Gordon in the morning: The rise of the robots

It's one of those mornings when we have to applaud Gordon's work. His coverage of Take That being trapped when their giant onstage robots broke down mid-set is a lovely story, and a lovely image.

It's a pity that he does spoil it by trying to pretend he knew this was going to happen all along:

It could have been a lot worse. In classic movie comedy This Is Spinal Tap, bass player DEREK SMALLS is trapped inside a giant pod while roadies try to smash it with a hammer.

And U2 spent sections of their Popmart tour trapped inside a giant lemon which failed to open.

Something similar was bound to happen with Take That's massive robot.

Funny, if it was "bound to happen" you might have thought Gordon would have mentioned that in his review of the set, but back then the robot didn't seem so obviously flawed:

The last time they hit the road they had a gigantic mechanical elephant as the centrepiece of the production. And the lads have taken another step up in scale since then - introducing a giant 60ft mechanical man.

It is a staggering piece of kit, and a real symbol of the band's huge ambitions with this show.

A staggering piece of kit which, apparently, was so clearly going to fail at some point it wasn't even worth mentioning.