No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Beyonce is all original, all the time

Attempts to sue Beyonce for copyright theft - Jennifer Armour reckoned Baby Boy was a bit too much like her own Got a Little Bit of Love For You - have run aground. A judge has ruled there are 'substantial differences' between the two tracks.

Beyonce is magnanimous in victory:

"It's unfortunate that lawsuits such as this one occur, but I am grateful and relieved to have this behind me and I am eager to move on," said Ms Knowles in a statement.

... because we imagine she wasn't getting much sleep with that hanging over her.

music beyonce

You've bust ya tour, Busta

Ever wondered if anyone would ever start to say no as artists start to demand more and more luxury aboard their tour gravy train?

It's happened.

Busta Rhymes started asking for extra extras, on top of the extras for his Australian tour.

Now, there won't be an Australian tour at all:

The promoters, PDA Touring, have claimed that their refusal of "outrageous demands on the eve of departure by Busta Rhymes' management" resulted in the rapper's cancellation.

Although unconfirmed, reports are claiming that Rhymes demanded more money for the gig, business class flights for his whole entourage and five-star accommodation.

There are some murky suggestions that Rhymes might have been trying to force PDA's hand to enable him to ease his double-booking problems, as he'd managed to get a clashing set of supports for Mariah Carey.

What was Fergie thinking?

We're sure at storyboard stage, it sounded great: Fergie and two models, virtually naked, writhing in chocolate.

Nobody seemed to realise it would end up looking like a dirty protest in Cell Block H.

music fergie

David Cameron really is following Blair step-for-step

The Labour party hacked off Norman Cook by using Right Here, Right Now.

Now, The Tories have annoyed him by asking to use Happiness. He's said no, but does acknowledge that Callmedave's lot are slightly politer than Blair:

Multi-millionaire Norman — who is openly Left-wing — has made it clear he does not want the Tories’ cash or to be associated with the party.

He was equally unhappy when Labour used Right Here Right Now as their election tune in 2004.

Norman raged: “At least the Conservatives had the decency to ask first, unlike Labour.

“The Tories, however, remain my least favourite political party — so an emphatic No is the answer.

“Is Happiness going to be the new direction for the Conservatives? We’ll have to wait and see.”

We love the way The Sun uses the phrase "openly left-wing" as if it was the sort of thing you're meant to be ashamed of, like masturbation or watching Fox News.

Victoria Newton is buzzing with the chance to do a spot of political analysis, mind:

Cameron has boasted that he is into RADIOHEAD, THE SMITHS, PULP and BLUR.

Something tells me none of those bands would want to be Tory supporters either.

You see, that's what Victoria gets her money for. Insights like spotting there's every chance that Morrissey might not be a Conservative voter.

music fatboy slim norman cook david cameron

Robbie Williams is not invisible

The Sun runs some photos of Robbie Williams playing golf and smiling today. That's not what's notable, though - it's this claim:

These are the first pictures of the star since exhaustion forced him to cancel the Asian leg of his Close Encounters tour.

The first pictures, if you don't count the pictures taken of him on stage for the three nights in Milton Keynes after he axed the dates, of course.

music robbie williams

The noise made by dying stars

Can there be anything more distressing than the sight of those members of Five who couldn't find a proper job giving their opinion on MTV's boyband failiures Upper Street?

It's like asking Crippen for his opinion on Shipman's bedside manner. Needless to say, Abs, Shorley Wall, Paulie Knuckles and Wendy Craig from Five were less than impressed with Upper Street, which features Dane Bowers and... well, probably a few people from stage schools. A source saw it all:

"Ritchie and the boys went on camera saying they thought Upper Street were crap and it wouldn’t work.

“The boys heard what they had said and were furious.

“Dane and Danny went beserk and offered to take them outside and show them what they thought away from the cameras. It was all kicking off.”

Like uncles fighting at a wedding, isn't it?

music upper street five

Robbie Williams is not friends with Chris Moyles

Chris Moyles has called his autobiography 'The Gospel According To', presumably to tie in with his self-proclaimed saviourship of Radio One. But the book's not really a gospel at all - Moyles' messiah complex wouldn't let him see himself as a faithful disciple recording the doings of someone else; and the original Bible was a little-less big on the name-dropping:

“I really, really like Elton, I think the guy is brilliant,” he declares.

“He is funny and lovely and charming. I’ve met him three or four times and he’s introduced me to Bernie (writing partner Bernie Taupin) and he’s like this, ‘Have you met Bernie? Bernie! Bernie! Come here. This is Chris. He’s a good lad, we like Chris.’

“And I’m like ‘Elton John’s introducing me to Bernie.’ ”

Bernie Taupin, we imagine, is equally like "Elton's introducing me to that radio bloke again" and scanning the room for an exit strategy.

“Chris Martin is very clean living and very healthy but sometimes you’d think he was Pete Doherty’s flatmate.”

Why? Has Doherty stolen his guitar?

Of course, not every name dropped is done with fondness:

“I’ve met Rod Stewart once and he was a miserable bastard.

“I got introduced to him and he was massively uninterested ’cos he was talking to someone else.”

Goodness, how rude - fancy him not stopping to talking to someone he actually knew in order to dance attendance on a person he's never met before.

Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud doesn't measure up, either:

“I don’t hate the girl,” he says: “I don’t know her. But she never smiles, she is a miserable cow. The others really play the game — well, Nadine gets a little bit flaky sometimes.

Nicola Roberts' failure to shoot false smiles at Moyles starts to make us think about shifting the ordering of our list of favourite Girls Aloud.

But there's no decent Bible without a Judas, and for Moyles, it's Robbie Williams:

“It was strange. I find it frustrating that I can’t get past a certain level.

“I’m certainly not friends with the guy but I think I’ve known him long enough that I think it should be ‘Hi mate’ rather than just ‘hello.’

“He’s got a lot of issues, he’s fairly guarded and I can understand that but it might be nice if you were let in a little bit more.

“I thought we were mates and now we’re just pals.

“It goes friends, mates, pals for me and I think it’s a bit pathetic to admit it but I want to be friends with Robbie Williams and because he’s not my friend, I’m upset.”

And what was it that Williams had done which left Moyles feeling so upset? No, he'd not turned up at Radio One wearing a Christian O'Connell tshirt? Had he told him what Bernie Taupin says behind his back?

Nope; he'd arrived at the Radio One studio and offered to shake hands instead of embracing Moyles:

"I was expecting a big hug"

And yet he treated you like a bloke he works with. What a pity.

music chris moyles robbie williams elton john chris martin

George Michael: Problem? What problem?

George Michael has reacted with anger to suggestions that he might have a bit of a problem:

"I do not have a drug problem.

Maybe you don't have any addiction issues to you need to address, George, but - with witness reports of your car lurching about busy city roads, and your needing three people to get you from the car to the ambulance - you might have a driving problem.

The Mirror seems relaxed enough about the idea of someone incapable of controlling a vehicle veering all over the roads to make a joke of it, suggesting he might have been listening to James Blunt CDs. They also speculate that he might be narcopleptic. Or, they consider:

He is known to be a dope smoker so the drugs could be leaving him lethargic.

Do you think? And the whole "smelling like a Bob Marley poster in a student bedroom" thing could be another clue there, couldn't it?

music george michael

Monday, October 02, 2006

Chairs in the air

A DMX PA lasting less than quarter of an hour ended with a woman in hospital and a minor fracas.

The event - co-sponsored by New York's trouble-magnet radio station Hot 97 - was going tolerably well when DMX suddenly left the stage to have a slap at the sound guy. In a bid to speed up the performances, it seems the management of the venue was cutting the mics mid-set. 50 Cent had been playing before DMX and had tried to stir the audience in his favour to get more time; the bid for extra time failed but he did manage to inflame the crowd.

According to police, DMX and his associates exited the stage at about 11:45 p.m. but returned minutes later, throwing bottles of water into the crowd.

"A member of the audience picked up a steel folding chair and threw it onstage," Daub explained. "It was thrown back off by a member of DMX's entourage and it struck the victim in the head."

Ouch. Chairs hurt twice as much when they're aimed at someone else.

music dmx 50 cent

Eric Clapton is doing Cocaine again

He'd - somewhat piously - dropped his cover of JJ Cale's Cocaine from his set when he did his spell in famous-person rehab. Now, though, Eric Clapton is playing it again. Of course, he can't just slide it back into his set: we need a mini-lecture, too:

"I thought that it might be giving the wrong message to people who were in the same boat as me," Clapton recently told The Associated Press.

"But further investigation proved ... the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song. And so I thought that might be a better way to do it, to approach it from a more positive point of view. And carry on performing it as not a pro-drug song, but just as a reality check about what it does."

Clapton, of course, is incapable of singing a song that isn't true - for this reason, he once felt obliged to shoot a sheriff, just so that he wasn't fibbing about that one.

music eric clapton cocaine

Bookmarks: Some other stuff to read online

The Guardian celebrates thirty years of the Rough Trade shop by listing some of the best indie record shops. Probe isn't there; they were probably invited to take part but hung the phone up on the paper. And...

Culture Vulture invites ideas on who might have been missed off: Probe turns up, so does Jumbo.

Newsday meanwhile celebrates New York's Looney Tunes: "People should talk about the independent record stores that are thriving," Groeger said quietly, almost humbly. "There are some."

NPR hears about Tracey Ullman's new book on knitting. Yes, that Tracey Ullman: "It was the window of this yarn store," she says. "It was like, edible -- the colors and the textures of this wool -- and it was bamboo baskets and needles and it was so different from when I was a child -- all this awful acrylic post-war wool."

Guardian Money collects more tales of iPod woe: [S]ome retailers admit to a raw deal. One told the Guardian: "Apple will not consider giving refunds on faulty machines outside warranty. Other manufacturers take a different attitude and will reimburse the shop. "We only make 10% profit on an iPod. That means if one in 10 customers have a problem, we don't make money. That's probably why shops take a hard line with them."

The Wall Street Journal's Number Guy sorts out the randomness of iPods: "People tend to seek patterns and order where none exist -- perhaps even in a shuffled iPod playlist, where they might pay more attention when their favorite songs are playing, and thus assume that those songs are in heavier rotation."

Headphone Sex reviews Field Music and Fields - ignoring, incidently, the Field Trip: Although intrinsically linked to local peers Maximo Park & The Futureheads, Field Music are a little more reserved, a little more thoughtful, and a little more influenced by 60s psychedelic pop (and The Beach Boys in particular).

Chartreuse explains Paris Hilton as Madonna 2.0: Whenever she tries to promote herself, it falls flat. Books, records, movies, etc. don’t work for Paris. Because she’s actually a platform. Like Digg and YouTube. Paris Hilton has gotten so good at garnering attention for others people are now using the fact that she doesn’t visit as a marketing tool.

FourFour brings the much-needed Beyonce/Zombie crossover: A 1,500+ word essay on B'Day, however, would betray the album's brilliantly simplistic spirit. Instead, I'm offering a what-if scenario that combines a new favorite (that'd be Bey) with an old -- Lucio Fulci's opus of zombies and popped eyeballs, the 1981 trashterpiece, The Beyond.

Last Bookmarks
Bookmarks before last

Liam Gallagher ruins Dirty Pretty Things gig

Good Lord, as if Noel trying to ruin Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys' chances wasn't bad enough, now Liam Gallagher is turning up and throwing a spanner into the Dirty Pretty Things.

The DPT's gig at Camden Proud Gallery was already hovering on the cusp of being pulled due to over-crowding when Gallagher shambled forward to 'collaborate'. Never mind that this is a bit like Pam Ayres turning up to help out WH Auden, the crowd got even more excited and surged forward. Placing safety ahead of a McCartney-Jackson moment, the gig was aborted.

Creating a lot of fuss and ending up in general disappointment. Quite a keynote Liam's working on, there.

music liam gallagher dirty pretty things carl barat oasis

There aren't enough festivals already

There are now more festivals than regionally-based detective dramas on television, but since there still seems to be no shortage of people willing to buy tickets, we're not expecting new entrants to the field to dry up just yet.

Latest is a bid to create a "Welsh T in the Park", Fflam, scheduled for Singleton Park in Swansea between June 15th & 17th next year.

No bands have been named as yet, but since there's only so many acts in the shallow pool they'll be fishing in, we're sure you'll be able to guess.

music festivals fflam

Jamelia dampens down 3AM

The continuing experiment of turning the 3AM girls page in the Mirror into a guest-edited feature really runs into the sand today with Jamelia, whose contributions would struggle to make it past an It's Real editor's conference. So we learn that:

SHOCK! Lemar is one of her best mates;

HORROR! Jamelia would have liked to be in EastEnders, but can't act, or on Strictly Come Dancing, but can't dance (we note not being able to sing didn't keep her off Top of the Pops);

GASP! Her boyfriend is a bit untidy;

YAWN! Jamelia won't ever have plastic surgery. Unless she gets her breasts done.;

SLEEPYWINKERS! If her boyfriend cheated on her, she'd cut off his bollocks, but doesn't need to, because he wouldn't;

CANIGONOW? She once met Prince Charles without a bra on. She didn't have a bra, not Charles, although he probably didn't have on one, either.

Thank god there was some advertising on the page, otherwise we'd probably have had "what I'm going to watch on TV tonight" and some drawings of kittens to pad out the page.

Let's stop having the 3AM filled with what celebrities want us to hear, and go back to the usual system, of letting their PR teams do it for them.

music jamelia

Robbie Williams is not as popular with the dead

No wonder Robbie Williams is fed up - even the dead are turning their backs on him, as James Blunt takes his place at the top of the funeral music charts:

1 Goodbye my Lover, James Blunt
2 Angels, Robbie Willams
3 I've had the Time of my Life, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
4 Wind Beneath my Wings, Bette Midler
5 Pie Jesu, Requiem
6 Candle in the Wind, Elton John
7 With or Without You, U2
8 Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton
9 Every Breath you Take, The Police
10 Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers

Since we don't believe that people in the dying demographics are likely to have developed any great affection for James Blunt over the last year or so of their life, the message is clear: make sure your will either has a choice of music, or at least excludes anything that sounds vaguely like a Simon Bates' Our Tune.

music james blunt robbie williams

Madonna is pregnant. Or has a passport.

Aha! Madonna is spotted going into a clinic which "specialises in pregnancy and immunisation", so she's pregnant. With, erm, expectation before her trip to Malawi.

music madonna

Unstuck wit' chew

Could it all be over for Pussycat Dolls, so soon, so soon? This morning's Sun has picked up on a rumour that the band - based on the Bratz dolls - have started to fall to pieces:

But an insider on a TV show that tried to book them revealed record bosses said their next single would be the last.

The band's spokesperson has insisted the group will remain together - and, let's face it, if they swapped out some of them and replaced them with similar nail technicians, nobody would really notice, would they? It'd be like Dan Archer - they'd only have to stop recasting at a point where the age they were supposed to be got Biblical.

music pussycat dolls

Brian McFadden flubs

Cheering news from Newcastle, where a crowded bar came within moments of having to listen to Brian McFadden doing karaoke - only for him to fold and flee at the last moment.

He was meant to be singing Stayin' Alive at the time.

music brian mcfadden

George Michael crashes out in car. Again.

Oh, Lord. Not again. As Oscar Wilde never said, to fall asleep at the wheel of your car once is unfortunate; to do it three or four times makes it look like you need to hand in your licence. This time, cops apparently found weed when they were called to George Michael, getting some sleep at the junction of Cricklewood Lane and Hendon Way at three in the morning.

He was taken first to hospital for a check-up, and thence to Colindale police station where he was cautioned for possession of drugs and charged over the driving offences.

His partner Kenny Goss said at their North London home last night: “He has nothing to say. He’s fine and I’ve got him a McDonald’s.”

That'll teach him.

Victoria Newton, meanwhile, is cross:

IT’S impossible to feel anything but frustration with George Michael.

Well, boredom is starting to come up on the outside, to be fair.

[H]e seems intent on squandering his God-given talent.

Victoria, it's too bloody early in the morning to get into a theological debate with you here, but what's with the "god-given"?

[I]t would be a tragedy if his astonishing legacy is tarnished by his bizarre behaviour.

Although, clearly, not so much of a tragedy that you feel it would have been worth not reporting his symptoms in the paper, eh?

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Well, that's 2011 bloody ruined, then

Actually, we suspect that the basing of a claim that there won't be a new Coldplay album for five years on something someone claims they overheard Chris Martin saying backstage might make for a shaky story.

Apparently, he said:

"It's going to be a long, long time before you hear a new album from us," he explained. "We've done a few things, but we're all enjoying having families at the moment. If it takes five years for us to feel ready to record something new, then so be it. We need plenty of time to let it come together organically."

There is, even in what sounds to be a strangely verbatim quoye, quite a bit of hedging there.

music chris martin coldplay

Nine Million Bicycles Under The Sea

A good wine, they say, needs no bush. But a rubbish one? That'd need all the bush you can muster.

In other words: the stuntier someone is, the less distinctive you'll usually find their music to be. Something to consider as we hear that Katie Melua is planning to play the world's deepest gig, 100 metres below the North Sea, at an oil rig.

Why play a gig so far below the surface? There's no real reason, nor explanation - Melua describes the planned event as "pretty cool" but that's about as far as it goes. It seems to be little other than a stunt; the Guiness Book a way of gathering press coverage when there's little novelty in the music to capture the attention.

Still, there's always the hope that this inspires James Blunt to attempt a gig in the red-hot, magma-bubbling core of a volcano or something.

music katie melua

Priscillas here, now(-ish)

Never mind the return of Cracker - a programme destined to shore up the ITV3 schedules for all eternity, in-between the reruns of Brideshead Revisited. Tonight's TV highlight is the Priscillas, live on liveroom TV, which is kind of like a Whistle Test tubed into your eyes via the broadband internet. They're live at nine, and you can watch afterwards forever.

And not a single crowbarred reference to 9/11 in sight.

music priscillas

You, You Tube and the music: Stiff

Our sometime Sundays collection of stuff off of YouTube takes its inspiration from the recent Stiff night on BBC4, with some Stiff artists, although not always from their time on the label:

Tracey Ullman - Breakaway - keyworded "fetish" on account of the leather skirts
Tracey Ullman - Terry - video of the cover...
Kirsty MacColl - Terry - ... video of the original version
Plasmatics - Butcher Babies - NSFW video
Elvis Costello - Alison/Pump It Up - filmed on Super8 during a 1981 performance
The Pogues - Dirty Old Town - live version with Kirsty MacColl hanging about in the back
Tenpole Tudor - Swords of a Thousand Men - from Top of the Pops, looks like
Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
Devo - That's Good from David Letterman's show in 1982

music youtube devo tracey ullman wreckless eric elvis costello the plasmatics

Emo uninjured despite vicious attack

Emokids are reacting with something-other-than-shock at an attack on the world's most self-indulgent genre launched by Kasabian's Tom Meighan. Tom railed like he was Sally Webster discovering Rosie wearing stripey tights for the first time:

"I keep hearing how emo music is bringing kids together and that it's got these positive messages and all that, but if it's damaging teenagers and if it's making them depressed, how can that be a good thing?

"All it causes is moaning teenagers. There's nothing positive from it. People tell me it's doing something for the kids, but all it's doing is making them moan all the time.

He continued to mtv: "It may upset people, but emo is dead in my eyes. Fuck emo. Just enjoy the world. Teenagers are better than that, man. I want to tell them to be positive about life.

“You've been brought up well by your parents, so don't sit around in your bedroom cutting your wrists. Grow up."

Emokids across the US reacted as one with the word "who?"

Brad Kalchawski, 16, from Wichita Falls, Texas took time off from his organising his campaign to get Hot Topic to open a branch in his town, to ask "Tom What? What's a Kasabian? Is that a Japanese car?"

Ellen Miskoski, 16, added "I think I've heard of them - they're that Oasis band, aren't they?"

Mrs. Miskoski, who came to give Brad and Ellen a lift down to the Mall to buy some eyeliner, shook her head: "is he quite an elderly gentleman, cut off from youth culture? When he was young, did he not find a way to try and set himself out from the generation before? Did he never feel, as a teenager, that the whole of the world had been set up with the sole purpose of frustrating his every dream and desire, and thus make him feel obliged to take up a stance of poetic outsider as part of a vital growing process which, given time, will be toned down and start to form part of a rounded character which is able to empathise with others, having had this cartoon-like experience of being on the 'wrong side' of society's tracks?"

When told that Tom was actually quite young, and in a pop group, understanding spread across Mrs. Miskoski's face: "Oh... he's a bit simple, is he?"

music kasabian

The brain drain returns

We thought the brain drain was a thing of the past - the UK's youngest, brightest minds being tempted overseas by the promise of greater riches.

But it's not over - and we're about to be hit with a serious body blow.

Posh and Becks are about to flee to the US.

David Beckham has (apparently) lined up a lucrative contract to follow in Peter Ward's steps and throw in football to play in a US soccerteam instead, while... well, Victoria will continue to "design" ugly jeans that nobody buys and recording albums no-one will ever hear.

We don't understand why the government doesn't insist on some sort of export licence, the way they would with a painting or sculpture, to keep our cultural gems in the country. Or, rather, in Spain.

Of course, the real reason is nothing to do with getting to spend more time with Tom Cruise and his cash-hoovering cult friends.

music victoria beckham david beckham tom cruise scientology

Regenesis

We blame Danny Baker for this. Last week, he was defending Phil Collins on Radio London; now, property developing firm Genesis are about to launch a reunion tour of their sideline music interest.

The Sunday Mirror reports a source:

Last night a source revealed: "Genesis were huge in Britain and America and there remains a huge amount of affection for them. And the tour is likely to make them millions."

We're glad for the sort of insight that only an insider could give you - we'd never have known that "Genesis were huge" without them.

music phil collins genesis

Robbie Williams is not telling all

Robbie Williams has been in an eighteen-month relationship with a woman, according to the Sunday Mirror. The paper describes Charlotte Austin as "a humble barmaid" - presumably as opposed to those arrogant barmaids employed in Yates Wine Lodge. The paper never quite clears up why, if she's been Robbie's secret lover for a year and a half, she's suddely decided to tell the papers about it. The telling usually comes after the kissing stops, but the feature makes no suggestion it's all come to a bad end; the whole thing, in fact, reads less like a lover has broken a confidence, and more like Robbie Williams has rung-in the whole thing putting on a David Walliams-style lady voice:

She said: "It's quite empowering to be involved with him - it's empowering to tell him, 'Sorry, I can't see you tonight, Robbie Williams.'"

[...]

"Even though it was Robbie Williams, it still isn't like a movie where people are ripping clothes off and I get carried to the bedroom."

[...]

"It was all very sweet and it was the best sex I had ever had - not because it was Robbie Williams, but because he is so unselfish and just so lovely about it all.nd stamina-wise - he has no problems at all."

Tell that to the people who paid for tickets to one of his Milton Keynes gigs who were hacked off to discover he blew off the stage twenty minutes early.

"It's a bit empowering - if Robbie Williams tells you you're gorgeous, well it does help to get rid of some of your insecurities. I mean - if he thinks you're beautiful then you have to have something going for you, don't you?"

[...]

"And that is when it hit me - when you see him in the flesh with those famous tattoos - that's when you remember that your mate Rob is actually the Robbie Williams all those girls lust after."

Did she mention it's the fabulous Robbie Williams that's she talking about here? Robbie Williams. Out of Take That. That one. The famous, fabulous, shit-doesn't-smell Robbie Williams. I don't know if you'd have picked up on that, as she was being a subtle about how this is all about the marvellous Robbie Williams that all the girls want to have sex with. That one.

Of course, if Robbie was writing this himself, it would have stressed that he has sex with lots and lots of women and ladies and girls, not just one.

Oh, hang on:

She said: "There's kind of an unspoken arrangement with Robbie. You know he might never call back, you know you're not the only one. He doesn't often call girls back or revisit them. But he did with me for some reason.

"I knew he was with lots of other girls at the same time - he has them all over the world - that's just something you accept.

"But when you're spending time with him and things get physical you start to think it would be nice for it to continue, even though you know it could end at any time. We'd talk about the other girls and how for them it was their big night - something they'd remember forever."

Well, you would, wouldn't you, if you were a lady with all those lady bits that had been pleasured by the super-wonderful Robbie Williams off the telly and the radio. You'd remember it forever and ever. One to tell Saint Peter about as you reach the Pearly Gates, although he'd be bound to be the tiniest bit jealous that it was you who'd got to have just a few minutes of sex with Robbie Williams with his famous tattoos.

Hang about... did we mention how fabulous he is?

"Robbie's a good-looking guy, but that isn't what it's about. He is so engaging and lovely and funny - he's a performer - that's what sets him apart. The majority of his attractiveness isn't his looks - it's his way. I'm not saying he isn't physically attractive, but it's more than that."

The oddest thing, though, is not the totally-blemish-free account of the affair, but this bit:

"It was all very real, but very lovely - we just walked into the bedroom and proceeded to have serious hanky-panky."

Serious hanky-panky? Who has ever, ever, used the phrase "hanky-panky" to describe sex since about 1937? Is she sure it wasn't Bertie Wooster shagging her?

music robbie williams

Living the dream

Freddie Garrity, from Freddie and The Dreamers, who died in May this year, left an estate worth just under a quarter of a million pounds, according to his published will.

music freddie and the dreamers freddie garrity

Heather Mills: And stretch

According to this morning's News of the World (and that's, obviously, more than a pinch of salt required), Heather Mills "has struck up a close relationship" with her personal trainer, Ben Amigoni.

The paper reports breathlessly that they go out cycling together, for all the world to see, and he visits her house and spends time there. That's unlike other personal trainers, of course, who usually shout directions through a letterbox and run off.

The paper reckons that Paul McCartney would be "furious" if he knew, although they have no more reason than he would to assume that she's just getting match fit.

And he's seen the pair of them together anyway:

Macca would even watch Ben put her through her paces on the treadmill last summer.

It doesn't say if he hid in a wardrobe when he did this.