No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Where's the Cougar musical, matey?

Those holding their breath for the Stephen King/John Mellencamp musical might need to ask David Blaine for a few lessons, as they're going to need to hold their breath for another year.

Although the musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County had been due to open in the forthcoming season at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta. But now it won't, because, erm, it's not even been written yet.

Given that the pencilled in date was April 2009, and they're already off schedule for that, even the "2009/2010 season" might be looking a little optimistic. Is it really that hard to come up with rhymes for "ghosties"?

Gennaro Castaldo watch: Football crazy

After all the excitement of having opinions on Grand Theft Auto and violence and kids with guns and, ooh, everything, it's down to earth with a bump for HMV voice-holder Gennaro Castaldo, who's reduced to trying to find something interesting to say about the Cardiff City FA Cup single. He doesn't quite rise to the occasion:

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for HMV, said if the same number of people who turned up for FA Cup semi-final bought the single, it would guarantee it a number one spot.

“It’s going to be very interesting when the hard copy sales take effect from Monday,” he said.

“Pre-sales orders have been in the thousands and there’s a very good chance of it making the top five.”

"Hard copy sales"? Is that what they're calling physical sales these days? Has Gennaro decided that "physical sales" might be too meaningless a term for the average man in the street and so has decided to go with the even more meaningless "hard copy sales" instead of, say, "CDs"?

And, while Gennaro is correct, that if all 82752 who turned up for the semi final bought a copy it would cakewalk to number one, did anyone mention to him that football matches generally have attendees who support either of the teams playing? Unless frustrated Barnsley fans intend to buy the record to smash it to smithereens, or maybe melt the hard copy sale to make something a little softer, the chances of selling one to everyone who went to Wembley seems somewhat unlikely.

Usher misses the point

Who knew that a Noel Gallagher remark could be too complex to understand? Turns out, though, that Usher had difficulty grasping the point of Noel's 'Jay-Z wrong for Glastonbury' thought-leak and has decided that Noel meant Jay-Z wasn't headline material at all:

"It really shocked me that he said that. Jay-Z is an incredible artist and headliner. I saw him perform at the Hollywood Bowl in LA, and you're not getting better than that."

The Hollywood Bowl is a little like Glastonbury, although, of course, the herd of cows that graze on the Bowl site between shows are bred for beef rather than milk like the Worthy Farm beasts.

Still, nice to see that no matter how ill-informed and dunderheaded a quote is, there's always someone happy to lower the bar still further.

Doherty: Drugs, me? Never

Pete Doherty has celebrated his release from jail by giving an interview to NME.com denying stories he was on drucks inside the jail:

"I managed to stay clean. I got my certificate. I was going to Sellotape it to the wall, but they wouldn't give me any Sellotape," he said. "Did I take heroin inside? Complete rubbish. The prison didn't release statements – it's their policy to ignore it rather than acknowledge it [media reports].

"I was in segregation for the last three weeks. They call it the block. Supposedly I was in debt to loads of big time drug dealers. All I'll say to that is: chance would be a fine thing."

Now, you wouldn't expect someone whose freedom relies on being clean to emerge from jail and start trilling about his drugs intake inside, would you?

Somewhat oddly, the NME report also highlights the word sellotape in the report. Twice, so it's not a mistake or anything. Equally oddly, Doherty doesn't explain why he was put into segregation.

Pete claims that his time inside was hell:

"I got trouble from the start, from the inmates and the guards, mainly shouting at night really," he explained. "Some people were saying 'Keep your head down', the other half were saying 'Keep your chin up'. So I was a bit like a nodding dog – I didn't know whether to keep my chin up or keep my head down. It was 18-day early release – I can't complain really."

Is it just us, or is being advised to keep your head down or chin up not quite the same thing as "getting trouble"? If that's hassle, then we're now viewing Jiminy Cricket as some sort of insect-like Reggie Kray figure.

Now Cliff takes on General Franco

Cliff Richard is not a man to let things go quietly. Not on Radio 1? You'll hear about it. Having to give up copyright on recordings he made half a century ago? There will be letters.

He's even now insisting that he is retrospectively awarded the first prize in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest after some film-makers have claimed that General Franco had the vote rigged so that Spain would win:

Although he conceded that opening an official investigation into the rigged vote "might not be worth the trouble", the belated verdict would mean a lot to him.

"I'd be quite happy to be able to say I won Eurovision '68. It's an impressive date in the calendar these days."

Yes, he does appear to be saying that 'Congratulations winning the Eurovision song contest' should take its place alongside Les Evenements, the assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior and the sit-in at Columbia University as part of world history.

The film, 1968: I lived the Spanish May, claims that Franco sent out ambassadors to bribe corrupt TV executives across Europe to ensure a Spanish winner for the song contest. Which he might have done, but since it's equally possible that, even unbribed, people can take against Cliff Richard, who's to say that it would have altered the outcome at all?

Cliff, let it go now.

"It's never good to lose, never good to feel a loser. When I went on that night I said to the band: 'Look guys, there will be 400 million people watching, it will be a massive plug for our song.' And it was. I think we sold a million singles. But we really wanted to win."

Cliff, Cliff: isn't it enough that Frankie and Bennys play the song every time someone is celebrating a birthday? Although when they do so, it does make us come over a little General Franco-esque ourselves.

Doherty back on the streets

They probably only decided to do it when they heard it would annoy Anne Widdecombe: Pete Doherty's been released from prison after 29 days of his 14 week sentence.

Mandela birthday bash acts named

It's like this year's Diana Concert, or something: Nelson Mandela's 90th Birthday party, which will be marked with a big concert in Hyde Park. Oddly, Queen are on the bill, despite having done their best to keep Mandela in prison by supporting the homelands policy of the apartheid regime when they played Sun City. Obviously, Mandela is a man with boundless powers of forgiveness, but you'd think that Brian May might have some sense of shame and would have turned down the invitation.

Razorlight are also due to play, and Annie Lennox, of course. They're promising "more" stars to be added (some stars to be added?) as the date gets closer, but Johnny Clegg and some children's choirs are definitely going to be there. At least they've actually invited some African acts this time, which somehow Bob Geldof failed to do for Live Aid and Live 8.

Darkness at 3AM: Pea on Cheryl Cole

Will I Am was asked a stupid question, to which he gave a polite answer, in an exchange along the lines of 'do you think Cheryl Cole is pretty'/'yes I do'. In fact, he said:

"If Cheryl was single, hell yeah! She'd just have to holler. I saw her a few days ago.

"She's doing good - she was looking hot."

This, clearly, is the same way that you tell a bride she looks radiant, or the bloke in the shop that, were you ten years younger, you'd be asking for his mobile number. Trouble is, he said it to the 3AM Girls, who tend to scale politeness up:

She's a Heartbreaker - so who can blame Will.i.am for having a crush on Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole?

The producer and Black Eyed Peas star was bowled over by Chez, 24, when she flew to LA to record Heartbreaker with him.

Still, we're delighted to discover that William talks a bit like Danny Kelly:

"Hats off to her for holding it together during shooting the video and still being strong while she was working through everything."

Yes. Hats off, indeed. Although Mr. Am then babbles something meaningless:

"She managed it by being creative through adversity."

Or, perhaps, like the rest of us, she had to get on and do her job despite having the hump.

Kanye promises not to be "Michael Jacksoned"

Kanye's been blogging again. He appears to have been caught swearing on stage because his plasma screens were broken:

Don't believe the hype! When I started the show the other night we were having a lot of technical issues due 2 the heat. The 2 huge screens on both sides of the stage were glaring bright blue like when your DVD player acts up at home. I asked for them 2 turn the screens off 3 times because it was distracting 2 the show. The fans were not getting what they paid for. I admit, in my frustration, I did use profanity on the 4th time I asked. I stopped the show 2 go over and check it out myself. After the screens were turned off I started the same song from the beginning. The screens were eventually fixed 5 songs in but it was definitely better 2 have them blacked out rather than bright blue.

It's arguable if people who pay to see Kanye West actually think they're paying to watch the television instead, but never mind. It's the "don't believe the hype" that should detain us here - because Kanye is worried about how he's being portrayed in the media. Again.

Unfortunately for certain media outlets, you will never be able 2 'Michael Jackson' me. That means 2 make it seem like everything I do is so weird or out of place... they always try 2 make it seem like everything is about my ego! That joke is getting old. At a certain point you have 2 respect that I'm one of the last artist that still cares about the fans having the best time of there lives!

Yes. All the other pop stars - they don't care like Kanye. All the lad was doing was trying to stage-manage from centre stage - for the fans, whose little, empty lives could only form into some sort of meaningfulness for a moment or two if there was a big screen with a Kanye-mandated animated teddy bear or something on it.

We're not sure that Kanye is right using Michael Jackson as a verb in this case - one of us has clearly terribly misunderstood the Jacko story, which we thought was about Jesus juice and sharing bedrooms with young friends in a totally non-sexual way rather than swearing at television screens.

Kanye then goes on to crawl a little to the blogosphere, or at least the self-appointed kings of it:

Thanks 2 Bossip and Perez for taking it easy on me on the EW spaz... I did go in a little 2 much on that one. I'm sure there are some cool people who work over there and had nothing 2 do with that review. With all that said.... "I'm still the greatest!!!" lol!! Oh and I was in the studio with T.I. last night.... so get ready!!!

LOL indeed, Mr. West. LOL indeed.

Gordon in the morning: Blake, blondes and the new Mr Mills

With the McCartney-Mills divorce having run its course, more or less, the Sun clearly needs a new Heather Mills figure. But where will it find someone married to a celebrity to graft its 'money-grubbing gold-digger' story onto?

Languishing in Pentonville, it appears:

Blake and blonde plot to fleece Amy

The paper reckons that Blake has promised to marry the woman, and the pair have plotted to take Amy down in the divorce. Because, of course, there would have to be a divorce:

Blake has been bragging to pals that Amy, 24, will have to pay him a seven-figure sum to get him off her back.

He is set to demand at least £3million as a divorce settlement, telling his lawyers he wants £250,000 for each month of their year-long marriage — despite being in jail for part of it.

Apparently, this plan came into being after Blake found out - by reading in The Sun, of course, which is the only place that appears to believe its own story - that Amy was "having an affair". Since that story only ran a week ago, you'd have to admire Blake's ability to woo a replacement woman, propose marriage and start to issue demands for a seven-figure divorce settlement.

The paper's story is only nearly totally undermined by it failing to even offer a vague source for the claims - a "friend" offers some commentary, but not even a vague "pal" is credited with the meat and veg of the story. Oh, and for a newspaper which claims to know what the divorce demands will be down to the nearest quid, it's surprising they can't identify the supposed new love of Blake's life beyond her being "a mystery blonde". Funny, that.

Perhaps the story is true - stranger things have happened - but you can't help feeling that the paper is getting confused. It confuses many, many things. The same article suggests:

Amy spent yesterday lounging around with pals in Henley, Oxfordshire. Wearing just a bra and shorts to show off her tattoos and skinny body, she smoked and chatted on her mobile while soaking up the sun.

Was she wearing a bra and shorts "to show off" her body? Or was it because the South of England had temperatures in the 20s yesterday afternoon and it would be cooler to wear less?

The whole deal, by the way, is handled by Richard White, Showbiz reporter. It's unclear why Gordon Smart still even has his name and face on the column since the big stuff is always written by other people.

Gordon's big piece? Lily Allen is writing comedy sketches. No, no, it's not just your toes that are curling.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Justin Timberlake points the finger: The times are to blame

The Miley Cyrus post-coital picture that did so much to help sales of Vanity Fair, clearly, needs to be blamed on someone. Thankfully, Justin Timberlake knows who to point the finger at.

Not Annie Leibowitz for taking the photo; or Miley's management for approving it; or the magazine for running it; nor any of the people who try to justify the picture because it's not actually, definitively a sexual image of a minor so that should be alright, then; oh, no, it's the "times":

"Of course they're going to pick [on] a wholesome, American, young female [for] the first sign of anything," Timberlake said. "Unfortunately, there's a picture of her that's published with her in just a blanket. ... And that's the photo, that's the catalyst. But that's also the age we live in. People want to take a photo, and that's who you are for a year's time. We've all become victims of that."

We're not sure that Timberlake has even thought about if he has an opinion, much less if it is in any way coherent - it's not like this is a long-lens snap through a window; this is a stylised, organised photo-shoot, with artistic sign-off. The furore has been created, but not by people who wanted to attack Cyrus, but by the people who wanted to feed off her. Liebowitz, the Cyrus organisation, the magazine - they're the ones who decided to run this photo and since none of them are stupid, they must have known exactly what the reaction would be. To try and blame that on the "times we live in" is like feeding seagulls alka-seltzer and then blaming the seagulls' constitutions when they explode.

And what are the times, anyway, Justin? Isn't the nasty, over-sexualised public culture we have partly due to, ooh, songs about bringing sexy back, and pop stars dry-humping each other on stage like in New York last week? When you've helped made a culture, you can't start tutting over the culture you've made, can you?

Foals unimpressed with Boris

Edwin Congreave of Foals isn't happy with the people of London:

"We're flying back to London from New York," he they wrote. "The jet lag is one thing, but the fear that we'll be flying into a city that isn't so much a newly fascist city-state than one big gilded joke of a newspaper column made rotten flesh [is another].

"Boris 'Picaninny' Johnson, we salute you – sort of like we'd salute any smug, self-satisfied old Etonian holding a statute-book to our heads. Congratulations and good luck with the Olympics.

"At least when California elected a clown as governor they elected one who'd made his name as a muscle-man [Arnold Schwarzenegger]. Boris appears to have been elected simply because he has blond hair."

Actually, it turns out that most Boris voters thought that he'd only be mayor for one week, followed by the bloke from the Pimms advert the next, and then Brian Blessed.

Kanye had proof-read rant

You'd have thought the only justification for Kanye's grumpy reaction to a bad review was that it was written in haste.

It turns out that this is the cool-headed version: before he calmed down, Kanye had originally instructed the reviewer to commit suicide. Charming.

Lily Allen's new material

At some point, Lily Allen has uploaded two Kate Nash songs - sorry, demo versions of two new tracks - to her MySpace. One of them, I Could Say, is actually quite a nice song although by the time it's been produced and had some cod reggae slapped over the top of it it'll be unrecognizable and as clunky as the stuff on the first record. The other, I Don't Know, is less charming - oh-life-is-terrible-poor-me second-album stuff - and seems to have been a bit more polished before being uploaded. Certainly, her voice seems to have been helped a little, which isn't the case with the ropey performance on I Could Say.

[via The Times track of the day]

Ronson loves the Kaisers

With what seems to be a straight face, Mark Ronson suggests the Kaiser Chiefs are the Beatles of our age:

Speaking about each band member, Ronson said that “each one of them in any other band would be the funniest member of that band”.

“It’s that classic... almost like the Beatles when you see those early press conferences and they had that razor-sharp wit.”

Well, at least he's not comparing them musically, which is something. But if the band have the wit of The Beatles, isn't that only on the basis of being a band of Ringos?

Gordon in the morning: When is an exclusive not an exclusive?

The crowing with which Gordon has thrown an "exclusive" tag all over the video of Peaches buying drugs can't disguise the hollowness of his victory - it took the hated sister paper the News of the World to point out to the Sun that they had a potentially more interesting story than the 'Winehouse does drugs' one they went with. Where is the pride in running an exclusive you had to read about in another newspaper?

Gordon's copy even reads like it was lifted from yesterday's poorly-written Screws piece:

Peaches has previously denied using cocaine like mum PAULA YATES, who died of a heroin overdose in 2000.

And he even tacitly acknowledges that the Sun could have been running this story months ago, but somehow missed it:

But cops found the clip of her on a computer memory stick also containing scenes of Amy, 24, smoking crack cocaine.

Stills of Amy were published in The Sun four months ago.

Meanwhile - despite the threat of legal action from Ashley Cole - Gordon takes the opportunity of the first night of the Girls Aloud tour to mention the Coles' problems, but in a slightly less gruesome way:

CHERYL last night told of her agony over her hubby Ashley’s cheating.

The Girls Aloud singer admitted: “I felt like cracking up at times.

“But it’s made me realise there are people a million times worse off than me.”

The Sun revealed in January how Chelsea ace Ashley romped with blonde Aimee Walton, 22.

We're a little puzzled as to how discovering your husband may or may not have bitten off more than he should chew would lead you to realise that there are people worse off than yourself, but if it's working for Cheryl, that's probably what counts.

Darkness at 3AM: Where's Norris McWhirter when you need him

Excitement at the Daily Mirror as Madonna goes to number one with her new album. 3AM breathlessly informs its readers:

Madonna breaks record in this week's charts

Wow. Really? Which record?

The 49-year-old held off Portishead's comeback album, to record her 10th UK chart-topper.

And so ten number one albums is a record, is it?

Only The Beatles and Elvis have done better, with 15 No. 1 albums and 11 respectively.

So, then, that's the sort of record where it's the third-best performance, then?

Sunday, May 04, 2008

No big names interested in joining a Canadian Virgin

Last year's extension of the V Festival brand to include Vancouver looks like being a one-off: plans for a 2008 event have been dropped because the organisers couldn't find any big names interested in playing. Even Jack Johnson said no, although if he'd said yes, they'd have had to try and sell an event where he was the highlight which would have been a working definition of 'a hiding to nothing'.

Love rushes to hospital

Laryngitis is a terrible thing. We've not heard of it causing throat and chest pains, though, nor needing you to rush to a hospital. Neither, it seems, had the staff at Cedars Sinai hosptial, for when Courtney Love turned up with those symptoms and self-diagnosis they started to ask her about drugs and if she'd like to see the psychiatrist. Even so, the official diagnosis turns out to be "strep throat."

When bands fall out

Sometimes, band splits can come as a relief for everyone involved - the band has run its course, and striking out in separate ways is the best way for the individuals to continue to build a career and develop as artists.

Not always, though. Ervey Ruiz decided it was time for him to leave Denver band Toros de la Sierra, and told band leader Alvaro Alvarado-Amarias. Alvaro didn't take it well. In fact, he tried to persuade Ruiz to remain. By holding him hostage at gunpoint for five hours. Alvaro has pleaded guilty to menacing behaviour in return for the District Attorney dropping false imprisonment charges.

Avril croaks

Avril Lavigne has, reluctantly, oh-so-reluctantly, pulled a series of six dates due to flu, or a cold, or laryngitis, or some sort of illness:

"My sincerest apologies to all of my fans."

"My intention was to complete the rest of the tour but tonight at sound check in Anaheim I realised this wasn't possible. Even though I have been resting my voice for days, when I tried to sing nothing came out."

"I have never cancelled a show in my whole career and just had to for the first time ever. This sux."

It must have been terrible - imagine trying to sing and nothing coming out. The upside, though, is that apparently the ticket sales for the pulled gigs were quite poor. What a happy coincidence.

Ting Tings playing unplugged

We're heavily fond of the Ting Tings, and so we're delighted to bring you - via the Music Slut - a performance for Indie 103.1:

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.

And they're my bloody umlauts, too

James P also reports on the latest copyright clash, too. Meat Loaf is demanding return of a font:

Satan-incarnate rock-monster Meatloaf is engaged in a furious battle over a font. Which might sound exciting until you realise he isn't fighting over some sort of religious item for use in a demonic ritual. He's cross that a Meatloaf tribute act from Lancashire has got a tourbus with lettering which looks a bit like Meatloaf's own lettering.

To be fair, Meatloaf also claims the act is encroaching on the real Meatloaf's domain, which presumably means he's throwing his weight around in the pits of Hell.

*checks story*

Oh. He wants him to stop using 'meatloaf.org' too.

The story is actually quite sinister. Dean Torkington appears to have been singled out at a Liverpool Loaf gig:

He said the problem first surfaced last year when he was sat in the front row of a Meat Loaf concert in Liverpool when a man dressed in black handed him a note saying that the American singer wanted to meet him backstage.

"I had met him on two previous occasions, which were absolutely fantastic, but when I went backstage his manager ushered me into a room," he said.

"He said that he had seen our motorhome, that we use as a tour bus, parked on the car park, and Meat Loaf wasn't happy that we had used his lettering to decorate the side of the van and he told me that we had to remove it."

Since Torkington does look like Meat Loaf - albeit in a Jon Culshaw sort of way - it's probably unsurprising that they were able to spot him in the front row at the gig. Torkington has agreed to change the lettering on the side of the bus, but refuses to drop the domain name.

You can't appreciate a master of the craft

Kanye West, you might imagine, is the sort of man who knows how to cope with hardship. A "if life gives you lemons, you have your lemon clean-up guy paged to get the fuck over and take care of these lemons" type of bloke.

A lukewarm review? It would be water off an expensive waterproof jacket with diamond buttons for him.

Not so. Entertainment Weekly could only find it in its heart to give him a B+ for his gig. Kanye wasn't happy. So much so, he blogged about it:

Yo, anybody that's not a fan; don't come to my show. For what?! To try and throw ya'll two cents in? Ya'll rated my album shitty and now ya'll come to the show and give it a B+. What's a B+ mean? I'm an extremist. It's either pass or fail! A+ or F-! You know what, fuck you and the whole fucking staff!!! I know I shouldn't dignify this with a comment, but the reviewer threw a jab at all the artists. I just wanna know when was the last time you enjoyed yourself. If you can't have fun and lose yourself at this tour it's a good chance you're a very miserable person. I actually feel sorry for you guys. Your job forces you to not have fun anymore. Grab a drink, holla at some nice girls, and party bitch!! You don't know shit about passion and art. You'll never gain credibility at this rate. You're fucking trash! I make art. You can't rate this. I'm a real person. I'm not a pop star. I don't care about anything but making great art. Never come 2 one of my shows ever again, you're not invited and if you see me...BOW!! This is not pop, it's pop art!

We love the way he worries about "dignifying" the review by reacting to it, although by that point he was already fucking the entire staff of the magazine.

There's also something curious about his insistence that you can only come to watch him if you're going to like it - how would you know before it starts? Would you have to leave halfway through if you think Kanye's starting to flag?

Still, Kanye's right - he's not a pop star. We're not quite sure what he is, but he's no pop star.

[Thanks to James P for the link]

Almost indistinguishable

Geri Halliwell is excited by the forthcoming Sex And The City movie. Because, you know, it could be about here:

"I LOVE Carrie. I'm really like her in the way I analyse, and I have the hair and the prom dresses."

Having hair really does make you exactly alike her. Brian Blessed has hair, too, and we think you're quite like him, too.

Although there is much to make of this self-aggrandising honking, the Sunday Mirror's Showbiz with Zoe columnist Zoe Zoe Showbiz fumbles her putdown:

Earth to Geri - Carrie is a fictional character, love.

Except, of course, Sex In The City is a roman a clef and Bradshaw is, effectively, Candace Bushnell, who is all-too-real; and even if Carrie had been totally imagined up out of thin air, why would that make it impossible for Geri to be like her? If someone said "my boyfriend's a bit like Marcus from Coronation Street", presumably Zoe wouldn't start pulling faces and going "you idiot! Marcus is a construct of scriptwriters. How could someone be 'like' him?"

Actually, she probably would, wouldn't she?

Rav Singh reports from the end of Empires

Poor old Rav Singh, forever shunted to the corners of the News of the World, is today trying to make something exciting out of Boyzone splitting.

Actually, he doesn't even have that to work with. He's actually got a "we're so happy to be back, we all get on" interview, and - in a desperate bid to try and make it interesting - focuses on the smallest fleck of grit in the band's comments:

Shane Lynch admitted things were so bad, he ended up hitting the bottle.

Shane said: "I found myself drinking through the day just to find some sort of happiness—but I couldn't find it. That's not a good place to be in.

"We hated it, we hated each other and we were overworked."

The trouble is, if things were that bad how plausible would it be that they have got back together so quickly and so happily? Rav doesn't seem to be able to knit this together in any sense; nor does he ask Lynch to expound on his claims about hitting the bottle. (Nobody ever does - he told the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald that he was "almost an alcoholic" and the paper doesn't think to ask what that actually means - or, indeed, if "I was nearly addicted" makes any sense at all.)

Instead, Rav happily hands over the page to the Boyzone PR machine:

Shane said: "There's going to be a really different vibe to the show.

"There will be five outfit changes for the JACKSON 5 medley. The crowd are going to love it. But we're all dead nervous." Mikey added: "We've got more creative control over the way the shows are going to go this time round.

Are you sure that's entirely wise, Mikey from Boyzone?

Collapsing Winehouse brings down Geldof

The most surprising thing about the News of the World's report this morning that the memory stick which held the Winehouse crack footage also had film of Peaches Geldof (allegedly) buying drugs is that The Sun had, apparently, somehow managed to miss that bit when they ran the original story.

The story seems to have been knocked together in something of a hurry - it's got this paragraph which bizarrely changes direction half-way through, like it forgets who it's talking about:

The tattooed beauty is also a regular at the capital’s indie clubs, enjoying close friendships with bands like The Horrors and Towers Of London. She is now dating Horrors frontman Faris Badwan. Yates started dating Live Aid creator Geldof when she was 17.

There's also this clunking piece in the introduction:

Peaches, —who has always denied using cocaine like her tragic mum Paula Yates—was found by cops on the SAME video in which Winehouse, 24, was caught snorting crack.

It wasn't the same video, it was just the same memory stick as the same story says; and do they mean that Paula denied using cocaine in a tragic way? Or that Peaches denies using cocaine in the same way that her mother did? We know that they mean Peaches has always denied using the drug; her mother was a heavy user, but then as they can't even punctuate the sentence properly, it's probably no surprise they don't manage to write it coherently, either.

NME brand extension - or fire sale

We spotted these in WH Smiths the other week: A range of NME greetings cards - complete with fold-out posters of Kate Nash and the Razorlights. Can the sticker collection book be far away?