Miley Cyrus: If you have tears, prepare to shed them now

Poor Carl McCoid. He used to like Miley Cyrus. He used to like her a lot.

So much so, he got 29 Miley Cyrus tattoos, all over his body.

The problem? Oh, Carl:

He said: "People can't seem to see past the tattoos and it was having a very negative effect on my life where I felt trapped by them. I've just gone off her."

Carl is trapped in a cell of his own making. A skin cell, if you will.

He's blaming the tattoos for his inability to get a girlfriend - which might be confusing symptoms with the problem.

Still, was Miley impressed with his efforts?

Miley said in an interview last year that Carl's tattoos were "ugly" and "creepy", but Carl, a dad-of-three, insists her comments are not the main reason he wants to get them removed.

Carl appears to believe that Miley is too raunchy. And:

Carl, who runs his own ironing business from home, realised his obsession had gone too far when he stood in front of the mirror and was shocked by the sight of his Miley-covered torso.

Potential girlfriends don't like them. Miley Cyrus doesn't like them. He doesn't like them.

Oh, Carl.

He has spent £2,700 on the tattoos, which he says seem to be the only talking point when he goes on dates. He said: "The conversation just seems to be centred around them and it just gets boring. I feel like I can't move on."

He's having some of the tatts removed, and others will be covered over with other designs. Presumably meaning on future dates the conversation will be centred on why he has a tattoo of Miley Cyrus wearing a Groucho Marx face mask.

Tumblrgem: NSFW

I'm not sure anyone actually asked for this, but here's a Lady GaGa discography via tattoos in gay porn. (Nobody has yet had the Tony Bennet collaboration etched across their butts)

http://yung-ninetales.tumblr.com/post/120799848508/lady-gagas-discography-in-gay-porn-tattoos

Gordon in the morning: Observe the blood of the rose tattoo

Over in the news section of the Sun - yes, the news section - Andy Halls brings news of Cheryl Cole's, um, "spectacular new tattoo":

TOUGH cookie Cheryl Cole endured FIFTEEN hours of agony for her spectacular new tattoo.
The Geordie singer, 29, unveiled a massive red rose design on her lower back to her adoring home crowd on Thursday night during the first gig of the Girls Aloud reunion tour.

Tattoo lover Cheryl, who has at least 19 others on her body, told how she went through the pain barrier for her latest — and possibly her last.

Speaking exclusively backstage at Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena, she said: “It was really painful but I think I’m done with tattoos now. It wasn’t for any particular reason, I just liked the design. It took 15 hours in total.”

Cheryl, you know when you say you're "done" with tattoos now, you do realise that they're kinda permanent, right? And that while you might think 'okay, that's it', you are going to have what looks like the box lid of a second-string Mackintosh Chocolates selection from the mid 70s blown up just above your arse? It's not like wearing a hat where you can suddenly decide you're not a hat person any more, and have done with hats once and for all.

Just checking.

HMV defend their no tattoo policy

A couple of weeks back it leaked out that HMV were going to ban their staff from having tattoos. It made the store look a little ridiculous, but they didn't get onto the downward spiral they're on today without clinging doggedly to an absurd line.

Their head of marketing and ecommerce, Mark Hodgkinson has given an interview to Marketing Week to explain what they were doing:

Hodgkinson told Marketing Week: “It’s [the change in policy] been taken out of context and sensationalised and we’ve given a wrong impression of what we want to do. The [appearance policy] is part of something bigger within HMV about being really welcoming and inclusive to customers and encouraging more diversity of customers and making them feel comfortable, welcomed and embraced by our stores.

“We will continue to embrace diversity in our colleagues - we have one of the least stringent codes in retail and we’ll continue to. - we’re just saying where it is too extreme, bear in mind we’re trying to attract broader customers and it could be something that would deter some customers.”

It's heartbreaking, isn't it? Nothwithstanding that there's very, very few people working in HMV had "MURDER" across their foreheads or walked about the headphone department with their shirts off revealing Fred West's face inked on their backs, does HMV really think its tills are silent because the general population thinks its stores are too edgy to enter?

Seriously, Mark, your shops already make Ned Flanders' Leftorium look like Malcolm McClaren's Sex Shop. And even if it wasn't already the place where your grandma buys records, given that most chain restaurants have a couple of members of staff whose ears have got dinner plates shoved in them, I think most people in modern Britain are able to cope with the somewhat mainstream tattoo culture.

People don't come into your shops because you're the sort of place that thinks tattoos are a bit "out there".

You'll also note Mark doesn't mention the sexist insistence that female staff wear skirts at all.

HMV decide their collapse is down to women in trousers

HMV's dog logo Nipper dates back to a 1898 painting. Which, given HMV's latest little bombshell, means their logo is more modern than the company's social attitudes.

They're forcing their female members of staff to wear skirts. The NME reports:

[T]he chain has reportedly issued a new "appearance policy" which dictates that staff must be neat and clean – and wear new trainers. Men must wear blue denim jeans and women must wear denim skirts.

(Blue jeans and denim skirts? Are they running a music store or putting on a high school version of West Side Story?)

Skirts? They're telling their female staff they have to wear skirts. In 2012. In a downward-spiralling record shop.

For good measure, HMV have also told staff about an exciting new 'no tattoo' policy:

They say “discreet” tattoos or piercings are allowed but “extreme body art” must be removed or covered up. The bosses expect “high standards of personal grooming”.

This is a record shop. Issuing edicts like it's a nineteenth century department store haberdashery section.

It's unclear whether this tattoo would pass the new strict standards at HMV:

[That patch of skin belongs to Mikeroughage]

Backo Jacko

What do you do when your musical hero dies? Perhaps make a small corner of your bedroom into a memorial, with posters and the odd candle? Feel sad for a day or two before moving on?

Or should you have a massive tattoo done instead?

Guess what Mandy Taylor went with:

The 43-year-old of Shelley Close, Lewes, was left devastated when Michael Jackson suffered a heart attack and died at his Los Angeles home in June 2009.

Ever since, she has been plotting how to pay homage to the moonwalking, crotch-grabbing star.

And after going under the needle at Lewes tattoo parlour Tizzs, life-long fan Mandy says she is thrilled with the results.

You spend a year thinking it through, and you still can't come up with a reason not to have a massive face drawn on your back.

Still, it's a stunning likeness. Not, admittedly, much of a likeness of Michael Jackson, but it's certainly a stunning likeness of somebody.

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.

Mel C offers an explanation

No Rock invested its faith in Mel C to save us from a Spice Girls reunion. She let us down, and the world suffered the consequences - Gordon Smart making jokes about his erection, a lukewarm, legacy-trashing comeback track, Geri Halliwell released back into the wild. And Emma Bunton sitting in for Judy Finnegan.

Now, Mel C explains why:

"I was the one who didn't want the reunion. I took a hell of a lot of persuading because I was so reluctant to go back into it for all sorts of reasons.

"Part of it was I felt we could never recapture those times, and there was a big part of me that just didn't want to be reminded of who I was back then.

"It's amazing to think that as part of the biggest band on the planet I spent most of my time completely miserable because I had a terrible eating disorder.

"At the height of it all I wasn't eating and I was exercising so much my periods stopped and my bone density was low."

But her main worry is the impact her skinny image may have had on her fans: "The worst thing for me was that I was a role model to millions of young girls," she says.

There's an awful lot of good ideas for not doing it. So how much - sorry, what was it - that persuaded her to get back on the saddle?

"Eventually I thought: ‘Why not?' The other girls really wanted to do it. At first I was frightened of being overwhelmed by all those old feelings, but then I started to feel that maybe this was something I had to do.

"The idea of putting on a great pop show was appealing, as was the idea of spending time with the girls.

"It was an incredibly positive experience. We're all older and wiser, and we put a lot of ghosts to rest on that tour.

"When it was over, I was finally proud to be a Spice Girl. All those frightened, negative, mixed feelings had disappeared.

"Whatever was said, we all got on incredibly well. We've had our fights and feuds, but we're now more like sisters than friends."

We're trying to process this - so the time she was in the band was horrible, forcing her to make herself sick and setting up a horrible set of expectations in young fans - so the idea of "spending time" doing that again was somehow attractive?

Perhaps it seemed so in retrospect. Or at least when the cheque had definitely cleared.

Still, it was nice for Mel to take a trip down memory lane. She's even been revisiting old rumours:

"I've just come back from Canada," she says, then leans forward and adds: "But they're a bit behind with their gossip. They kept asking me whether I was a lesbian, which was funny and quite sweet.

"I haven't been asked that in years. I know everyone thought I was gay when I had my hair cut and put on a bit of weight, and, of course, because of my tattoos."

Yes. Of course "because of tattoos." Especially the "I am as queer as a Bryan Adams collaboration" one she's got on her left thigh.

Least said, Zunest mended

Time to once again consider the fate of the Zune, a mobile music player not without its enthusiasts.

Just not with its biggest enthusiast anymore. That bloke who got the Zune logo tattooed onto his own flesh has decided that Microsoft couldn't care less about the Zune, and he doesn't see why he should, either.



He says he can smell that Microsoft is pulling out of the music player market, although given that most people don't live in Canada or America, it's more a case of not actually bothering to get in to it, surely?

Rav Singh moves on from Madonna marriage

You can't keep a failed marriage going once it's broken, and, as Rav Singh knows only too well, it's equally true that you can't keep a failed marriage story going once it's broken elsewhere.

So, after weeks of banging away at Madonna break-up tales, he's reluctantly moving on - Find <Madonna> - replace <Mariah Carey>.
Although this bit is unique:

Nick, 27, even had ‘Mariah' tattooed across his shoulders. My source added: "That's a problem."

He could perhaps try dating a woman called Maria and see if they can turn the final 'H' into a kitten or something?

Gordon in the morning: LA Ink

Does David Beckham really watch Prison Break, Gordon? Does he really?

DAVID BECKHAM’S tattoo addiction has struck again.

The LA Galaxy midfielder looks more and more like his hero, the heavily tattooed character Michael Scofield in US TV drama Prison Break.

Beckham's latest tattoo is a long one, suggesting that he's not got much else to do bar sit around having people write on him. This one means "death and life have determined appointments; riches and honour depend upon heaven", which is lovely, isn't it? It implies that he and his wife aren't obscenely rich because of a mixture of luck and talent, but because God wanted it so.

Gordon is worried that Beckham is getting too many tattoos:

I’ve got a Chinese/Scottish proverb for Becks — which he should keep in mind from now on.

Becks, who grew up in Chingford, could keep it on a Post-it note in his undercrackers for the next time he finds himself lying down for an inking.

It reads: “Essex geezer who has too many tattoos will regret the body ink when he gives up the footy and becomes a fat lad.”

We're not entirely sure why Gordon wants David to put this on a piece of paper down his knickers - surely a post-it in your underwear would imply it's stuck on your cock? What can it all mean?

Let's move on, to this wholesome Harry Potter story, shall we?

Quidditchy bum for Ron and Co

HARRY Potter star RUPERT GRINT says the cast need a magic potion — to soothe their NUMB BUMS.

It turns out this is about the problems of filming Quidditch scenes.

Tattoo you

Showbizwithzoe's Zoe Showbiz in the brings intelligence from the Martin-Paltrow marriage. They're alright, it seems, because Paltrow went to get a tattoo:

Gwyneth Paltrow has had the letter 'C' tattooed on her hip to show her commitment to hubby Chris Martin.
[...]
It should end mounting speculation that all is not well between Chris and Gwyneth after five years of marriage.

Yes, that'll work. Now - like you, and like Zoe out the Showbiz Zoe column, I have no idea if there's any problems between Paltrow and Martin. But getting a letter tattooed seems more an attempt to convince someone of something than a sign that's all well.

And wouldn't just having a 'c' leave room for frequent revisions? You could close it up to make an O if you started having an affair with Orlando Bloom? Or even turned into an eye of a kestrel at some point in the future?

And Zoe doesn't even know it was a C anyway:

Zulu confirmed: "Gwyneth came in last week. But we don't comment on the work that clients have done. A lot of celebrities have visited us."

We love Zulu's commitment to protecting some of the privacy of their clients.

Gordon in the morning: Rehab gives you breasts

We suppose you can hardly blame Gordon Smart for, once again, breaking the promise to leave Amy Winehouse alone to get well as her record company did get her off to the American embassy yesterday. Still, it gives Gordon an excuse to do what he does best - slightly awkward perving:

IT’S chest what we all wanted to see – AMY WINEHOUSE looking almost back to her best.
[...]
The star’s boobs were on full show for her meeting with the Embassy suits . . . well, I suppose it can’t do any harm.

Yes, that'd work. "Sorry, Ms Winehouse, but you've been filmed using crack and have paid a fine to a foreign government for drug... [glances up, that music Carry On films use when Sid James sees Barbara Windsor in a short skirt plays] ... no, Miss... uh... ooh, have indefinite leave to remain..." Because that's what US immigration is like. It's virtually indistinguishable from Carry On Camping.

Closer magazine has got Javine to recreate the famous Richard Herring gig flier in which he's naked, holding his bulge - the same one Demi Moore copied (I'm pretty sure that was the order it happened in) and the same one that everyone who has been pregnant in the last ten years has done. In fact, it's been done so often, Gordon no longer feels the need to pretend that the shoot has anything to do with the miracle of impregnantion:

IT’S good nudes for pop star JAVINE as she poses naked just days before she is due to give birth.

Yes, it's just another naked woman. We hope Gordon is seeing it just another naked woman and not one of those subsection of men imagined in Dworkin's Pornography: Men Possessing Women who get off on naked pictures of women because it represents a woman's body somehow 'colonised' by sperm.

Nah, Gordon just likes the flesh: he's also excited by a photo of Angelina Jolie's naked back, which gets him all flustered, and offering advice to James McAvoy:

If I was James, I would have that picture tattooed on my arm to show everyone I met.

Yes. That's a normal reaction to seeing a picture of a pretty woman.

We're not sure Gordon read his copy here, though - perhaps he was too busy drawing a picture of breasts on his elbow:

HERE’S ANGELINA JOLIE looking ink-redible in her new blockbuster Wanted.

BRAD PITT’s girlfriend is no stranger to the tattoo parlour.

But for her role as aptly named assassin Fox in the action flick, she’s had a few temporary ones added to the centre of her back.

We know what he thinks he's saying, but he has just claimed that some temporary tattoo parlours have opened on Joile's spine, hasn't he? Let's hope they're properly licensed.

Smart does have a good, solid story this morning, which we shall turn to in a moment.

Scar-y Spice

Rav Singh confidently predicts this morning that Mel C is going to lose all the tattoos at the end of the Spice Girls tour.

It's unclear if this will be before or after she gets the tattoos that ContactMusic was confidently predicting that she'd be getting to celebrate the reunion.

Mel C wants to mark the Spices

We imagine this is some form of grim revenge for having been bounced into the Spice Girls reunion: Mel C is designing tattoos for the others. We really hope that it's a spiders-web face for Geri.

Kelly Osbourne tats tidied

Kelly Osbourne was surprised when she saw the publicity material for her stint in Chicago, the home for broken careers. No, she wasn't surprised she'd been cast in a musical, but that they'd airbrushed out her tattoos:

"It's a bit daft as everyone knows I have them. But I won't cover them up for the show - I'm very proud of them."

We've never quite seen why you'd be "proud" of a tattoo, since all it is is something someone else has done to you: it's like a piece of canvas taking pride in what an artist has painted upon it. Only not quite the same, as canvas doesn't actually pay the artist.

And we love the idea that Kelly really believes people will see the pictures and register that her apparently world-famous tattoos were missing, as if they were seeing a picture of the House of Parliament with Big Ben blotted out.

Even if people did notice, surely they'd assume that, since Osbourne is meant to be playing a woman from the 1920s, she'd probably covered up the tattoos herself on the grounds that the woman she's portraying would hardly be likely to be covered in multi-colour anchors and half-hearted wings in that decade.

Osbourne hasn't really got the whole point of "acting is pretending to be someone else", has she?

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

Observe the blood of the Zune tattoo

The Zune might be less loved than some other music players, but it's not totally the John Selwyn Gummer of mp3 players. Someone loves his Zune so much, he got the Zune logo tattooed on his arm. The good people at Microsoft were so surprised ("delighted") they sent him five free songs and some stickers.

No, really. That's what they sent him.

Of course, the real difficult bit wasn't the couple of hours having the Zune logo tattooed on his arm, it was the thirteen hours of laser treatment having the Plays For Sure trademark taken off his butt.

Etch-a-sketch

Couldn't Mutya have done a park bench as a tribute or something? Because we're not sure having you whole leg scratched and ink injected into the wound is as good a way of "paying tribute" to her mother as she seems to think it is.

Eminem and Kim come to terms

As part of a parental cooperation pact, Eminem and Kim Mathers have agreed to stop slagging each other off in public.

Probably a fairly easy call for Kim - she can just stop giving interviews. But it's going to be harder for Eminem, who under this ruling not only won't be able to perform half his oeuvre, but won't even be able to take his shirt off in public, what with that tattoo and all.