You can trust Gordon Smart's column

There's a new book about the Phone Hacking scandal - or the parts which have come to light so far - and Roy Greenslade has an extract from Chris Atkins' chapter on Starsuckers. From which, I'm going to extract a key part:

Our biggest story was in The Sun, revealing that Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud was secretly a fan of Quantum Physics.

It ran as a lead story in Gordon Smart's Bizarre column. Smart's article also included a fabricated quote: 'There is a lot more going on under that blonde barnet than Sarah is given credit for. She's a smart cookie and does read an awful lot.'

This quote didn't come from Jen, showing that the Sun will add fictitious quotes into their articles, as well as not running basic checks.

At the time, Girls Aloud appeared regularly in The Sun, so it would have taken minutes to check with the agent or PR if there was any truth to our story.

The Harding physics story was then was picked up by dozens of news sites around the world. Had we claimed it, the story fee would have earned us £600 from News International...

Gordon Smart has been asked about this total made-up bollocks which he published in a newspaper, during the Leveson enquiry:

LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Actually, what we're discussing is the suggestion somebody deliberately made up a story and phoned you up and then it appeared in the newspaper. I don't consider that's entirely trivial. Do you?

[Gordon Smart]: No, I don't, and we take it seriously. We called the PR, we checked it out, and he said he had no issue with the story. He didn't want to ring the person, Sarah, directly about it because he said it sounds like her. He said, "It wouldn't surprise me at all if she owned a book like that", and that was a green light for me to publish.

There's no explanation of how 'she might own a book, it's not impossible' turns into the made-up quote that Smart published.

What is beautiful, though, is how Smart promises that he takes seriously ensuring that everything he publishes is true while defending publishing a story that clearly isn't.

Gordon in the morning: Sarah Harding returns from hell

Gordon Smart pulls a concerned face as Sarah Harding gives him an exclusive interview about her addiction to pills and booze.

If there's any doubt that this is an interview dictated by a flipchart with the words "Comeback: Media management" at the top, you just have to count off the clichés as they roll by:

She said: "I've been to hell and back.[...] My drinking was out of control [...] I was drinking to deal with my emotions after the split."

and so on and so on. You could probably write most of her quotes yourself.

How awkward for Gordon, though. The split which sent her over the edge was from Tom Crane. And what did Gordon say back when she broke-up in September?

By GORDON SMART, Showbiz Editor

Published: 28th September 2011

SARAH HARDING isn't moping about after her split from Tom Crane.The Girls Aloud star is keen to start a new chapter of her life after calling off her engagement to the DJ earlier this month.

The singer said: "I'm ready to take another leap. Hopefully the best is yet to come.

"I feel a little more at ease with what's going on in my life.

"I know where my career's at. I know what I want out of life."

Hopefully Bizarre's former Caner Of The Year will soon be back doing what she does best ... drinking bars dry.

Oddly, Gordon seems to miss the opportunity to apologise for not only adding to the pressure on Sarah by banging on about her love life in a national newspaper, but also wishing that she'd be out on the streets getting pissed.

Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the courtroom

A worried Gordon brings news this morning that someone has apparently threatened to reveal secrets about Tamara Ecclestone. You know how much The Sun, and the Bizarre team in particular, hate the idea of someone's privacy being invaded.

Which reminds me: Gordon's name came up once or twice in the Leveson enquiry into the press yesterday. Unusually for Gordon, who likes a story that he can place himself in, the tale doesn't get a mention in today's column.

There's not even the chance of a mock-up image of how Gordon and Justice Leveson might look if they came together to thrash things out:

Yesterday, Chris Atkins appeared at the enquiry. He made the movie Starsuckers, which set out to prove that certain newspapers would print any old rubbish without a care for the truth of it. I know it's hard to believe Smart's name would come up in this context, but it did. From the Guardian's live blog:

One of the stories that Atkins and his collaborator Jen got into the papers was about a Girls Aloud singer.

"Sarah Harding was secretly a fan of quantum physics".

It ran as a lead story in Gordon Smart's Bizarre column in the Sun complete with a fake quote.

The Sun objects to this and have asked the Leveson inquiry to challenge it. It says it rang Sarah Harding's PR who gave them the quote.

Atkins says he finds this "a remarkable coincidence" as the Sun did not challenge this claim about the fake quote since the movies came out two years ago.

You've also got to love a response which quibbles over how made-up the quote was while not actually engaging with the wider question of how a totally bollock-stuffed story appeared in Smart's column in the first place.

Chris Atkins does point out that running rubbish doesn't actually stand in the way of being celebrated by your peers:

Gordon Smart was, after our film, voted the number one celebrity journalist of the year and second was Clemmie Moodie of the Mirror and both of them ran our stories.

There's your angle, Gordon: "Judge hears of Sun man's awards success". It's not all grim news for The Sun in the courtroom, is it?

By the way: the original of that photo is worth a look.

Gordon in the morning: Summit up

Apparently unaware that he's talking about a relationship and not a business deal to provide a small chain of stores with lightbulbs, Gordon focuses on a forthcoming summit:

TOM Crane is jetting into the UK next week for showdown talks with Sarah Harding.

Doubtless there's a slightly-too-small conference room in a Holiday Inn off the M25 being prepared with off-brand bottled water and too-thin ballpoint pens for these talks.

Gordon in the morning: Olympian

The headline is pretty clear:

Girls Aloud set for Olympics

Really? Is the Team GB BMX squad scraping around for members?

No, of course, Gordon is telling us that the band are going to play at the Olympics:

GIRLS ALOUD are planning their biggest ever gig - to mark their 10th anniversary next year.

They have their eyes on the OLYMPIC GAMES for their landmark celebratory show.

Eyes set on... so you mean: they'd like to play?

[Manager Hilary Shaw] is now talking to promoters about a slot alongside top acts such as COLDPLAY and, potentially, THE ROLLING STONES.

In other words, she's hoping that by trying to make it sound like it's going to happen, by plopping the story in the press, it might have to happen.

Coldplay frontman CHRIS MARTIN is a big fan of the girls so he will fight their corner to get them on the bill. And KEITH RICHARDS wouldn't be found complaining either - with RONNIE WOOD on his best behaviour he'd be delighted with a better looking backstage boozing partner in Sarah.

Oh, yes. That'll swing it - there must be someone for Keith Richards to crash about backstage, pissed out their heads.

Apparently, the idea was to play Glastonbury, but they were the last people to find out that there isn't one next year; so instead, it's the Olympics.

Although actually, it isn't even the Olympics. If you were thinking "opening ceremony", or "closing ceremony", you'd made the mistake the headline was trying to get you to make. This is some grisly "best of British as judged by the sort of people who assemble gigs like they're trade shows" which is going to be happening in the O2 at the same time.

Gordon in the morning: Old Mother Harding

Sarah Harding, Gordon tells us, is thinking of acquiring a family:

She said that as well as having kids by Tom: "I'd definitely adopt one day. If you can give a child a better life then why not? I'm in a good position to do that, so who knows?"
[...]
She said: "It puts me off a bit now that it's this whole trend thing. I'd love to help but don't want to be labelled as another BRAD and ANGELINA."

Well, yes - it is a worry. But I suppose, if you're worried that people might think you're only adopting for attention, here's a thought - you could just adopt, rather than give interviews about how you might adopt, at some point, in the future. Generally, the deeper the interview and pr campaign in proportion to the actual adoption, the more like a publicity stunt these things tend to look.

Gordon in the morning: Booth, hiss

There's only one story in the big-box-at-the-top of the Bizarre homepage this morning, a we're at war style proposition. What can it be?

After changing out of her stage clothes into a red mini dress, Cheryl - who split with love rat hubby ASHLEY COLE in February - joined Will [Mr I.Am] in the DJ booth and didn't leave his side for the rest of the night.

The pair cuddled and danced together in full view of the other guests but were careful to keep people guessing about the full extent of their relationship.

They were cuddling and kissing but "kept people guessing"? What do you mean, Gordon? They didn't shag each other up their respective chute-holes in the nightclub?

Still, 'Cheryl and William in a DJ box' is enough for The Sun to have a punning attempt at the nature of their relationship:

Will and Cheryl have decks

'Decks'? Do you see? I suppose we should be offering up a silent prayer of thanks they didn't go with 'drops his needle in the groove'.

In other Girls Aloud non-news, Gordon senses something's up:

MORE trouble could be brewing in the Girls Aloud camp.

SARAH HARDING missed bandmate Cheryl Cole's gig to see GRACE JONES just across town.

Yes. If you don't go to every single gig your bandmate does, and choose instead to see a one-off date by a living legend, it's clearly some sort of snub. Clearly.

Gordon in the morning: Deyn works through more indish bands

It's worth noting this morning that they've left the Bruno's Bizarre masthead on the front page of the Bizarre website this morning, leaving poor Gordon as little more than a walk-on in his own page.

The main story this morning is about Agyness Deyn and her habit of dating minor members of sort of indie bands, doing nothing to dispel the feeling that she's some of Kate Moss Historic Re-enactment Society.

Currently, it's Miles Kane from The Rascals, but Gordon has a list:

It’s like a Who’s Who of top bands including THE STROKES guitarist ALBERT HAMMOND JR, THE PADDINGTONS’ JOSH HUBBARD and PHANTOM PLANET’s ALEX GREENWALD.

Well, it's like a who's who of top bands in the sense that one of those would be a list of names of people who play instruments, too.

Smart has also got some special insight into this latest 'relationship':

A pal of the couple told me: “Miles and Agy get on like a house on fire and have a proper laugh. Miles bowled her off her feet. His pals ask about her but all he says is things are ‘boss’.

"They have passed the three-week mark now. He lives in Liverpool but has been in the Big Smoke charming the pants off her. She’s very down to earth. That’s her appeal.”

The last person to use the phrase "the Big Smoke" seriously was probably Mike Baldwin back when he was dating Bet Lynch. And even he was just saying words that someone else had put in his mouth.

Elsewhere, Sarah Harding is confidently predicting her acting won't be all Mariah Carey:

She said: "I don't want to try too much, too soon. I'm taking baby steps.

"I'm working my way into acting gradually - I don't want people to think that I'm just swanning in there.

"There is a stigma attached to people who go from singing to acting."

Presumably, then, that KitKat advert was the first baby step on a route to being Dandini at the Scarborough Empire in a couple of Christmases' time.

Gordon in the morning: The guy won't go far

Having endured the slow march to the Madonna/last husband divorce, we're now being invited to be witnesses to the "actually, we've been better friends than ever" stage. Gordon gives space to Virginia Wheeler to explain that Ritchie is buying a house near Madonna's:

MADONNA’S ex GUY RITCHIE has bought a home 200 YARDS from her London mansion.

Movie maker Guy paid millions for the four-storey house to be near his sons when Madge brings them to Britain.

Well... yes. To be near the kids. For the children. Is that really unusual?

The friend revealed the singer had even laughed when Guy made a crack about her new Brazilian toyboy JESUS LUZ, 22, speaking little English.

Guy said: “Blimey, no wonder the whole thing works so perfectly.”

Although an inability to string a sentence together in decent English didn't help you, did it, Guy?

Gordon, meanwhile, is running more pictures of the Girls Aloud tour - presumably, unless hemlines drop, he's going to do this every day until they're back home. But there is a news angle, as Sarah Harding (that's "Girls Aloud Stunner Sarah Harding" to you) has worries:

She added: “Our pyrotechnics are great. I’m worried, though.

“I wear a wig for a lot of the show and if one of those sparks go astray I could go up like a Christmas tree.”

Go up like a Christmas tree? Does Sarah Harding set fire to her tree every Christmas? Has she got the tree and the pudding fatally confused?

And Gordon has rumours of discontent amongst the Arctic Monkeys. The rest of them:

WHEN ALEX TURNER told his ARCTIC MONKEYS mates he was moving to London to live with girlfriend ALEXA CHUNG, there were serious rumblings of discontent.

Because when the frontman left Sheffield behind last October, the rest of the lads — JAMIE COOK, MATT HELDERS and NICK O’MALLEY — stayed in Yorkshire.

Things are going to get worse, he warns:

Now the distance between the boys is set to grow even larger — as Alex is following his TV presenter missus across the Pond as she tries to forge a US career.

Blimey. Still, when they come back in the middle of June, I'm sure everything will be forgotten, right?

Maybe I'm being unfair - it's not like every pretty autocue wrangler who turns up in the US gets repelled within weeks. After all, Julie Brown managed to make the massive leap from TV-AM to MTV, and since then... well... there was Anne Robinson. And Craig Ferguson. And... look, I'm sure Alexa has got plans and isn't just turning up on spec.

Gordon, certainly, thinks that Alex Turner moving to the States is just about as serious as it gets. Oh, yes:

Rock ’n’ roll folklore is full of cautionary tales of love affairs tearing bands apart.

The most famous case was when JOHN LENNON shacked up with YOKO ONO.

THE BEATLES didn’t last long after that and many people blamed their relationship for the split.

Hear that, Arctic Monkey fans? Gordon thinks you should start a pre-emptive misogynistic hate campaign...

Gordon in the morning: The bank holiday has arrived early

What a pity that whole Marital Understanding scam failed, eh? If Heather Mills had given the tabloids something interesting, perhaps today Gordon wouldn't be reduced to leading online with this:

Oh, tatt’s Sarah from Girls Aloud

In the paper, this is just a small, bitty story tucked in the corner of the page. Online - despite having a prominent position - it's still just a small, bitty story. Although 'story' might be pushing it:

I HOPE SARAH HARDING thought long and hard before she got this new tattoo.

The GIRLS ALOUD star has been inked with a large black design on her left forearm.

The tatt is a Tibetan script but the exact meaning of it remains a mystery.

Most tattoos are down to being drunk on holiday or for a special meaning.

Could Sarah’s translate as “Caner for life” or “Live for the weekend”?

Gordon goes on to ask his readers if they can "decipher" the tattoo. Even although the picture only shows about half the word.

It would be wrong for any fans of The Glums to email Gordon and claim the tattoo reads "I love suet pudding".

Elsewhere, Andrew White from the Kaiser Chiefs - you might remember them - has said something vaguely disparaging about Oasis, naturally generating the standard boilerplate coverage of anything vaguely fighty-Kaisers related:

I predict another Oasis riot

Naturally, Gordon can't be arsed to dig out a picture of White, and so Ricky Wilson's photo appears with the "war of words" caption on the piece. That's how Mussolini was dragged into the Second World War, you know.

[White] said: ?We have no time for him. Music is an art but he doesn?t appreciate music for what it is.?

I?m sure Noel will have something to say about that.

Oh, God, I'm sure he will, Gordon. But that doesn't mean we have to pay any attention to it, right?

Whitey?s comments to a Singapore newspaper are badly timed.

Oasis played there on Sunday and the Kaisers were playing last night.

There could have been an interesting clash in duty free.

If Oasis had been trapped in airport for three days, and were still in the duty free store, you might understand them being a bit fractious.

And returning to yesterday's Gordonage, the BBC News magazine monitor joins in the praise for Smart's restraint in not invading the privacy of Chris Martin's kids:

"The Coldplay frontman hates his kids having their picture taken, so I've left them off the page," writes Smart, who is clearly in a charitable mood.

But let's just revisit three words of that sentence again - "left them off". Hmmmm - sounds, how shall we say it, suspicious.

Sure enough, a quick visit to Gordon's column online reveals the un-Photoshopped picture with an identifiable Moses Martin in Mickey Mouse ears.

So there we have it - the new euphemism for Photoshopping: "Left off".

Extra kudos to the Magazine team for the phrase "Moses Martin in Mickey Mouse ears", which sounds like a skipping rhyme for the Heat generation.

Gordon in the morning: Madonna is computers

Wow. Who knew there was still mileage left in the Madonna-Mrs Madonna divorce?

Actually, there isn't, but Gordon's team are going to have a go.

Guy calls Madonna 'IT'

IT? He thinks she's information technology? Can this be right, Sara Nathan?

It turns out she means It. Not IT:

A source revealed: “Guy will say, ‘Oh, It’s in a bad mood today’

Would rather than will, don't you mean? After all, there's not much reason why Ritchies should be reporting on the twinges of Madonna's moods at the moment, is there?
Could this story be as whiskery as... well, this mock-up which we're told is meant to represent either Madonna as Cousin It, or Cousin It as Madonna.

“Even towards the end of their marriage, he would call her It. He told people, ‘We can’t make It angry’.

"Even" toward the end? Like when they were splitting up? Is it surprising that his contempt for his wife should grow rather than decline as the marriage failed?

“There is absolutely no love lost between them.”

That's quite a scoop. If I didn't know better, I'd think Sara's kind of hinting around that the pair might be heading for the divorce court.

Gordon, meanwhile, is cleaning up at the NME awards:

Now I hear bandmate SARAH HARDING has also found herself in hot bog water.

She was at the NME Awards’ aftershow bash when staff trying to close the club found her in the toilets.

Apparently Sarah didn't want to go and started to complain when helped towards the exit.

Gordon is quick to spot the parallel:

WHAT is it with members of GIRLS ALOUD and toilet attendants?

CHERYL COLE ran into trouble in 2003 when she was accused of assaulting a loo supervisor in a club.

The odd thing, though, is the appearance of the word "accused" there - does Gordon not know that she was actually convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm? With the judge telling her that "this was an unpleasant piece of drunken violence... you showed no remorse whatsoever"? Or does Gordon recall that, but is afraid to remind people of what happened now that Cole is being lined up as some sort of new Kylie?

Fair enough, there's no need for Cole's conviction to be dredged up all the time, but if you are going to write a story that relies on her punching a poorly-paid toilet attendant, should you really soften the facts to make it sound as if it was an accusation rather than a verdict in a jury trial?

Darkness at 3AM: An everyday story of country folk

The 3AM Girls wrote this, and then someone put it in the once-proud Daily Mirror:

She wants to move to the country but Sarah Harding showed rural Girls are Aloud to look great too as she stepped out with her fella, DJ Tom Crane.

The weak pun is par for the course, but since when did "wanting" to move to the country mean you were rural? Surely a desire to move to the countryside would mean, by definition, you currently had to be urban?

Who lives in a house like this?

Somebody at the People really should read the Daily Express more often, if only to keep up with house prices. The paper gets a bit excited at the news Sarah Harding has bought a house:

Girls Aloud star SARAH HARDING and boyfriend TOM CRANE have splashed out more than £1million on a country mansion.

Except, it's in Princes Risborough, which - being in south Buckinghamshire - suggests that if you're only spending a million, you're going to be buying a large-ish town house rather than a country mansion. In fact, a million will get you just four bedrooms - a nice house, but hardly a mansion.

Mind you, the People just seems to be typing in stuff it's read on Wikipedia, blithely repeating that:

Princes Risborough, Bucks - the setting for TV's Midsomer Murders and Inspector Morse.

Morse might have filmed there, but we're pretty certain it might have been set somewhere else, you know...

Girls Aloud solo story shocking

The Sunday 'Yes, it is still going, actually' People splashes an eye-catching headline:

SARAH'S GOING SOLO
Girls Aloud star's shock decision

But it's as hollow as a Tennant regeneration - she's going solo as in, erm, going away on holiday.

Sunday People readers would feel cheated, were they not Sunday People readers and presumably having low expectations in the first place.

Gordon in the morning: A rash of puns

If we didn't know better, we'd assume that this morning's Bizarre had been knocked out by someone for whom English was a third, or maybe fourth, language, as bad pun piles on top of bad pun.

Sarah Harding in a bikini? Why, she's "tan-tastic" and - because you can see her belly - "tum-thing's up".

Coleen McLoughlin planning to display her wedding dress? That would make her a "troophy wife", then.

Paris Hilton photographed at a masked ball? She's got "no hiding face", then.

Yes, no hiding face. No, we don't know what a hiding face is, nor why putting a mask over it means that it isn't there. Perhaps they've overdosed on Doctor Who.

Talking of which, Billie Piper makes an appearance with an actual - sort of - story; she fears that the topless scenes in Diary Of A Call Girl might have ruined her chances of a Hollywood career:

“Someone said the other day, rather viciously, ‘What A-list stars get their tits out?’

“And then I started thinking, ‘Oh, my God, what have I done? I’ve ruined my future career.’”

Yes. It's not like you can think of a squillion Hollywood movies where the female lead does naked squirming, is it?

To be honest, Billie, it's going to be less likely that going topless harmed your career. It's more the choice of role - after all, who is going to hire an actor who's played a blogger on-screen?

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?

Rav saves Girls Aloud

With Sarah Harding's back gone a bit Stan Ogden, there was a shadow hanging over the Girls Aloud tour. Actually, we'd imagine that if her back was that bad, she'd have just been given a chair at the side of the stage and invited to sing along anyway rather than the whole tour being dumped. Still, Rav Singh reveals Sarah's back will be fine anyway:

But now the bubbly blonde has been given the all-clear from docs — and I was the first person she told the good news to.

Really? Before her family, the band, management, or drunken bums in the street, eh?

Rav also brings his curious inability to actually commit to anything to the possibility that Beyonce might be pregnant:

ONE of my trusted LA sources tells me JAY-Z and BEYONCE are planning to make an announcement very soon.

Well, after secretly getting married, I reckon there's only one other bit of news they can be keeping from us— that the Baby Boy beauty is pregnant.

Singh does this a lot - he doesn't seem to have any confidence in his own scoops, so instead runs endless pieces about how, at some point in the future, someone might say something. Given that much of what runs in the News of the World is made-up anyway, why is he so reluctant to commit himself to his own stories?

Rav suggests he was right all along

You'll recall last week Rav Singh ran a piece in the News of the World about a Hollywood star about to be outed:

AN A-lister star of Hollywood will be outed next week, I can reveal.

This particular actor is known as a bit of a ladies man but in fact, he really has a secret eye for the fellas.

My man in LA told me: "This guy is not married. He's been out with many women but has been seeing men too.

"A US mag is revealing it next week which will send Hollywood into overdrive."

Now, you might be thinking "funny... I never heard anything about an a-list actor being outed last week. Rav must have been wrong."

Rav, though, revels in being right this morning:

Hollywood rocked by star's outing (part two)

LAST week I told you a male Hollywood star would be outed in the States as liking the fellas.

Turns out it was singer/ actor JOHN MAYER who has apparently been snogging my mate PEREZ HILTON in Los Angeles.

He even took a lie detector test on TV to prove his claims!

What we love about this is the way that Rav is not only pretending that Mayer is an a-lister, but, having last week claimed an actor was about to be outed, Singh now calls Mayer a "singer/actor" - but IMDB lists not a single acting credit for him.

And also - Perez Hilton taking a lie detector test saying that he'd kissed a bloke isn't really "outing" that bloke, is it?

Rav is really on the back foot this week - he's also reduced to running a story about Sarah Harding having a bad back, something over all the papers a couple of weeks ago; he's also got a story about Britney planning a world tour. Okay, that's interesting, but 'pop star plans to play gigs' is hardly that surprising, is it?

Darkness at 3AM: They also enjoy chocolates

The 3AM Girls also have a story about Girls Aloud making an advert for chocolate bars. They even have a quote from Sarah Harding:

"I loved doing the ad but I had to eat so much chocolate that, in the end, I asked for a cup to spit it out in. I was eating it from 5am to midnight."

So, she spits and doesn't swallow. Whoever would have thought?

More surprisingly, they reveal that Gordon Brown had marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War by... discussing Amy Winehouse with gossip columnists:

"I'm a big fan. She may be troubled but as much as anything I think she's simply misunderstood.

"She is as talented as she is misunderstood."

In what way, Gordon, is Amy misunderstood? Unless she's actually a drug-free scientist, isn't she perhaps the best-understood of all artists?

Gordon in the morning: The homecoming queen's got a gun

It's hard to believe, but Gordon is returning to the filming of a KitKat advert for the second day running. He's clearly having a break.

Today, it's an article built around a single throwaway line by Cheryl:

[W]hen catering staff, who were trying to feed skinny Cheryl, asked if there was anything else she needed, she replied: “A shotgun.”

Gordon happily fills some inches speculating on who she might want to shoot - happily, another chance for him to mention that Ashley Cole business, almost as if it's the one scoop he's managed since he took over from Newton and he can't let it go.

Sarah Harding is not without her problems, either:

“I’m in loads of pain with my back. It really hurt during yesterday’s long day of filming.

“And all the oversized bags that are fashionable these days don’t help.”

We've consulted some top doctors who suggest that, if you're having trouble carrying a large handbag, you might want to consider carrying a smaller bag. But I should stress that is general advice, and you may wish to consult your own doctor before downsizing your handbag to one you can actually carry.

For some reason - alright, to pad - Gordon also carries an advert for an E! programme about Amy Winehouse's life. It's meant to be a news story, but "here is a photo of Amy at school that has been given to me by a TV company" doesn't quite count, does it?

Still, it's better than Gordon's rationale for running a model has haircut story:

OH my word! Supermodel CLAUDIA SCHIFFER looks like the slightly better-looking twin sister of actress KATIE HOLMES in this short dark wig.

Slightly?