THE IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION MARK IN HEADLINE WRITING

It's the only thing covering the Liverpool Echo's arse as it almost announces that Paul McCartney is going to open the new Kings Dock arena. They stick on a question mark, because they know there isn't anything to it other than councillors drawing up a wish list and - of course - dropping a couple of names:

Cllr Mike Storey, leader of Liverpool council, said: "We are planning a huge event for the launch, and who would be better than Paul McCartney?

"The idea of Sir Paul and friends playing the first-ever concert at the new arena is simply fantastic.

"Knowing Sir Paul, I am sure he would want to be part of such an important event in his home city."

If you know him so well, Mikey, why not ring him up and ask if he'll play rather than issuing forth a speculative statement?

Kings' chief executive Bob Prattey said: "Promoters welcome the new venue because by linking it with Liverpool's great musical and sporting heritage, they have a winning formula.

"They also know there is great potential support from the public, because people here enjoy going to big events - it is part of our culture..

"The success of the Summer Pops helps, because it has attracted headliners like Diana Ross and demonstrated that we can sell tickets for big acts."

The Summer Pops has recently - successfully - chalked up its millionth pound of debt for the people of Liverpool, and some of the less-star-struck councillors are calling for an investigation into just how much money it took to attract Diana Ross to play the Summer Pops.

That they're having to fall back on talking about one of the more, awkward, shall we say, gamblings of council tax money to try and talk up the venue suggests they're starting to have mild panic at what they're going to do with the venue when it's finished. The original plan had been for the site to provide a home for Everton FC; the deal fell through and the plans had to be scaled down considerably. But with far fewer seats than originally planned - less than 10,000 and half the size of Manchester's MEN Arena - and no regular Premiership matches to help with the finances, it's not obvious what the King's Dock is going to do. And Bob Prattey doesn't seem too clear, either:

Mr Prattey added: "We have been in discussions with UK sports bodies to ask them about coming to Liverpool.

"Televised sport in particular would raise the profile of the arena and Liverpool as a city."

But surely that's not the argument they're making to the "UK sports bodies", that they can build the profile of Liverpool - as Tony Hayers once asked Alan Partridge, 'why would they want to do that?' More to the point, why would hosting a sports event attracting a few thousand people do more to raise Liverpool's profile than having two internationally-famous football teams?

Let's hope Macca does decide to help them out. It'd be nice for him to play such an intimate gig once in a while.

music mike storey paul mccartney liverpool

JOHN PEEL DAY

We're reluctant to sound too much of a curmudgeon on John Peel Day - we don't want to spoil it, like we did with Love Day last year - but we listened to Peel shows for over two decades, and we don't really feel that the charity singles with Elton John and high-profile concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall really reflects anything much about what made Peel special, and why we felt like we'd been kicked in the guts when that BBC News Alert came in just under a year ago.

It seems we're not the only ones - Andy Kershaw's not entirely sure it's hitting the right note, either:

Andy Kershaw, his friend and former Radio 1 colleague, yesterday questioned whether Peel Day was a fitting memorial. "John wouldn't have liked it," he said. "He'd think it was maudlin. He would also object on the grounds it was nostalgia-driven. He'd think we ought to spend less time doing stuff like this, and more time ploughing through stacks of records looking for the next new band." Kershaw, who now hosts a world music programme on BBC Radio 3, described the event's organisers as hypocrites who ought to have appreciated Peel more when he was alive.

When Peel died, Kershaw gave Channel 4 News an interview recounting their last conversation. "I said to him [that] he didn't look too good. And he said, 'No, I feel terrible.' He had been diagnosed diabetic a couple of years ago, and he was also finding it really hard that Radio 1 had moved him even later into the night. Marginalised is the correct word. [It] pushed him from 11pm to one o'clock in the morning and he actually said, 'It's killing me.'" Yesterday Kershaw stood by the comments. "I'm not going to go down that road again," he said. "But it's all on public record. I don't retract a word of what I said because I was merely reporting what he said to me."

Perhaps the most charitable explanation is that Radio One didn't appreciate what it had until it was gone.

music john peel andy kershaw radio one bbc

TAKE MY BREATH AWAY

There was a time, Howard Jones once observed, when there was nothing at all, just a distant hum. A little bit later on, there was a time when if a first play of a pop video was given a scheduled slot on a major channel, it would be something fairly significant: like when The Rolling Stones did their IBA-worrying Undercover clip, or Michael Jackson danced with zombies. Now, though, it seems like any old tune can get a "world premiere" on Channel 4. Last night, for example, there was Will Bloody Young doing it straight after Lost.

Will Young.

The video isn't even anything much to write home about - it's another lame pastiche/remake/tribute to Top Gun, with Will Young taking the Tom Cruise role. By which we don't mean "slightly pudgy-faced gay man pretending to be a rabidly heterosexual airplane pilot for the purposes of a film", of course.

music will young tom cruise

YOU MAKE ME FEEL NAKED UNDRESSING ME WITH YOUR EYES

Poor old Louise Nurding Redkanpp whatusedtobeineternal: she's finding it so hard to scarpe up any interest in, well, anything she's got to offer she's more or less having to beg Playboy for a chance to whack 'em out, about five years after they'd have been interested. She makes it sound like she's negotiating, though:



"I like doing photo shoots, just not in bikinis any more. If Playboy magazine called though, it would depend on how much they offered me."

To adapt an old Woody Allen joke, we head off to the future in a slightly similar universe:

Jamie: Hey, Louise - I see you're in Playboy...
Louise: Yes, that's me
Jamie: What was the finanical deal?
Louise: Two hundred quid
Jamie: That's not much
Louise: It was all I could afford

music louise redknapp louise playboy

KNIGHTS OF YAWN - AND THE HARD LUCK CAFE

There's been a small knot of artists desperate to claim kinship with long-dead figures this week - we'll come to Michael Jackson in a moment, but first we should give the attention he so desperately craves to James Blunt, who reckons he's descended from royalty. Tenth century King Gorm the Old, to be precise, which is interesting - we'd have thought that Blunt and his entire family would have proven to be gormless no matter how many generations you go back.

Apparently, Blunt's family left Denmark to fight in the Battle of Hastings. James, mate, it's finished now. If you'd like to go back to Copenhagen, don't let us detain you.

Michael Jackson, meanwhile, has announced that he's actually a knight of the realm. Albeit one who died 800 years ago. It turns out - and you wouldn't have got odds on this - he's the reincarnation of Sir William Marshal, the first Earl of Pembroke. You can see why Jacko might think there's a link - when Marshall was in his forties, he married the teenager Isabel de Clare.

Oddly, though, this regal blood didn't help jacko when he tried to get into the reopening party for the Hard Rock Cafe: he turned up, and got turned away becasue the place was full. It does surprise us, actually, as we'd always assumed that the HRC would pay for any sort of crumbling pop-related tat to stick up inside; who knew they had standards.

Splendidly, amongst the "celebrities" who they could accommodate were Kelly Osboure and Lord - a real Lord, in modern times - Brocket.

One other little detail in the report here - besides his visits to Billy Elliot, Madam Tussaurds, the Hard Rock cafe and other places popular with children tourists, he hasn't left his suite at the Dorchester much. Curious, for a man supposedly in the country recording a charity single, don't you think?

music james blunt king gorm michael jackson william marshal hard rock cafe lord brocket kelly osbourne

ROBBIE WILLIAMS IS NOT GAY

Well, who'd have thought it, eh? Robbie Williams has popped up saying he'd quite fancy being a girl because he wants to know what a female orgasm feels like.

It probably would be an amazing thing, for Robbie to be able to experience a female orgasm. From either side, we'd guess.

music robbie williams

ARE YOU SURE?

We yield to nobody in our admiration for New York London Paris Munich, but surely they must have been to one of Billy Joel's furnitue polish cocktail evenings? They're reporting this morning that Midway Still have launched a greatest, erm, hits compilation album.

We don't remember how any Midway Still songs go, but we do remember the competition to find a new band logo they ran through the NME. British graphic design has never recovered.

Good God, they're right:

music midway still

eyePOD

It's been rumoured as on the way for a while, but now it's here: Apple have confirmed a video iPod. That, in itself, is not interesting - what is surprising is the answer they've come up with to the question "why would someone buy an iPod with video if there was nothing to play on it?": Apple have signed a deal with ABC to flog episodes of their dramas through iTunes for about a quid a time. It's limited, it's US only, but it's one of those moments you might need to remember where you were when you heard the news.

Oh, and did we mention the remote control iMac G5 designed to be used as a home entertainment hub?

music apple ipod imac abc lost desperate housewives

THE WORLD NEARLY MISSED OUT

Oh, how nearly perfect it all was. Alicia Keys - spokesperson for the gold mining industry - nearly didn't record Unbreakable at all. Apparently she "kind of put it on the shelf" waiting for the perfect time.

Sadly, she judged that the moment was right.

music alicia keys

BONO GETS CONFUSED OVER HIS ROLE IN THE WORLD

We're getting a little puzzled about Bono - he seems to be getting more and more Jack Woolley as the months roll on. It was bad enough that he somehow forgot about all the demands for a genuine change in the deal for the World's poor on the journey from Live 8 to Gleneagles; now, he's getting the hump because people are using their private boxes at U2 gigs to raise political funds:

"The U2 concerts are categorically not fundraisers for any politician. They are rock concerts for U2 fans," a spokesman for the band said.

The angry outburst came as it emerged that former-first lady Mrs Clinton has 'invited' 18 people to join her for a concert on U2's sell-out Vertigo tour, providing they stump up £1,300 for the privilege.

Rick Santorum has also organised a fund raiser round a U2 gig.

The hilarious idea is that the concerts are "rock concerts for U2 fans", despite the fact that the luxury boxes Clinton is using are hired out for about four grand a time when U2 play. A rock concert with a comfy sofa and non-stop champers, then. And since the U2 business underwrites Bono's political career, isn't there a very real sense in which every U2 gig is a political benefit these days?

music rick santorum hilary clinton bono u2

OOH, NOEL... YOU DO GO ON

Happy-go-lucky Noel Gallagher is worried about the kids - apparently, he's afraid there isn't a band to replace Oasis. Sweetly, he didn't seem to realise that his Q Award was a recognition of his status as comfy old has-been - he seems to think it was applause from the cutting edge:

"What does it say about the state of music today that it's left to us to dominate these events? I'm 38. I shouldn't really be here. It's embarrassing. Where are all the 21-year-olds? Where's the next Liam Gallagher? Oasis have been going for 20 years and we shouldn't be getting all the awards today. There should be young bands coming through. There has been nothing to challenge Oasis at all."

Well... there is the Arctic Monkeys, and Hard-Fi, and Bloc Party and The Pipettes and the Franzies. And Ladytron, the Go-Team and... but you get our point. Okay, all of them have much more ambition and talent and are far more compelling than Oasis, so in that sense aren't challenging Oasis for the bland middle-ground crown. Hang on, though, Noel is going on again...

"Remember what it was like in 1994 when we came on the scene? It was a movement that swept the country. There has been nothing like that since and I think that is pretty bad. The album charts at the moment are really boring and bland."

Ah, he's turned into the 1994 version of Lydon, convinced that nothing has happened since his brief time living modishly, because he doesn't realise that the exciting new music is a party that he just isn't invited to - not surprisingly; he'd managed to ignore everything that was exciting about the early 1990s when he was making his low-calorie Lennonisms. But then arguing with Gallagher is almost as soul-sapping as listening to his music, and... we can feel it happening... we're...

music oasis noel gallagher

IS IT HISTORY, THIS NEW ONE FROM ME?

Richard Ashcroft - presumably buoyed by being flattered by Chris Martin - is very, very pleased with his new album. He's happy to tell everyone all about it, and boy will he talk about:

"It's sounding shit hot. I'm pleased with it. It's got a good mix to it: there's some good raw rock 'n' roll on it, some moments of beauty and lushness, but there're some tracks that are pretty raw, pretty heavy.

"And I think, lyrically, for me it's hitting the spot. There's a lot of different topics and things I'm going into, and for a time I was thinking about that very English way of writing tunes back from '65 and '66. The Stones, The Beatles, [all the songs] have a bit of Dylan twisted-ness in the sound, but they retain an Englishness to them.

"That's what I wanna be, a great English songwriter. I don't want to be anything else, I realise that now. That's my job, that's my duty, to write tunes, not to fuck around."

Oh, great. Someone who think's he's the saviour of English songwriting harking back to a time when everyone had to smile whenever the Small Faces put a single out. And just when Paul Weller started to be cured of that, too...

music richard ashcroft paul weller

THAT'S WHY MUM HAS GONE TO REHAB

There have been some curious tie-ups between advertisers and celebs in the past, but the new adverts featuring Kerry "just a small drug problem" Katona and Iceland is a stroke of genius.

Iceland is scampering downmarket in a desperate bid to try and shore up its market share - when we went into the Bletchley branch last week, it felt like a Lidl trying to recreate the days of rationing. Meanwhile, Kerry Katona is also desperately trying to cling to any business she can. At least it's easier to believe that Katona really does buy 12" pepperoni pizzas at a quid a time than it was trying to pretend that Sharon Osbourne ever wheeled a trolley round Asda, but the whole stinking air of desperation on both sides is made worse by the rubbish script.

Katona has been signed on for her total lack of dignity. In a bid to try and reinforce the idea that Iceland are now cramming more food into each packet, Kezza holds up a bag of chicken breasts and asks a hapless Iceland worker (and they obviously had a struggle casting someone who looked less glamorous than the 'celebrity' customer) something along the lines of "have these breasts been enlarged?" The shop worker mutters and shuffles off embarrassed, and then, presumably since they're afraid people might miss the joke, Kerry stares down, agape, at her chest.

You see? He thought she meant her tits! She meant the chicken!

It's believed that Ronnie Barker was watching this advert when he died.

The weakness of the gag is multiplied, though, by the ridiculous set-up. Why would someone challenge a shelf-stacker because they were afraid their portions had got bigger? And even if they did, why would they phrase the question in such a tortuous way - wouldn't you say "Are these bags bigger?" or something similar?

Even worse is the one where Kerry thinks that she's being offered home delivery because she's famous - someone at the agency had obviously realised that 97% of the country haven't got a clue who she is anyway, as they construct a plot which ensures she turns up at the shop dressed like a princess. A princess of a tiny, third-world country, admittedly.

Kerry Katona is perhaps so lumpen that she makes the old Bejam chest freezer seem like it was light on its feet. If Iceland's intended message was "We're really crappy, but at least we're cheap", it's spot on the money.

music kerry katona atomic kitten iceland

SIMPER!

More moments of pen-sucking for the Hello! caption writers as they're lumbered with a photo of Bob Geldof getting on a train:



What can they find to say about that? Well, it's the Eurostar. And surely, of course, he's not going to have been the only famous person to have used the Eurostar in the last ten years, is he?

Also taking the train that day was Sir Bob. The Live 8 organiser is just one of a host of personalities to have travelled on Eurostar since its launch over a decade ago

Wonderful! It's not a picture of a grumbly old cryptopolitician humping a suitcase, it's the leading edge of a parade of glittering famous people [not pictured].

music bob geldof

THE ONLY CHARTS THAT MAKE YOU WANT TO ATTACH A PIPE TO YOUR EXHAUST

The ever-reliable Mr Red Penguin has got details of the top 100 singles of the year. This is the top ten:

1 Tony Christie Feat. Peter Kay - (Is This The Way To) Amirillo 1,090,500
2 Crazy Frog - Axel F 523,100
3 James Blunt - You're Beautiful 436,000
4 McFly - All About You / You've Got A Friend 333,300
5 Akon - Lonely 331,400
6 2Pac ft. Elton John - Ghetto Gospel 268,300
7 Pussycat Dolls Ft Busta Rhymes - Don't Cha 265,500
8 Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. 245,400
9 Daniel Powter - Bad Day 226,200
10 Will Smith - Switch 193,400

There's something almost breathtaking about the sudden drop in sales between number one and two; and the drop between one and ten. Indeed, only thirty-one singles have managed to do more 100,000 sales so far this year, and only about three that are any good.

Likewise, the presence of Franz Ferdinand in at number one with their album disguises what otherwise might be the most crushing top ten albums of all time:

1 FRANZ FERDINAND, YOU COULD HAVE IT SO MUCH BETTER
2 KATIE MELUA, PIECE BY PIECE
3 JAMES BLUNT, BACK TO BEDLAM
4 DAVID GRAY, LIFE IN SLOW MOTION
5 KT TUNSTALL, EYE TO THE TELESCOPE
6 KELLY CLARKSON, BREAKAWAY
7 BARBRA STREISAND, GUILTY TOO
8 KANYE WEST, LATE REGISTRATION
9 PAUL ANKA, ROCK SWINGS
10 JAMIE CULLUM, CATCHING TALES

With the possible exception of the Kanye West album, the whole run of albums from number 2 downwards are just... well, there isn't actually a word for them, as they're so bland it's physically impossible to attach any sort of adjective to them at all.

music charts

I'M NOT CRAZY, I'M JUST CHUMS WITH GOD

Bizzy Bone has wanted to clarify matters: he's not gone mad, he's just found Jesus. Hope that makes things clearer.

music bizzy bone jesus

MORE CLUBBING

The ongoing Teenage Fanclub have announced a new single which, in a Janus-style embrace of old and new technology, will be released as 7" single and download only. Called It's All In My Mind, it's lifted from their current album:


Teenage FanGclub?

music teenage fanclub

AND THEY NEVER SAID PLEASE

The constant whining of the record companies isn't just restricted to the rock and pop wings of the organisations. The classical music parts of the label are also given to sobbing into their tissues, given the opportunity. EMI and "other labels" have complained to John Whittingdale, chair of the House of Commons select committee on culture and media that the BBC didn't "ask the label's permissions" before embarking on their Beethoven downloads lthis summer:

The BBC has been accused of failing to consult the UK record industry before launching the hugely successful free downloads of the complete Beethoven symphonies earlier this summer.

[Whitingdale said] " in Beethoven week there were 1.4m free downloads at a time when record companies are saying that people should pay for music and the archive trials are going ahead without any market impact assessment.

"The inference is that you are not treading carefully but having a dramatic impact on a number of small and fledgling concerns."

Yes, that would be EMI, one of the four largest record labels in the world that are amongst the "small and fledgling concerns" that Whittingdale is speaking up for - will nobody think of the fledgling companies barely able to count their profits in tens of million quids?

The moaning seems to at least make a degree of sense, until you twist the question the other way round: if the BBC decides to give us, who fund it, recordings it has funded with our money, why should it ask the permission from anyone else? Why should we assume that something like a Beethoven concerto should be something we pay a third party for?

We could, of course, leave the commercial sector to build its market, but even Whittingdale's own arguments seem to show the weakness of this idea:

The complete symphonies were downloaded 1.4m times in the two weeks they were made available in June, a figure record company executives say would take "upwards of five years" for an equivalent commercial CD to achieve.

In other words, the BBC managed to persuade a million people to have a go at classical music, in the space of a few days, opening a million ears to the world of Beethoven they may never have sampled before. Perhaps not all of them will then go straight down HMV to try a bit of Brahms, but some of them, surely will. The music industry, much given to ripping off its features to better spite its own face, would rather not have had this massive educational and popularisation exercise take place. They might be in a ghetto, but it's their ghetto.

You'll notice that the book retailing industry seem less concerned about the BBC's planned Shakespeare season coming up later this year.

music bbc john whittingdale emi beethoven

THE HOLLYWOOD CIRCLE JERK IN ACTION

Last week: Rod Stewart and currentblondepartner turn up at a party to honour Larry King's 100 years in showbiz

This week: King returns the favour by flattering Stewart as he gets a star on the Hollywood walk of fame:

"He's one of my favorite guests. He's one of my favorite people," the CNN host said.

music rod stewart larry king

DAMAGED PEOPLE

We think the new Depeche Mode album is the best thing they've done for ages, but we would say that, wouldn't we? You can judge for yourself, as they're streaming the new album Playing The Angel over at MySpace. In full.

music depeche mode myspace

AT LAST, SOME RECOGNITION FOR MIDGE

After having been given the shitty end of the stick to hold during the run up to Live8, and then being beaten with the shitty end of the stick during Live8, and not even being allowed up to Gleneagles when Bob and Bono went to meet their friends and tell world leaders "whatever you think best", Midge Ure is finally getting his moment in the sun as Abertay University (Dundee) is set to award him an honorary degree.

Of course, chances are he'll turn up to pick it up only to discover Geldof's already on the podium taking care of it for him, but it's a nice gesture.

music live8 live 8 midge ure ultravox bob geldof

FAME COSTS... AND RIGHT HERE'S WHERE YOU START PAYING

Another life left in disarray by Pete Doherty (although we suspect that there's much more to it than his involvement), as the girl who sort-of ran off with him after the Carlisle gig (that's the first one, not the second teenager who got on the bus) has been kicked out of college. The Daily Star has it as being kicked out of "Fame school" - apparently Cumbria Institute of the Arts; who knew? Natasha Ellis isn't happy:

But when she tried to resume her studies for a national diploma in performing arts her tutor Gwyn Hunt told her to leave. Last night Natasha’s dream of acting lay in tatters. She said: "My tutor told me I was unreliable and immature. She said I couldn’t continue and suggested I tried another college.

"I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t done anything wrong. You’d think a performing arts college would want its students to meet rock stars. You could say I was just doing my homework. I can’t believe they can treat me this way."

Well, it's an inventive enough excuse - although we're not sure that's the sort of homework that would help you get the third chorus role in a provincial touring production of Cats - but somehow we doubt that Doherty was more than a final straw; or possibly a convenient excuse:

College vice-principal Peter Nixon insisted the decision to axe Natasha from the course had "nothing at all to do with the Pete Doherty business’’.

music pete doherty babyshambles carlisle

MCFLY WILL BE WAITING FOR THE CALL

Poor James Bourne - like all the former Busted boys, he's keen to think that he's all grown up now. We bet he even hums "I'm a man, yes I am" as he has his morning wash. But then... Michael Jackson invites him for a sleepover.

We imagine Jacko was disappointed, too, when he turned up. "He looks a lot younger in this Smash Hits poster, doesn't he?"

Do you suppose Jacko stayed in to watch Channel 4's Minipops documentary last night? Tiny children dressed up as adults, popular in the 1980s, now seen as slightly embarrassing - surley right up his street?

music james bourne busted michael jackson minipops

TOWERS OF LONDON POSTPONE SHOWS

Bad news for anyone about to head off to Hertfordshire Poly tonight - apparently the Towers of London gig there tonight (and the Cardiff and Oxford dates) has been put on hold while the band finish their album in LA. We're not sure how they'll be able to tell when it's finished - after all, it's surely going to be a rag-bag affair. Perhaps they'll keep going until they've hit 74 minutes.

music towers of london

SHE MIGHT BE BANGED UP ON D-WING, BUT SHE HAS HER STANDARDS

We're a little surprised that Lil'Kim should be stood on the roof of her cell again, banging on about how terrible 50 Cent is. What sort of prison is she in, anyway? She seems to be constantly issuing press releases. Anyway, Kim thinks 50 cent is a bad example:

"I don't have a lot of respect for 50 Cent because his music is hardcore, violent. I love his music sometimes, but I feel like in his personal life, his real life, he carries that on, and that's not a great message, you know what I mean? I think he promotes it."

Well, that's great Kim, but aren't you in prison because you lied in court in a bid to protect a guy who shot someone? Isn't your position a little bit Jonathan Aitken?

music lil kim 50 cent

THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCKERS. SORRY, SUCCESS.

Unfortunately, there's not a person left alive who thinks that Marilyn Manson is anything more than a slightly less amusing version of Krusty The Clown, otherwise we could suggest that his announcement today makes it difficult for anyone to believe he's a god of headfuck. Like Krusty, Mazza has decided to licence his name to any old crap - so from 2006 you can buy Marilyn Manson perfume.

Just as Mazza's music is very, very thinned-down goth, we expect the perfume to smell ever-so-faintly of patchoulli.

music marilyn manson goth

HOW'S THE NYTOL ADDICTION GOING, THOUGH?

As Eminem battles his "sleeping pill" addiction, someone's clearly still running the business for him, as he - or a person a lot like him - has put together a best of album which will pull together all his jolly songs about raping lesbians, suffocating pregnant girlfriends to death and burying your mentor's body in a basement. Your gran's Christmas gift has been sorted, then.

Eminem watchers suggest this collection - called Curtain Call - might represent his departure from performance; presumably to concentrate better on supping hot milky drinks.

music eminem

GENNARO CASTALDO WATCH

Oh, how the music retailers must have celebrated when they finally bullied newspapers into stopping giving away free CDs - their persistant whining about how it was ruining their businesses had finally hit home, and slowly, the labels withdrew their support for the schemes.

The shops were less thrilled to discover that the newspapers just shrugged, and started to give away DVDs instead, eating into a range with a much higher margin. It's like a baker had finally managed to stop the wasps buzzing around his eccles cakes, only to discover they'd instead started to nest in his wedding cakes and fine confectionary instead.

A nasty shock for the shops who - instead of seeing papers fling out the equivalent of £2 1960s compilation CD, had to contend with a £15 Cabaret DVD available for a quid in every corner shop in the land. Terrible times, and the sort of times which call for - yes - HMV's Gennaro Castaldo, sent out to argue that it's just not fair:

HMV is one of several retailers worried that such giveaways will diminish the value of their business.

"DVDs should be aspirational but if you see them being tossed around it sends out a negative message," says HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo. "It devalues the medium in the minds of the public."

But doesn't the fact that a DVD can be made for as little as 16p suggest customers are being ripped off in the shops?

Mr Castaldo rejects it as a "facile argument". The cost of DVDs sold in shops reflects the "full costs of creating a film, distribution, marketing and selling it."

"But DVD prices have been coming down a lot recently."

Erm... yes, they have. You could get East is East last Saturday for £1.20, with a free Guardian, TV guide and book review supplement thrown in. Clearly, there's a bit more room for HMV to shift their prices downwards.

We love Castaldo's argument here - you can't give people cheap DVDs because they'll lose their "aspirational value"? What sort of logic is that? Do people really go into shops and try and haggle prices upwards so they can feel better about themselves? "Excuse me, what's the difference betweent the five pound slippers and the ten pound slippers?" "They're identical, pal, except the ten pound ones make you feel a little bit more like you're Prince Edward."

The only plausible reason for pretending that DVDs are luxury items is so that they can go on charging luxury prices for them - if you actually cancel down Castaldo's argument, he's saying "if we don't make people pay through the nose for this product, they might stop paying through the nose for the product".

And, well, it is true that a new release DVD might have its owners wanting to still top up the costs of producing the movie in the first place - but something like Cabaret was made in 1972. Presumably Cy Feuer isn't still fielding phonecalls from the cameramen saying "Look... when do you think you might be able to pay us for our work? It was thirty-three years ago now..."

music gennaro castaldo dvd hmv

WE'D RATHER MART'S SONGS ABOUT SCREWING THAN DAVE'S ABOUT SMACK

We'd been wondering how things would have been with Depeche Mode getting back together after all that business with Gahan moaning about singing Gore's songs. Frosty, at first, it seems, to listen to Martin Gore:

"During the press for his (Gahan's) solo record , he went a bit too far saying stuff like he felt like a puppet and I was a dictator, and he felt like he had a right to contribute.

"I realised during that period that if the band were going to continue then I would have to allow that to happen up to a point. But I didn't think it was right that after 25 years he should step in and write 50 per cent of the songs."

Not without at least offering another 10 per cent to Vince Clarke, certainly.

In other Dave Gahan news, apparently Michael Stipe bumped into Gahan back in 1996, and was so shocked at how raddled he looked he, erm, phoned up Anton Corbijn for help. We often confuse "doctor" and "photographer" ourselves - both make you take your clothes off and realise that your body isn't exactly as great as you'd hoped:

He recalls, "Michael said he'd just met Dave Gahan and that Dave was in a terrible state, and could I do anything about it."

But Corbijn's help came too late - Gahan clinically died from a drug overdose in May, 1996.

That's actually the final sentence of the ContactMusic report, which would give you the impression that Gahan was dead. Which would make his persuading Martin Gore to give him some of the songwriting for ver Mode even more impressive.

music anton corbijn martin gore dave gahan depeche mode

THE FIRST WIVES CLUB

It's almost certain that it isn't true, but you can almost see the logic in Britney Spears taking on the splenetically crazed Shar Jackson as some sort of maid. There's a source to "back up" the story:

"Shar was the first person Britney turned to when Kevin started going out partying and playing golf, instead of looking after her and their new baby."

"Shar suspects Kevin is envious of the amount of time Britney spends with her son. So she's looking after Sean to give Britney more time with Kev."

Nobody, I'm sure, wants to say it, so perhaps someone should buy this for Britney:

music britney spears kevin federline shar jackson