Alex James: The big cheese is rotting

The Guardian's Lost In Showbiz returns to the flop of Alex James' cheese festival, which has gone bankrupt. And guess who's left out of pocket?

Erm, the local school. Marina Hyde explains:

But perhaps our greatest sympathy should be reserved for the local school, Kingham primary. The school organises its own annual music festival, and was asked to use its contacts to book performers for the Friday night at Harvest. It duly provided seven bands. (How quaint that the acts at Alex James's festival were being provided by the local primary. Does he not have a contacts book of his own?)

The school now feels unable to comment, but a couple of weeks ago, headteacher Ed Read told the Cotswold Journal that it was owed £7,000 for the entertainment it organised.

It's hard to believe that the idea of mixing music and cheese could produce a terrible festival. Perhaps it was the type of people the event attracted kept away larger numbers of punters?

Helpfully, Marina has a photo of the types who did show up:

Yes, that's a photo of Clarkson and David Cameron, enjoying themselves at the expense of a state school. An ordinary day for Dave, in other words.

Just when you think Alex James can't sink any lower:

He has also made several appearances to promote his Alex James Presents line of cheese at Asda. "It's generated something like £2m worth of publicity," he trilled recently. "It even made the New York Times! But I suppose that's what I set out to do."

Ah, hooking up with the not-entirely-cuddly WalMart organisation. Because we know what a great friend of the organic, local food movement WalMart are.