Cheryl upset at people calling her Cheryl

You know what makes Cheryl Fernandez-Versini angry? Apart from low-paid toilet attendants?

It's people not using her surname. Ooh, that makes her livid:

The X Factor judge changed her surname from Cole when she married Jean Bernard in a secret ceremony in the summer and she told Marie Claire magazine that making the change felt like the right thing to do.

"It's come quite naturally, you know", she said of getting used to her new name.

But the 31-year-old added: "People are so ignorant about it, they just start calling us Cheryl, but I'll take that, whatever."

Why would people be so ignorant? Why? Why?

It's not like you told them it'd be okay, is it?

Except when you said it was okay:

But only weeks after their wedding the pop beauty wants to be known only by her first name.

She said: “It’s just Cheryl because everyone seems to be having a hard time saying it.”

Or, indeed, when you dropped surnames altogether back in 2012, having assumed you had reached Madonna/Gandi one-name status:

The singer is reportedly dropping the name Cole - and like the music world's biggest stars, will simply be known by her first name - Cheryl.

It's hard to imagine how people could just call you Cheryl, what with you trying to use that as your personal brand and all. How ignorant people can be, eh?

Hold the front page

This just in:

Gordon in the morning: Observe the blood of the rose tattoo

Over in the news section of the Sun - yes, the news section - Andy Halls brings news of Cheryl Cole's, um, "spectacular new tattoo":

TOUGH cookie Cheryl Cole endured FIFTEEN hours of agony for her spectacular new tattoo.
The Geordie singer, 29, unveiled a massive red rose design on her lower back to her adoring home crowd on Thursday night during the first gig of the Girls Aloud reunion tour.

Tattoo lover Cheryl, who has at least 19 others on her body, told how she went through the pain barrier for her latest — and possibly her last.

Speaking exclusively backstage at Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena, she said: “It was really painful but I think I’m done with tattoos now. It wasn’t for any particular reason, I just liked the design. It took 15 hours in total.”

Cheryl, you know when you say you're "done" with tattoos now, you do realise that they're kinda permanent, right? And that while you might think 'okay, that's it', you are going to have what looks like the box lid of a second-string Mackintosh Chocolates selection from the mid 70s blown up just above your arse? It's not like wearing a hat where you can suddenly decide you're not a hat person any more, and have done with hats once and for all.

Just checking.

Gordon in the morning: Singing from the same sheet

Girls Aloud can't remember their own songs, apparently:

GIRLS ALOUD were never going to be candidates for Mensa – and they proved that again at yesterday’s Jingle Bell Ball.

CHERYL, KIMBERLEY, NICOLA, SARAH and NADINE needed lyric sheets to remember their tunes and what parts they each sing.

If you're going to start accusing people of being a bit thick, you might want to not be confusing membership of Mensa - which is obsessed IQ - with being able to remember things, a different mental discipline altogether.

More curiously, this introduction suggests that the group were reading the lyrics while they were playing the Jingle Bell Ball. But read the quotes the story is built upon:

Cheryl, who also sang solo at the ball with WILL.I.AM on Saturday, admitted: “In rehearsals I was singing Kimberley’s lines and she was like, ‘Cheryl, you don’t sing that’ and I was like, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

Kimberley added: “We needed lyric sheets for every single song — it was so funny.”

That makes it sound like they needed lyric sheets in rehearsal. Which, while surprising, is surely the sort of problem that groups hold rehearsals to deal with?

Thanks for that, Cheryl Cole

You know what?

Kate Middleton's adored by Prince William: Even a pop star's biography says so

Thanks for that, Examiner, for who would believe that anyone - even people who had a massive wedding on TV - cared about each other at all were it not confirmed by Cheryl Cole?

William spent some time conversing with Cheryl after she performed at the Queen’s Buckingham Palace Diamond Jubilee reception. According to Cheryl's new book, "Cheryl: My Story," William couldn’t help but gush about his wife, Kate Middleton, after she had done something that had to do with the pop star.

Ah, I see the problem here. This wasn't Cheryl confirming that William and Kate get on, it was Cole desperately namedropping.

Gordon in the morning: Cheryl Cole and the risk register

Cheryl Cole is pulling together her first solo tour, and according to Gordon Smart, has hit a snag:

A source said: “Cheryl wants to put on a real Cirque du Soleil-style show and blow away her audience.

“She’s exchanged ideas with choregraphers and is keen to push herself to the limit."

One might wonder that if she really wants to push herself to the limit, she'd not be talking to vocal coaches rather than dance teachers. Anyway, circus tricks. Why is that a problem?

“Trouble is, that comes at a cost. The more dangerous the stunts, the more she will need to pay in insurance."

The figure Gordon quotes, and is in no way pulled out his ass, is two million pounds of underwriting. This money, once handed over, will mean Cole will be free to enter the arena on a zipwire - you know, like Anne Widdecombe on Strictly.

What is surprising, though, is that Gordon makes a joke about that time Cheryl Cole beat the crap out of the toilet attendant:

The GIRLS ALOUD star wants to fly through the air on zipwires and also perform some fight scenes.

That will bring back memories of that evening in a certain Guildford nightclub.

Given the usual pro-Cole line toed meekly by the paper, that's a bit like hearing Ed Balls say "actually, you know what, George Osborne really knows what he's doing."

Gordon in the morning: Cole's terror at, er, zero feet

Gordon leads today with a massive splash about Cheryl Cole's flight horror horror shock shock horror:

Cheryl Cole’s storm terror on private jet

The "storm terror"? Er... there was some lightning quite near her plane. Before it took off.

The bad weather was right over the grounded private jet and lightning struck the runway just a few metres from the plane.

Coming tomorrow: Sugababes experience nightmare as captain warns of turbulence and switches the seatbelt sign on.

[Cheryl Cole] said: “We were stuck in the plane and just sitting on the runway and a bright massive flash of light hit outside the aircraft. I said to my friend, ‘That’s lightning’ — then it just didn’t stop.

“I was so scared that I thought, ‘This is it. I’ve got an album to promote and I’ve got so much yet to do!’”

Yes, imagine all the lip-syncing and polite replies to inane questions the world would have missed out on.

Cheryl Cole might have taken comfort in the knowledge that lightning strikes on planes are common, but actual accidents as a result incredibly rare - a commercial plane won't get through a year without being hit by lightning. Instead, she reached deep inside herself:

“But I remembered I’d climbed Kilimanjaro, so took a bit of strength from that.”

Yes. If a lightning strike did manage to knock out the electrical system of my plane, sending it hurtling to the ground, having climbed a mountain is even better than adopting the brace position.

Gordon in the morning: Song for whoever

Presumably assuming we don't understand that most chart pop hits are now made like Per Una trousersuits, sitched together to a basic design and then offered up to someone in the hope they'll fit, Rita Ora turns up to insist that she was given the chance to do the new Cheryl Cole song first:

She decided the house track — which is written and produced by Calvin Harris — was too dance orientated. She said: “I heard Call My Name quite a while ago because I was offered it.

“I turned it down. I do like the song but I didn’t want to sing it ’cos it’s not really me.

“I don’t want to go down the dance route that a lot of other pop stars are doing.

“I prefer to have my own sound and do my own thing.”

That would be the "doing your own thing" which, er, involves auditioning songs written for whoever fancies doing them.

Gordon in the morning: Cheryl's Ray of hope

Oddly, the news that Cheryl Cole is supposedly going to record an unwanted Lana DelRay song is brought to us by...

By COLIN ROBERTSON, TV Editor

Which seems a bit surprising. Perhaps so many people are being kept busy at Wapping helping the police with their enquiries articles are written by anyone who happens to be around.

Of course, it's all down to a "source":

A source said last night: "Cheryl is a big fan of Lana and was intrigued to hear she had lots of songs written which she wasn't going to sing herself. She got hold of one and was really taken with it.

"The record label are pretty happy about it because Lana has a massive following."

And it's well known that pop singles tend to sell on the basis of the writer's credit.

Cheryl Cole was going to work with Michael Jackson, we're asked to believe

DigitalSpy trumpets a jewel lost to the world:

Cheryl Cole, Michael Jackson duet was planned, says will.i.am

Oh, really? Call my a cynic, but I can't imagine that Jackson's list of potential collaborators was so short it needed the woman off the hair adverts to pad it out.

So, what does this "planned duet" actually mean?

"I told Michael Cheryl was the hottest thing in the UK and he was keen to meet her," will.i.am told The People. "I was gonna write them a song."

So, the headline should read:

Cheryl Cole oversold to Michael Jackson, as will i am hoped to score some royalties from an album padding duet somewhere down the line

Gordon in the morning: Raking over the Coles again

Wasn't the Bizarre position on Ashley Cole and Cheryl Cole well-established back during the break-up, when Smart ran stories nearly every day urging Cheryl to leave him?

Oddly, now there are stories about a possible reunification - and that looks in no way like a cynical attempt to rebuild a brand badly damaged by the indifference of America - The Sun isn't so sure if it's a good thing or not that they split in the first place, and Gordon is asking his readers to vote:

Should Ashley and Cheryl get back together?

Yes
No

Gordon seems to be confusing what we're supposed to believe is real life with that rotten column in the back of the Guardian Weekend magazine.

Naturally, he wouldn't expect even his own readers - the world's most sophisticated electorate - to prod a simple button without a bit of help. So we get cheerleaders for each case (maybe Gordon should try pitching this to Sky TV):

Should she take him back?

YES

Says SAM CARLISLE, Sun Features Editor

Cheryl is wealthy and has no kids - unlike certain other WAGs she didn't have to do this.

So go for it Chezza, and pray he appreciates you this time.

NO

Says DEIDRE SANDERS, Sun Agony Aunt

The trouble is he is so like the other men in her life who have let her down - her alcoholic granddad, her father who was too young to cope with a family, her problem-ridden brother.

They've all made well-meant promises they failed to keep.

Presumably Deidre is called an agony aunt because she's like one of those aunts who loves to inflict agony by churning through your life's failures and disappointments under the guise of caring.

The sense that all this is about generating column inches and trying to keep a buzz going isn't entirely dissipated by Gordon's "source":

A source said: "For the first time in nine years Cheryl's looking at an empty diary. After the X Factor USA plans fell apart, she realised there wasn't much else in her life. She realised she had to embrace those closest to her - and Ashley remains the love of her life."

Is there anything more romantic than a relationship that you're rekindling because you've got a few days off?

Gordon in the morning: Whoever would have guessed

Gordon's read something astonishing in Heat (no, really, he's copying stuff out of Heat):

Jeff [Haddad], who negotiated Nicole [Scherzinger]'s X Factor deal, said: "Simon Cowell always wanted her as a judge. There was never a question that she wouldn't get it.

"I had long discussions with Simon about her judging the US show and she was always a front-runner for that job.

"Cheryl's name never came into it. Cheryl was just being used as a cog in the wheel to cause hype and publicise the show. Nicole was never supposed to be a host.

Goodness, all a stunt? Doesn't that just shake your faith in the whole Cowell franchise.

Obviously, there's a denial:

An X Factor spokesperson dismissed the claims as "complete and utter rubbish".

Don't worry, everyone: in a couple of weeks there'll be a claim from Haddad that he was having a mental health episode.

Still, interesting to see Gordon run a piece knocking the Cowell machine. Biting the hand that feeds him exclusives.

Gordon in the morning: Cap that

Righto, need to fill the page, need to fill the page... what have we got? Nothing, nothing... oh, here's a picture of Cheryl Cole... in an airport... hmmm... Chairport Cole? Charrival Colounge? Hmm... what else? She's wearing shorts. Shortyl Cole? Cheryl Culotte? No, none of my readers will know what a culotte is. What else? She's got a hat on... no, hang on, it's a cap, isn't it?

You look cap, Cheryl

Because 'cap' sounds a bit like 'crap', right? You've still got it, Gordon. Trouble is, she doesn't really look crap. Must pour scorn on the hat in order to stand up my story. How about sources? "Sources close to the cap revealed..." um, no, that won't work. Think, Gordon, think. Oh, how about describing the hat as a tea cosy? That'll work...

CHERYL COLE must be missing home - she's taken to wearing a daft tea cosy on her head.

The Geordie and self-proclaimed brew lover arrived at Chicago O'Hare airport after filming for US X Factor.

Oh, yes, that'll do it - does she love tea? She must do, she's from England. Does the hat look anything like a tea cosy? Hmm. Dunno. How lucky I've had my capacity for self-doubt removed. Now, what about this photo of Lindsay Lohan?

Gordon in the morning: James Blunt's favour to his younger self

Don't have sex with famous people, begs James Blunt:

He feels there are folk out there more deserving of a fumble under the covers.

James said: "Aid workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, the military - people who save lives are who you should aim to sleep with.

"Think of it as a reward for what they do for the world."

Military people, you say, James? Weren't you in the army?

It's quite sweet, really: do you suppose his 19 year-old self looked at Will Smith hanging out with sexy people and thought 'if I ever get famous, I'm going to tell the public they should be doing it with soldiers instead'? In fact: do you think that's been his gameplan all along?

In other news, Cheryl Cole is supposedly going to make three movies in Hollywood. You can see why Hollywood couldn't wait to work with the woman from the L'Oreal adverts. I know what you're thinking, but apparently they can add facial expressions and vocal intonation after the shoot.

Cheryl Cole: Make your mind up, Sunday Mirror

So, Dean Piper, did Cheryl Cole "pull out", like the headline claims, or did she "come close to pulling out" as the story says?

Answer: she came close to. But 'woman catches later plane to well-paid job' is a less eye-catching headline.

Gordon in the morning: Dreams burn down

Gordon breaks horrifying news this morning:

CHERYL COLE might have to unpack the suntan lotion - her American dream is in crisis.

It turns out the people looking after the US version of The X Factor are worried that Cheryl might not be right for the judge's role and are looking for... checks paperwork ah, yes... looking for someone Americans might have heard of.

On the other hand, this story is sourced to, erm...

A pal of her boyfriend DEREK HOUGH

Now, that might sound like a weak patio on which to place your news barbecue, but that would be to misunderstand American television. No US executive would make a move without running it past one or other of the friends of someone who's been on Dancing With The Stars. "Is Matthew Perry right for this role? Can you get me Bristol Palin's High School BFF on the phone so I can check?"

Gordon explains the problem:

But the bottom line is simple - the producers still need convincing. Simon wields a lot of power but he has to play a diplomatic game on US soil to keep Fox, who are making the show, sweet.

God, can you imagine that, Gordon - fancy having to shape your every move just to keep a bunch of suits appointed by the Murdoch family happy, eh?

Gordon in the morning: Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole - an apology

Hitherto, we might have given the impression that Minogue and Cole's position as judges on The X Factor to be a moral wrong, on the basis that they have never shown any nous at judging music. It turns out that isn't totally the case:

SINGER Jay Kay has lashed out at X Factor judges Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue again - for refusing to applaud his performance on the show.

Sometimes, it turns out, they do get it right.

Gordon's report reveals that Jay Kay is still smarting:

Jay Kay insisted The X Factor was a "TV celebrity show, not a proper music thing", and said it wasn't about picking the best singers but revelling in others' misfortune.

Kay then said "and you know what? Last Of The Summer Wine isn't anything like a true picture of old age in modern Britain. Most pensioners are struggling to make ends meet, not swooshing down hillsides in bathtubs. And In The Midnight Garden? I stayed up until past one am and there wasn't a single Iggle Piggle in my arbour..."

Gordon in the morning: Number one in some sort of poll

Thanks to Paul W for alerting me to the Press Gazette's Showbiz Journalist poll, which asked journalists and "members of the public" who their favourite showbiz writer is.

Yes, Gordon won the poll.

Mind you, Piers Morgan came in at number six, and although the Gazette tries to make sense of this by calling him "CNN chief interviewer", he isn't, yet - that's still Larry King for a few more weeks. And everyone's so horrified at the idea of Morgan taking over even Putin's begging King not to go.

So, given that a couple of weak sessions in the ITV fawnopticon is enough to secure Morgan a place in the top ten, there's a sense that - the public side of the poll at least - is more "can you think of someone who might be a showbiz journalist" rather than "who is the best showbiz journalist". Which means that what the Press Gazette has done is find out who writes the celeb column in the most widely-read newspaper.

It'd be interesting to see the list if they'd not thrown in the public's views. You wonder if Gordon would have been on top then.

But he is. How do you account for your success, Gordon?

[H]e insisted that his brand of showbiz journalism is a lot more sensitive than that of a previous Sun era: "I feel like I’ve become the respectable face of showbiz journalism. That’s something I’m trying to do."

Mmm. Outing teenage game show contestants, praising heavy drinking and calling Geri Halliwell old and ugly. That's exactly the sort of respectable approach you'd hope for - why, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a Victorian mutual society and Bizarre, isn't it?

Some of Gordon's quality is on show today, with a splash about Cheryl Cole:

CHERYL Cole has asked close pal Derek Hough to find a way to get her dogs into Los Angeles without putting them in quarantine.

Really? Because the way to do that is, erm, by putting them on a plane and taking them off at the other end, what with America not quarantining healthy animals.

Also in Gordon's respectable column is something about Robbie Williams waggling his naked arse and Kim Kardashian having a spot.

Well done, Press Gazette, you've really backed a winner.

Gordon in the morning: Blunt solicitations

It says in the Bible "judge not, lest ye be judged". (Everytime I come across that line, it always sounds like Geraldine McEwan is saying it.) Cheryl Cole's just had an object lesson in that:

CHERYL Cole burst into floods of tears after a huge bust-up with British fashion guru Julien Macdonald.

The singer, 27, was left "sobbing and devastated" after the Next Top Model telly judge attacked her dress sense.

When judges clash. Thank god Gregg Wallace wasn't at the same party, or it could have turned into a devastating three way.

Elsewhere, James Blunt has mailed his friends to ask them to buy his album, which, funnily enough, is exactly the same model that most teenage garage bands use to try and boost sales of their CD-Rs into double figures.

Gordon has got hold of a copy of the email (so, clearly, not gone just to friends, then):

"Dear friends and friends of friends.

"My third album is out today. It's taken over a year to make and I promise it's got some really great songs on it.

"With a slightly cynical UK media, I am totally dependent on word of mouth, so I hope you don't mind me emailing you. You can buy it most easily at Tesco. Or order it online."

To be fair to Gordon, he does notice that it seems incredibly unlikely that Blunt has any friends who shop in Tesco, but he's more stung by the jibe at the media:

He's wrong to blame the "cynical UK media" for having to depend on word-of-mouth. He can't have read Bizarre recently - this is his second lead story in a week.

I'm not sure rushing to say 'hey, I'm not cynical, I keep pushing your crappy album' is that dignified a response, but given Blunt has turned up on Have I Got News For You and Buzzcocks - and nearly all papers unquestioningly ran the album promo story about how Blunt stopped the third world war from breaking out - "supine" might seem to be more apt than "cynical". And "totally dependent on word of mouth" would seem to be a massive porky.

In fact, it's not even true that it's easiest to buy it at Tesco, if you think about it.

Cheryl Cole: why can't I meet a nice, ordinary person?

James P drops us an email:

Surprise! Cheryl Cole tells some pointless mince-brained rag or other that she 'never gets chatted up'

Can't think why, she seems so approachable.

We would comment, but we don't want to set Cheryl off. Not with her record.