Gordon in the morning: Wig out

This is an entire Gordon news story from this morning:

BLONDIE goes whitey as singer DEBBIE HARRY tries out the platinum look.

But Debbie, 65 - known for her yellow locks in the '70s - was sporting a wig at a New York charity bash.

Let's not even worry about how platinum and white hair colours are different. Let's not even worry about the suggestion that Debbie Harry was known for her hair rather than her music. The real oddity in those two sentences is the "but".

Now, I don't subscribe the idea that you can't start a sentence with "but", but...

Still, it's better than the jokey approach to Billy Ray Cyrus' divorce, which titters over how Miley will have an "Achy Breaky Heart". I guess we should be lucky it's just a divorce and not a death which Gordon's wheeled that out for.

Hannah Montana scandala

ContactMusic announces the end of innocence; indeed, what might be mankind's second fall:

Teen sensation MILEY CYRUS has shattered her clean-cut image by...

Any guesses, anyone? Not you, Mike Skinner.

... by having her nose pierced.

A nose piercing? Don't even the Girl Scouts do a badge in nose piercing these days? Is that really so shocking for a sixteen year-old girl?

I mean, unless she paid for it in kind, or something.

And she didn't. Because Billy Ray took her to the piercers:

He tells talk show host Larry King, "Her daddy took her (to the piercing studio). She said, 'Daddy, would you take me to get my nose pierced?' I said, 'Did you ask your momma?' And she said, 'Yes. Mama said I could do it if you would take me.' I thought kind of it was one of those bizarre moments. But honestly, my life and what we're going through and the things that we've been through, it's like being in The Twilight Zone. So I just kind of roll with the punches."

Starting from the way Cyrus calls himself "her daddy", this whole explanation of what is "teenage girl does teenage girl thing" sound curiously as if Cyrus was a captured war criminal trying to explain a carboot full of skulls.

Sixteen, nervous and shy - and yours for $250

Thanks to MTV, there's been a push on parents to splash some serious money on their kids' sixteenth birthdays. To make it memorable, on the basis, presumably, that by the time their eighteenth comes round they won't be able to remember any celebration they take part in.

But how can you fund that sort of extravagance? Billy Ray Cyrus has had an idea - get the guests to fund the event. An email from James P explains:

It's been a while since the last Miley Cyrus story, so I thought I should send you this: Her 16th birthday is coming up, and she wants all her fans to celebrate with her. Well, all her fans with a spare $250 knocking around, anyway.

Apparently her parents, much like every other parent on the planet, have glared at that unshiftable stain in the living-room carpet, remembered the unpleasant discovery at the back of the airing cupboard two weeks after the last birthday party, and decided it might be better to hire out a venue this year, so that someone else can deal with the clear-up. Disneyland, to be precise.

"The Disneyland event will be called Miley's Sweet 16 - Share the Celebration and tickets that go on sale on 30 August are expected to sell fast", it says here.

That's 'Share the Celebration', using the word 'share' in its less well-known sense, 'Pay $250 to attend'. I'm not sure what $250 gets you beyond entrance to the venue (bit of cake wrapped in kitchen-roll which pulls off all the icing? Access to a bottle of Thunderbird?), or whether a second tier of tickets will go on sale for $100 which permit you to spend the whole event sitting sobbing in the kitchen. Maybe they'll knock off another $50 if you claim you're a mate of Miley's brother and wave a four-pack of Skol at the door. I'll keep an eye out...

Two things, of course: first - how cynical would you have to be to turn one of the milestones in your child's life into a money making event?

And secondly: Disneyland? For a sixteen year old? Seriously? What are you planning for her 18th, Billy? Chuck E Cheese and a clown?