". Simon replied: "Yeah, don't you?"

So, the Sun has, in effect, lifted an entire interview from the BBC.

I don't know why, but I have the strange urge to post this from earlier in the year:

In an interview with Australia's Sky News, of which News Corp. is a partial owner, [Rupert Murdoch] was asked why he expects Internet users to accept his plan to charge readers to access his newspapers' stories online when they can read the news for free on other Web sites such as the BBC's.

"But we're better," he said in the interview broadcast Saturday. "And anyway, if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we'll be suing them for copyright. They'll have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can't steal from newspapers."

But he said he didn't think the matter would end up in a courtroom.

"They know the law," he said. "They will adapt."

You know, I bet Newsnight runs pretty much the same interview Bizarre have today. Feel Rupe's flexible-morality wrath, BBC.

Elsewhere, Elton John is hot again:

ELTON JOHN is back at the centre of a record company bidding war - 40 years on from when he first became a star.

Given that Gordon backs this up with a nameless, vague quote, you'll be surprised that even the back-up fails to stack-up the headline:

A source said: "Elton says he's writing his most exciting new stuff for years - possibly decades.

"Working with P'Nau has got the creative juices flowing again.

"They have got a load of big companies sniffing around."

"Sniffing around" is a little different from "engaging in a bidding war" - this sounds more like Elton's team trying to talk up the price of a deal from where I'm sitting.

Sting vs Paxman: "You're not being blamed for the global crisis, you're just being called a hypocrite"

As Newsnight swung into its Copenhagen stride last night, Sting appeared for a meeting with Jeremy Paxman:



The highlight would be Sting shifting uncomfortably in his seat when Paxman asked him if he felt uncomfortable wooshing between all his houses, and then appearing to suggest that he could have such a carbon-heavy lifestyle because he's earned it helping the rainforests. That throws an interesting perspective on his behaviour.

Sting also ducks the obvious question after he's called for the West to pay nations with rain forests. "How much should they pay?" asks Paxman. Sting suggests that would be a question for expert. The implication being that his work is based on a lack of expertise, then.

In conclusion, Sting claims that he's not looking for individuals to make changes, but targeting large corporations. Fine, but the introduction points out that Sting was last year's highest-paid musician after a massive, global tour. Isn't The Police a large corporation, Sting?

[Thanks to Mike E]

Amy disappears down the cracks

Nothing on the Sun website yet, but Paxman's just run through the front pages of the papers for tomorrow; The Sun is leading with a photo of Amy Winehouse apparently smoking crack last Friday morning.

Newsnight Review review

Interesting piece about Gangsta Rap on Newsnight Review last night - although it wasn't quite clear how this fitted with their usual remit (were they reviewing Kim Howell's statement? Or the entire genre?). In the introductory film, Imran Khan described the So-Solid Crew as rapping about "the life they've been brought up with", which seems a bit rich, actually - from the way the stage schoolie so solids blub when they're caught with guns, the best you can say is that they're rapping about the life they think their audience has been brought up with.

What's curious in the current debate is that the focus on the so Solid's gun fixation (which is clearly an image) lets them off their much more serious habit of being linked to sexually-motivated violence on women - the closing of ranks round the member who smashed a girl's jaw when she refused to have sex with him is barely mentioned, despite this being a more everyday crime than the odd bit of gun shooting.
Responding to Khan's focus on the other side of So Solid and Rap lyrics, the positive social commentary, Ian Hislop suggested it was "over egging it to pretend its largely about social welfare", which was a point Ekow Eshun implicitly agreed with - "[they] celebrate money and cars" (rather than guns).

But, generally, the debate didn't actually go anywhere, since at least three quarters of the participants more or less admitted they didn't know much about the music at all - the feeling was vaguely reminiscent of those Chris Morris pieces where he'd ring up a spokeperson and ask them to comment on some outrageous rap track. It's great that there's a debate. Now we just need to wait for an informed one to arrive.

Why we love Jeremy Vine

From tonight's Newsnight mailout:

"Now as a regular viewer of Newsnight, you have a real problem this evening. On BBC One a chance to see Jeremy Vine in a leather mini skirt, fishnets and a basque, accompanied by Andy Marr in stockings and suspenders. (No, not part of the BBC's attempt to lure younger viewers to politics. It's that Children in Need night). On BBC Two a sober discussion of the main stories of the day.