Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg is in Australia, and manfully agreed to meet the press for one conference. Admittedly hobbled by a long list of what they couldn't ask, the Australian press didn't really rise to the occasion. For Collapseboard, Bianca Valentino details the questions that did get taken:

I’m from Melbourne so I am an AFL fan, my team is Collingwood and we’re going for back-to-back premierships as the L.A. Lakers are and I know you have a close relationship with Russell Crowe – he’s a Rabbitohs man – I just wanted to know, in the two codes of football in Australia is there anything that you’ve taken back for your teams in your league?

Lauryn Hill is running late. And so is Snoop.

The thing is, there's no real reason to make up stuff about pop stars, as the real stories are quite diverting enough. And this one has a few hundred witnesses.

Lauryn Hill turned up three hours late to play Washington's Rock The Bells festival. Because she was having a pedicure. And a manicure. Obviously. Nobody would be three hours late just for a pedicure.

And when she finally swung by, was the wait worth it?

The performance was a messy rush through highlights from "Miseducation," but they were hardly recognizable due to her hoarse voice, speedy delivery and clunky, overstuffed arrangements. Hill wasn't lacking for energy, just focus. The feedback on her microphone was ear-splitting; special guest Nas came out for a 45-second cameo, and his microphone wasn't working for half of it. After 20 minutes she departed to an equal mix of cheers and boos, seemingly oblivious as to why anyone might be upset.

If only she'd taken the time to prepare properly.

Still, 20 minutes was a lifetime compared to Snoop Dogg, who hadn't taken the stage by 10.45 - for an event due to finish at its 11 o'clock curfew. From the Washington Post review, it doesn't sound as if anyone minded overmuch the truncation.

Gordon in the morning: Still ill

Following on from the plea of one of her less successful Girls Aloud colleagues yesterday, much of the nation is indeed praying for Cheryl Cole's swift return to health, if only to spare us the daily updates and the pain of watching Gordon trying to come up with new angles, day-in, day-out.

Today, he's reduced to this:

[Tweedy's] estranged hubby ASHLEY COLE closely quizzed a TV girl about Cheryl's relationship with US dancer DEREK HOUGH.

Cheryl, 27, was rushed to hospital with a fever on Sunday after catching the potentially fatal disease on holiday in Tanzania last month with Derek, 25.

The next night, love-cheat soccer ace Ashley, 29 - on hols in Los Angeles - cornered TV assistant Marla Jackson after hearing she worked with Derek on US TV show Dancing Wth The Stars.

Oh, yes: it only takes a spot of water on your sort-of-ex-sort-of-wife's lungs, and you come crawling back.

Or is he really worried about Cheryl?

"He asked if Derek had had a lot of girlfriends, what his sense of humour's like and whether he's a big drinker."

That sounds more like someone trying to decide if he should ask for a date, doesn't it?

Elsewhere, there's a new high water mark in awkward Bizarre shots:

Aside from the hyperawkwardness of the picture - nice to see Snoop's 'are you sure this guy is important in the media?' face - is the pressing question of what in the name of old glory is Gordon wearing? Did he steal that from Little Lofty, the Fisherman's Friend trawlerman?

Gordon in the morning: The Dogg and the Peacock

For the 40th anniversary of Coronation Street, we were treated to a cameo from Noddy Holder as a van driver. A van driver who, for no discernible reason, felt the need to bellow "it's Christmas" at the good people of Weatherfield, as if he was Noddy Holder. And as if it was Christmas, which it wasn't.

If you believe Gordon Smart's colleague Stuart Pink this morning, the 50th will be marked by a cameo from Snoop Dogg.

Mr. Dogg made some throwaway remarks about popping into the programme for the birthday, which Pink seems to have accepted at face value:

"I'd love to be in it.

"My people have reached out to the producers and we are going to do it.

"They should definitely put some Snoop Dogg in there. The butcher's will be the cool spot.

"I'd have my man David Beckham in there working with me. He's my guy."

Given that ITV's current plans are to have the viaduct collapse and a tram crash into the street - a storyline they've already done once before, although it was a train rather than a tram that time - at least Dogg's come up with something more original than the production team.

Despite this clearly being something that won't ever happen, it hasn't stopped Pink trying to come up with an example script of How It Might Be. Cue some dead-weight of Betty buying meat off Snoop but - ho! ho! - he's just trying to sell her drugs.

Meanwhile, as a nation wonders if Northumberland Police will have caught Ralph Mope or whatever he's called before Cheryl Cole is fit and working again, the stepfather of the bloke who went to Tanzania with Cole has now decided to try and get some the limelight thrown by Tweedy's life-threatening illness:

CHERYL TWEEDY'S close pal DEREK HOUGH feels so guilty about her getting malaria he's given up work to look after her, it emerged last night.

His stepdad Aaron Nelson, 54, said the dancer believes it is "all his fault" that the X Factor judge has the deadly illness.

How lucky we're between lucrative series of Dancing With The Stars, eh? Otherwise some of those lucrative jobs might have been really lucrative indeed.

Nelson claims Hough feels like it's all his fault:

The stepdad added: "Derek feels it's all his fault. He organised the holiday as something wonderful. For it to end up like this is terrible. He feels dreadful."

Given that he didn't ask the travel agent to include a life-threatening disease in the package, this seems a bit thin. To a cynical eye, this might seem more like an attempt to build some profile as (the husband of the mother of) the wailing boyfriend, turning down lucrative jobs so he can be photographed going in and out of the hospital.

Meanwhile:

GIRLS ALOUD bandmate NADINE COYLE last night urged fans to pray for Cheryl.

Well, that's good news, then. We can send the doctors home if God and the prayer-efforts of Girls Aloud fans are on the case.

Gordon in the morning: A load of old Cobbles

It looks like senior News Corp management have been in town for a meeting with Sun staff:

Actually, this was Gordon's visit to a 50th Anniversary thing for Coronation Street, which sounds like it was pulled together by Peter Barlow after a night on the sauce:

Adidas Originals threw a street party with the cast of Corrie - including ANTONY COTTON and CRAIG CHARLES - to mark the milestone anniversary.

NEW ORDER and JOY DIVISION legend BERNARD SUMNER played a gig with his new band BAD LIEUTENANT on a stage at the end of the most famous street in soapland.

There was even, for no good reason, a videotaped greeting from Snoop Dogg:

"What up dog. It's your boy big Snoop Dogg saying happy 50th anniversary to Coronation Street and all my peoples in Manchester UK gettin' in there doin' it big.

"You know how we do it - Adidas, big Snoop Dogg, we're coming together. Wish I could be there with y'all but you know I gotta bounce ball and get in there real quick like, so I just wanna congratulate y'all for all the success of the many years of doin' what y'all do.

"Snoop Dogg is on the Adidas team. Coronation Street, happy 50th anniversary, big Snoop Dogg live and direct."

Clearly, Snoop's 'will record any old shit for training shoes' program is still in full swing. You'd have thought that someone might have given him something to say that might have created the impression he had half a clue what he was talking about - "I'd like to be with you but I'm at a funeral do at the Flying Horse", perhaps?

Maybe he was too busy recording a greeting for whoever else the nice woman from Adidas told him to.

Gordon in the morning: Everyone is on teh drucks

Oh, what larks: a recording session supposedly featuring Amy Winehouse and Snoop Dogg went, predictably, nowhere and Gordon knows why.

They were all on the drugs.

AMY WINEHOUSE isn’t shy of herbal refreshments and SNOOP DOGG has built his career on smoking industrial-strength marijuana.

Gordon's view of drugs apparently was formed when he was a student, and hasn't shifted much since:

So when the two teamed up in the studio, mountains of Monster Munch were eaten... but not a great deal of music was laid down.

This all took place last year, but presumably the dude who told Gordon had, like, totally forgotten all about it.

Oh, and this is your headline on drugs:

Amy's tracks pawsed

Gordon does know he's not an actual dog, right?

Also in this morning's Bizarre is a piece by Sara Nathan, which turns the question of elective caesarean into, well, a spectator sport:

PREGNANT COLEEN ROONEY is planning a Caesarean birth for her baby, so hubby WAYNE can play for England in a key World Cup qualifier.
[...]
Now pals have revealed that excited Coleen has consulted doctors about having a Caesarean in late September. That would allow Man Utd ace Wayne, 23, to witness the birth and help care for their tot in its earliest days before joining his countrymen for the crunch match.

The excellent Tabloid Lies already spent some time this week explaining why the match isn't actually a crunch match at all.

What makes this story worse though is Nathan then goes on to gibber:

“Pregnancy is a miracle, but it’s still the early stages. I really want to be able to keep as quiet and calm as possible for the sake of our baby.”

... and what could be a better way to help with that than by speculating on the delivery method and linking it, falsely, to if England will qualify for the World Cup or not?

But, since you mention it:

The couple, jointly worth £30million, do not yet know the sex of their child.

But friends say they have joked that they will choose James if it turns out to be a boy — because they think the baby was conceived after their 007-themed bash on New Year’s Eve.

Really? Only if the baby was conceived on New Year's Eve, Sara, wouldn't Colleen's due date be the 23rd September, making it almost impossible that the baby wouldn't have been delivered long before the match? And rendering your story a bit pointless?

Do you see what Snoop Dogg has done there?

It's not so long ago that newspapers campaigned to keep Snoop Dogg out the country because he was "a sick bastard". Now that he's spoofing Slumdog Millionaire with Snoop Dogg Millionaire - for all the world like a closing number on the Two Ronnies - he's asking to be turned back from Heathrow on grounds of taste.

Dogg wants in

James P writes with news of a would-be visitor to our shores:

After being banned from travelling to Britain following the Heathrow 'incident' in 2006, Snoop Dogg has decided that he rather misses the place, and would like to be let back in. He plans to acheive this by asking his famous friends to try and persuade the appropriate people.

"He says, 'I love London and I'm desperate to come back. I've called David Beckham, Sir Paul McCartney - hell, I want to get the whole of the Beatles to help me get back in... I'd love them all to write to the Prime Minister to change his mind.'"

(As persuasive tactics go, you have to admit "Go on, let me in and I'll bring two of your best-loved musicians back from the dead" does sound tempting).

I must've missed this particular change to the Border controls; Apparently entry to the UK is now based on the same criteria used as door policy at teenage birthday parties. If the letter-writing campaign doesn't get off the ground, expect to see Snoop at Heathrow Passport Control soon, pleading "Is Sir Paul here? That's it, I'm with him! Go and get him, he'll tell you. DAVID!!! DAVID!!! Over here! Tell them, David! How about Calvin, am I down on the list as Calvin? Just check again, would you?"

If Mr Dogg's appeal fails, he plans to return later in the year with a 12-pack of Carling and two litres of Thunderbird.

You've got to admire his plan of letter writing, though. Maybe he should think about a petition of some sort - perhaps he could get Nell McAndrew and Coleen Nolan to organise that. It's just a pity that Radio City have taken over St John's Tower in Liverpool; I'm sure a recreation of the Free George Jackson campaign's greatest moment might have just swung it.

Like shooting whales in teacups

Well done the police who - acting, we're sure, on a hunch - pulled over Snoop Dogg's tourbus and found two guys with some cannabis on board.

The arm of government claiming these scalps?

The Texas Department of Public Safety.

I'm hoping for a detailed explanation of just how the safety of Texan members of the public has been improved here.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Tegan and Sara share their favourite tunes with the New York Times:

I’m in a snowshoe club in Montreal. “Welcome to the Night Sky” (Labwork Music/EMI) became the soundtrack to my snowshoeing. It’s very melancholy, very sad; the whole sentiment is disastrous with heart-wrenching lyrics. I interpreted it as a breakup record, as I was going through a breakup at the time. I would think about life and big-picture things and listen to this. I hate people who say you have to listen to upbeat music when you’re sad.

Clive James considers Amy Winehouse and Snoop Dogg:

We happened to be staying in the same hotel, and I passed her in the foyer. She looked so frail that my heart hurt again, but in a different way. When that young woman sings, it's the revelation of a divine gift. But when she behaves as if the gift were hers to destroy if she feels like it, you can't help thinking of divine wrath.

Can't the same force that made her so brilliant give her strength?

Which brings us to the aforementioned Snoop Dogg, who has all the strength in the world. Whether he is brilliant is another question, which I don't presume to answer. As a lyricist who has made no more than a few hundred pounds over the course of a whole career, I try not to speak ill of any lyricist who makes thousands of pounds a week, even when I can't understand what he is talking about.

Beware of the Dogg

Despite the appeals judge pointing out that the great Snoop Dogg Heathrow fight consisted of him trying to entertain some kids while the police and British Airways staff went in heavy-handed, the government has announced it intends to appeal over plans to let Snoop Dogg come back into the UK. Probably because Brown desperately needs one policy to remain unchanged week to week:

"We maintain that the immigration judge in the initial hearing made a material error in law.

"We will continue to oppose the entry to the UK of individuals where we believe there may be a risk to the public."

Curious they should insist it was an error in law, rather than in judgement, as we're pretty certain the appeal by Mr. Dogg was upheld because the judge didn't think there had been any risk demonstrated, not because of some clever, Alan Shaw style legal arguments from the Snoop team. Does the Labour government really feel that British people would sleep less soundly if Snoop was allowed to take rooms in Hounslow or Havant? Are they that far out of touch?

Dogg and Willie Nelson

Snoop was joined on stage at the Melkweg by Willie Nelson:



First they did My Medicine...



... and then they did Super Man.

Give a Dogg a bad name

So, it turns out the lurid tales of Snoop Dogg and his entourages' battles at Heathrow were nothing more than tales. What's more, in upholding Dogg's appeal against his refused visa, immigration Judge Bird says the trouble at the airport was down to the police and, almost unsurprisingly given their talent for disaster, British Airways staff.

Snoop, video of the event shows, was entertaining children rather than despoiling the airport and remained calm when police were shoving him. The question, of course, is why the police were shoving a bloke around for entertaining kids.

Snoop Dogg is out of ideas

Snoop Dogg has revealed the collaborators he'd most like to work with - and, iin the process, that he's effectively lost all interest in music:

"I want to work with Madonna, Bono or Mick Jagger," he said. "I'm on some rock shit, man. Snoop Dogg, man! Rappers don't really move me too much. They can't do what I did. I'm trying to get down with something that's outta the box and bigger than me."

Now, we can understand the desire to try something new - even if discussing making a piece as art using the phrase "out of the box", like a song is on a par with a strategy for selling toilet paper to Idaho suggests that there's precious little creativity left.

But Bono? Madonna? Jagger? Is the prospect of working with such clapped-out performers really enticing you? The only people who think of Bono or Madonna as innovative and 'out of the box' are... well, the same sort of people who think of Dogg as edgy and innovative, probably.

He's much happier talking about opportunities to sell stuff:

In 2008, Snoop wants to introduce a new clothing line called "Rich and Infamous," a brand of pet-care products and a chain of grocery stores called "Snoopermarkets."

We bet that pun came before the concept.

A Dogg named Snoop

Snoop Dogg wants to cover Johnny Cash:

"I'm still trying to find a Johnny Cash (song) I can have fun with. To me, Johnny Cash is a rapper. His shitt was dope, a lot of rappers don't know that. A Boy Named Sue sounds gangster."

Except, of course, it doesn't. As Michael M pointed out when he served the link to us, it's interesting that Snoop is such a big fan of Cash, and yet doesn't know any of his songs.

Still, we'd quite like to hear 'I've Been Everywhere' done Doggy style.

If only Snoop could save us

What is responsible for the rise in gang violence in the UK? Apparently, the ban on Snoop entering the country:

"I really wanted to be a voice to stop gang members ‘cause they respect me enough to get into a room with me. By not permitting me they're saying they just don't want me to solve this situation.

"It's not the fans, it's just a few people in white wigs and members of parliament. They got a problem because the judicial law is from the 1800s."

Oddly, though, America - where Snoop lives - also has a problem with gang violence which, oddly, Mr. Doggity Dogg hasn't been able to "solve". In fact, if memory serves, Snoop was unable to stop his own entourage from attacking staff in the BA first class lounge at Heathrow, the reason he's banned from the UK in the first place. Perhaps if Snoop solved some problems closer to home, the white wigs might be more amenable to giving him a chance to try to sort out England?

Let's hope MTV have an understudy

Rather a brave choice for MTV, picking Snoopy Dog Dog to host this year's MTV Europe awards. Not because Dogg is "edgy" in the way he likes to believe, but with the recent spate of refused work visas he's suffered, it's possible he might not be able to set foot in Munich to do the show.

Still, he's keen, we'll give him that:

"Presenters in the past have been great, but this year I'm takin' it to a whole new level.

"I've called up the homeys from east to west and guarantee it's gonna be off tha chain, ya dig."

We love it when Snoop talks like he's street, even though these days the only thing he ever does actually on the street is take advantage of the kerbside check-in offered to platinum frequent fliers.

Kelly Rowland's ghetto heaven

Kelly Rowland has recorded a song with Snoop Dogg, and, for her, that's as good as growing up in the Bronx, as the fabulously rich w:

I feel like everybody has some sort of element of ghetto in them. Think about it. Right? Wouldn't you say so? And everyone knows what the ghetto is.

Well, yes. But I also know what the North Atlantic Ridge is, Kelly, but that doesn't give me the right to go round claiming to be a blue whale.

Snoop career reaches the twilight years

A staging post in the career cycyle as obvious as the first gold disc and the first limo to the gig, Snoop has now reached the reality series point.

The traditional way of showing an empty creative storecupboard, we are promised:

the show would be "hilarious and heart-warming" and would show the rapper balancing family duties with the world of hardcore hip-hop.

It's the Snoop Doggy Cosby Show.

Live Earth dies screaming 2: Hamburg humbug

The apparently self-defeating idea of flying artists halfway around the world to persuade us to cut down on our use of fossil fuels has been defended by Live Earth supporters who insist that it makes sense: having high profile, international stars is essential to draw crowds to the events, and help get the message across.

Only that doesn't turn out to stand up: Sales for the German event in Hamburg have been disappointing precisely because the international names have edged out local acts:

But advance sales have been disappointing elsewhere. In Hamburg, where hip-shaking Colombian sensation Shakira, British songstress Katie Melua and US rapper Snoop Dogg are among the 20 acts, barely more than half the 40,000 tickets had been sold as of the start of July. Insiders blamed the low ticket sales on the absence of a major crowd-pulling German act after Herbert Groenemeyer pulled out. Even the last minute addition of Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens is unlikely to improve things much.

We love Yusuf Islam, and think that the music he's doing now is probably as good as anything he'd produced during his career. But when you're throwing him into the mix as a desperate bulwark against soft ticket numbers, you know you're in trouble.