Gordon in the morning: Flogging H.Bauer's Magazines

Not only has Gordon's team somehow got really confused and concluded that reproducing the cover of this month's FHM is some sort of exclusive, but it seems a little late to be even trying to pull that when the magazine's already been on the shelves for a couple of days.

Perhaps someone saw the copy with the word "Saturdays" on it and assumed that it was an embargo rather than the subject?

So, yes, it's The Saturdays - or the Pussycat Girls Aloud, as it seems likely the working title would have been. Or Thunderbugs 2.0, as would seem appropriate. They're confident, they tell FHM:

Rochelle, a Miss England finalist, said: “I believe we’ll be a household name.”

Yes. There won't be a household in the country that hasn't heard of Saturdays by the end of the month, that's for sure.

Actually, there's something almost sweet about aiming to be a "household name", which a phrase that predates the concept of always-on celebrity.

Meanwhile, Gordon has been going through Robbie Williams' accounts, which makes a change from sending people to go through his bins.

Actually, I say Gordon has. He's got in an expert:

A bean-counting source revealed:

Yes. Gordon fears his audience might struggle with a concept like "accountant" or even "a money expert". It's a bean-counting source. Or perhaps he really did ask someone whose job was counting beans for a living.

Smart seems incensed that Williams took five million quid in salary last year:

Rob has given himself the incredible salary from his own business, The In Good Company, despite a pretty dire year for his books.

He paid himself out of his own money. Doesn't he realise that's not the way we do things anymore? You're meant to lose everyone else's money, and then pay yourself from emergency funds drawn from central taxation.

To be fair, five million quid for a year when he's done nothing much might seem outrageous, but it's not like he doesn't have income streams from back catalogue and so on which is going to bring in money for him. And surely he's better he lives off his past rather than churning out more of his stuff?