Man stabbed at Blackberry phone party

ContactMusic are describing last night's stabbing in London as having taken place at a "Jessie J party", but it actually sounds more like 'man stabbed at Blackberry promotional event'.

Perhaps there's two PR teams fighting over who gets the credit - "we're on prime time now, we don't need that level of edgy" "no, no, we're dropping our consumer product lines, we don't need to be connected with men getting stabbed in the neck..."

[Update: This piece was originally published with a weak pun headline; the subsequent death of the victim made this feel inappropriate and so the headline has been revised 22/04/12.]

Q Awards 2011: Those winners in full

So, as we've just heard, the Q Awards took place yesterday, organised by a 25 year-old magazine and, apparently, a panel of 70 year-old judges. In between the sniggering at how funny being gay is, they managed to give out some awards to the sort of people who appear on the covers of the magazine.

Here's the winners in full:

Best Act In The World Today presented by First Drinks Brand: Coldplay
Greatest Act Of The Last 25 Years presented by BlackBerry: U2
Best Album: Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Q Best Male Artist presented by Merc: Tinie Tempah
Q Best Female Artist presented by Nivea Visage: Adele
Q Icon: Noel Gallagher
Q Classic Songwriter: Gary Barlow
Breakthrough Artist: Ed Sheeran
Best New Act presented by Orange Amplification: WU LYF
Q Innovation In Sound: Kaiser Chiefs
Q Inspiration presented by YouYou Mentoring: Fatboy Slim
Q Next Big Thing presented by Nivea Visage: Lana Del Ray
Best Track presented by Q Radio: Adele - Rolling In The Deep
Best Video presented by Q TV: Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude
Best Live Act: Biffy Clyro
Q Classic Song presented by Zippo: Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Q Outstanding Contribution To Music: Siouxsie Sioux
Q Hall Of Fame: Queen

The prize for Bon Iver is interesting; in this context it looks like the sort of CD someone would buy going to university to put on top of their pile in the hope that people might think them cooler than the rest of the bundle would suggest.

More notable, though, is that there's a totally made-up category which seems to exist solely to give a prize to Snow Fucking Patrol for Chasing Cocking Cars. It seems that it's been sponsored by Zippo - Groucho, Harpo and Chico presumably wanted nothing to do with such a soiled rag.

To extend the Q-as-freshers-CD-pile, Chasing Cars would be the track they've packed in the hope that they might get a person they find sexually attractive back to their room.

Interesting that a prize sponsored by Blackberry was won by U2. I'm sure it's just a total coincidence, but it looks a little suspicious that the same company sponsors both the prize and the winner. Maybe that's the synergy we hear so much about.

Gordon in the morning: JLS apparently love getting pleasure from RIM

Curious. Given how rarely JLS string together words into actual sentences, when they talk about Blackberry's proprietary instant messaging system in this morning's Sun they sound like... well, salespeople:

Aston said: "That's the new thing, the PINs. It's just PINs everywhere. Do you remember MSN? Instant messaging? That's what it's like.

"I always revert to my BlackBerry because that's the only thing I text on. It's just easier and it's an instant message."

Oritse added: "And you know when the person's read the message, which is quite cool."

"Yes, and you can deal with Carphones 4 U to get a Blackberry Daddio on an unlimited PIN scheme for just £24-99 a month, I understand" read Squibble from a small piece of paper.

Still, would have loved to have seen the temples of News International lawyers when Gordon mentioned he was going to run a piece about mobile phone PINs this morning.

Blackberry tries to taste a bit more like Apple

Presumably, the Telegraph views the announcement that Blackberry have done a deal to allow its users to download music directly to their tiny handsets as "news" because it's taken so long.

Blackberrys - which are like smaller versions of the Amstrad em@iler - are popular with salespeople who mainly use them to wave around on newly-landed airplanes to demonstrate how important it is for them to be in touch with their head office. Research In Motion are hoping that this music business will attract a different sort of customer.

U2: Choice of middle management layers everywhere

U2 are on the rim of launching a special mobile phone application. For, um, the Blackberry.

It's probably no surprise that Bono has embraced the device favoured by travelling salespeople; I bet he's one of those people who start clackety-clacking through their email in box as soon as the plane sniffs the terminal building. Why are you so urgently looking through your email? Can't it wait five minutes until you're actually off the plane? Is selling briquettes really so time-sensitive?

The other reason for U2 choosing Blackberry was - again, unsurprisingly - RIM were prepared to cover the costs:

"I'm very excited about this," Bono told [Toronto-based radio DJ Alan] Cross about the RIM deal. "Research In Motion is going to give us what Apple wouldn't — access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular."

In other words: Apple wanted U2 to spend some of their millions making their own app; RIM offered to underwrite costs.

So the U2 world tour will be full of people clickety-clacking away on Blackberries. It'll be like being in a business class lounge at an airport. Only you won't even be able to ask them to turn the music down.

Madonna and Guy go to bed for a quick RIM push

Yes, it's true: Madonna and Guy Thingybloke both take their Blackberries to bed and love their Research In Motion mobile devices.

Madonna apparently needs hers in case she "remembers something during the night" - presumably like how her career isn't what it once was, her creativity has been worn out since the end of the last millennium, her credibility has been shot ever since she became a spokesperson for a cult and that Swept Away is still available on DVD. If she remembers all that, a quick check on her First Direct account balance will always calm her down.

A little glimpse into how divorced from reality she is:

"It's not unromantic, it's practical. I'm sure loads of couples have their Blackberrys in bed with them."

Besides practicality being the sworn enemy of romance, does she really think lots of couples go to bed with Blackberries? It's not like they've got cameras in them.

Meanwhile, Madonna has also told Elle in the same interview about life with Guy:

"I had to marry someone as tough as me. Guy's definitely tough. I had to marry a challenge, otherwise I would just get bored," she said.

"Whatever else Guy is, he's never boring."

She had to marry a challenge? What, was there a Rubik's Cube sat in the back row of the church sobbing "it should have been me"?

And while we hate to take issue with her claim that Guy's never boring... well: Layer Cake.