Do you know the way to Knotty Ash?

The Dionne Warwick biopic sounds like it might be, erm, singular:

[It was] announced at a Cannes Film Festival press conference this morning; with Warwick herself confirming the project. The soul icon also revealed to the crowd that [Cilla] Black – who died last August – “stole” her music, and was her “nemesis”.

Yeah. Cilla Black as the evil genius in a movie. I suppose at least she has a name that sounds like a half-arsed scriptwriter would give to such a character.

Can this project sound any more like something which will never see the light of day?

Lady Gaga has been cast as Cilla Black

Yes. Yes, it can.

Bookmarks: Cilla Black

Andy Medhurst's piece on Cilla Black concedes she was square, but suggests that was her superpower:

In many ways, her achievements were most notable for establishing continuities between different eras. Despite being vaulted into prominence by the earthquake of Merseybeat, which shook a nation out of post-war deference by insisting on the new, the now and the young, she was within a few years drawing on entertainment codes honed in earlier decades. This led some to lament her supposed co-option by conservatism but the shift now looks more shrewd: a fusion of novelty and tradition that fashioned her into the unlikeliest of hybrids, a pop art Gracie Fields.

Legendobit: Cilla Black

It's been announced this morning that Cilla Black has died. It feels weird that this time yesterday I was writing about her being on the NME cover in 1986.

She had an astonishing career - not the only person who had the good fortune to be born in Liverpool at just the right time to catch a rising tide, but with the personality to take that advantage and turn it into whatever was needed to work.

Singer; presenter; presenter who sang her own theme tune. There were many Cillas. But my Cilla - and I say this without any side - is this my Cilla, the Cilla I first encountered. Advertising Cilla:

(Actually, the one that has been banging round my head for nearly 40 years was 'I know it's not just me/ all my friends agree', but that doesn't seem to be online.)

There's not many current pop stars who could convincingly push a slightly nasty chocolate cube into a stranger's mouth and not come across as creepy; and much as I love Charli XCX, I couldn't really picture her working a sofa with Bob Carolgees on one side and a pair of twins who hadn't seen each other in twenty years on the other.

Bear Grylls might think he knows something about survival, but Cilla's career shows what survival really looks like.

Gordon in the morning: It was on the television

Appearing not just in his column, but also under his byline, Gordon Smart reveals this:

IF there's one man who should have been let on Blind Date, it's Angelos Epithemiou.

The former burger van owner admitted to Cilla Black he tried to get on her old telly favourite a few times but was knocked back.

Angelos was a guest on Never Mind The Buzzcocks last night, which our Cilla hosted.

She's not your Cilla, Gordon. The Sun long ago forfeited any right to pretend it had an interest in Scouse heroes.

You do realise that Angelos isn't a real person, and that he was telling a joke, by the way? I know you probably think that you're playing along with the character comedy, but what you've done here, Gordon, is just transcribe a gag that everyone saw on the TV last night.

I know that copying down stuff from electronic communications is Bizarre's house style, and that these days it's harder to justify actually listening to phone calls, but I'm at a loss as to what the point of this is. Maybe tomorrow it'll be a shaggy dog story Gordon hears in a bar.

Cilla Black is the big draw

Now Magazine's piece on Amy Winehouse's supposed plans to move out of London seem a little obsessed with one aspect of a potential address:

Singer to move near Cilla Black in Buckinghamshire

Amy Winehouse is reportedly planning to leave the Big Smoke – to become neighbours with Cilla Black.

The singer, 24, is said to be keen on buying a house in Buckinghamshire, very near to the 64-year-old veteran star's home.

Unless Winehouse picked up the phone to the Estate Agents and barked "I want to live near Cilla", we suspect Ms Black living in the same county might not be quite as significant as the magazine thinks.

Actually, No Rock and Roll Fun comes to you from Buckinghamshire - so perhaps Amy's just keen to be near us.

Gordon in the morning: Kylie gives one to McCartney

Gordon Smart unveils the news this morning that Kylie Minogue will give Paul McCartney his lifetime achievement award at the Brits. He chooses not to mention his half-hearted, pointless and failed bid to get Cilla Black to present the award. Probably a little embarrassed.

Unfortunately, the Sun's Content Management System is an unforgiving bastard and reminds the world of it anyway.

In Phuket, after being too thin on Thursday, and just right on Friday, Cheryl Cole is too thin again this morning:

An onlooker said: “She looked terribly thin. It’s sad.”

All of this has confused Gordon, though. He can't decide if he's writing about someone with a serious health crisis:

The star['s] weight is feared to have fallen to 6st

or if it's all a bit of a lark:

Your chances look slim, Ashley

So, she's either at death's door, or someone to be punned around. If Gordon can't remember his line on Cole while he's putting together the page, maybe it's possible he forgot he was campaigning for Cilla to give the gift.

Gordon in the morning: Backing Cilla Black

The tricky question of who should give McCartney his lifetime achievement award at the Brits is exercising Gordon this morning. It seems Paul has offered no advice beyond asking for it to be a woman - good lord, does he never learn? - and so someone (Smart doesn't reveal who) has drawn up a shortlist of Kylie, Stella McCartney, Chrissie Hynde and Cilla Black. Smart has launched a campaign to make Black the one, but it's not clear why. Is it a joke - a la the NME's attempts to get the Laughing Gnome played on Bowie's tour? But why would it be a joke? McCartney and Black go way back, and with Sharon Osbourne MCing the event, someone who can actually present a television programme onstage might be a boon. But it's not clear that Gordon is being serious, either.

He does run through his thought process, but that doesn't really help:

Stella is a nice thought, but he can receive gifts from her every birthday and Christmas.

Kylie is a great suggestion too. She and Macca hit it off at Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.

Chrissie may just be the dark horse of the four.

My only fear is that Macca has form for falling for women at awards ceremonies after a few sherries - and Kylie’s a single lady.

I reckon Auntie Cilla should be safe on that front, though.

Does Smart know anything about Hynde? He seems to struggle with a reason to discount her, and throws her away in the middle of talking about Kylie.

It all feels a little... well, pointless. At least if he'd have come up with an alternative suggestion - Yoko, perhaps - there might have been some sort of traction for his campaigning.

Mind you, since the rest of his work this morning is built around a photo of Paris Hilton and a little person and Sarah Harding in her knickers, perhaps we should welcome his new found commitment to campaigning journalism.

Cilla: I let Mills be a blind date

At the moment, Cilla Black stalks the daytime television schedules, telling us that the sixties were a special time and reminding you that everyone you care about will die, so you better sort yourself out with some sort of assurance from Liverpool Victoria. Or LV= as it seems to be called these days. It's not clear why, having done all they can to throw the Liverpool connection overboard, they've then hired Cilla Black to hammer it back home again.

Mind you, they've also gotten rid of their lovely chicken logo, too.

We're not sure we'd take Cilla's advice on caring for loved ones, especially as she's now admitted she kept her mouth shut and let Macca walk into the Mills marriage. Oh, why, Cilla, why?

Black, 64, was wary about the union but resisted offering McCartney her opinion on Mills because she feared he wouldn't heed her advice. She says, "If you're totally besotted with somebody - as Paul was with Heather - you don't want a third party telling you what to do.

"I do advise most of my friends. But not Paul. Mind you, if he'd asked I'd have said what I thought. I'd have told him he had to make his own mistakes. That's the only way you learn.

"But I might have suggested that perhaps he should listen to what his family were saying."

So, she advises her friends.

Although people don't listen when they're besotted, so she doesn't.

But she would have done if Paul had asked. Which he hadn't.

But if he had, she would have told him to make his own mistakes.

Except she wouldn't have, she'd have said listen to the kids.

What a tragedy that McCartney never got to hear this clashing, confused

Gordon in the morning: Counting condoms

With the main showbiz business again being handled by Emily Smith this morning - an unlikely sounding report that Kevin Federline wants to "save" Britney from hanging out with a photographer - Gordon is reduced to rummaging around in Billy Zane's shopping. Apparently, Zane - who is currently holidaying with Kelly Brook - was spotted buying a box of 24 condoms:

Twenty-four? That means even if they’re on a three-week trip there’ll be a couple of days when they have to miss archery at 4pm beside the cocktail bar to use up the whole pack.

Unless, Gordon, Zane can manage it more than once a night. It's a possibility.

Elsewhere, Gordon has the exciting news that Atomic Kitten are covering Cilla Black, which is every bit as exciting as it was back in July 2007 when the project was announced.

They could fill their cakehole again

If the Take That Reunion was like meeting long-lost friends, and the Spice Girls comeback bumping into people you remember from school, that would make the rumoured Atomic Kitten resurrection a bit like that sinking feeling when you run across someone who you used to work with. Who smelled of carpets.

They're plotting to do a Cilla Black cover - Anyone Who Had A Heart, sadly, and no "Oh no sir, nothing tastes nicer, than Cadbury's Dairy Milk" - but, if we as a nation show even a glimmer of something other than total indifference, they're threatening to do more.

You have to feel sorry for ITV

Cilla stropping off; Barrymore tied up arguing "Maybe the anal injuries happened to him after he'd been taken out of my pool" - is it possible to bruise a corpse? and now Nigel Lythgowe has a heart attack and Matthew Kelly finds himself with some explaining to do. At this rate, by Easter, they're going to be down to Geri Halliwell and Ant and Dec to carry the whole of Saturday night. Oh... hang about...

I want to see you boxing, naked, to the death

Having taken a hell of a kicking from the other members of Spandau Ballet in the courtroom, Tony Hadley is now so desperate to wank for coins ("now facing up to a physical challenge") that he's going to box, um, John Piennar, BBC Political correspondent and keeper of the oddest moustache this side of Midge Ure for one of those BBC "celebrity" boxing matches.

Also from our "wanking for coins" file this morning, "Fuck" Cilla Black clearly wasn't whistling in the dark when she said "Don't worry about me, chuck, I've got loads of irons in the fire" when she announced her decision to leave ("made her face-saving, painstakingly debated statement") on Blind Date.

She's already, um, lined up to totter round GAY to promote her new album. From prime time TV to the spiritual home of "your fifteen minutes is up" in one easy leap. Who's that whispering "step inside, love?" - could it be dame dumper?