It's the monthly "Top Of The Pops revival" moment

As has happened probably ever three hours since Top of The Pops was axed, we're going through a 'they're going to bring back Top Of The Pops' period. Except it's not bringing back TOTP, as Ben Cooper tried to explain:

He said: "I am working hard with Bob Shennan, asking, 'What are the ingredients that would work for today?'

"When people ask about whether Top of the Pops is coming back, what they are really saying is, 'When can we get a once-a-week primetime BBC1 music slot?'

"I have had this conversation with agents, independent production companies, and with Simon Cowell a few weeks back."

The appearance of Simon Cowell in the discussions suggest we're not really talking about Top Of The Pops, right?

He said: "With The Voice going to ITV, that does give you an opportunity, a moment in history, to go, 'Right, let's crack this, what can we do to bring the music and entertainment together for a primetime BBC1 audience? That's the Holy Grail!

"The music industry would like a weekly moment to showcase the best new British music."

I'd be more tempted, were I a tabloid editor, to suggest they sound more like they're reviving something closer to House Party or Swap Shop, if indeed anything.

The Mail, of course, has its own take:

Not entirely sure why Gary Glitter is included in there. Or, indeed, if that trio are such a problem, the BBC has carried on doing Top Of The Pops on Christmas Day for the last couple of years. Still, I'm sure it makes sense to the Mail.

There's no hope for the Mail, is there?

The Mail has become so obsessed with women's bodies, it can't even write a headline about a man buying a lot of Dolly Parton memorabilia without popping its favourite word into the headline:

Dolly Parton super-fan obsessed with the curvy country singer spends £10,000 on memorabilia... but insists his CDs and life-size cutouts are 'priceless'

Is this part of the house style at the Mail now? "Headlines: when writing about women, remember to include an indication of whether the woman is curvy or worryingly thin."

The Daily Mail tells you all you need to know about the Superbowl

In the Mail's rss feed this morning:

Katy Perry's Super Bowl half-time performance leads to Internet memes

The words "with crushing inevitability" were excised for brevity.

Daily Mail & Dave apparently believes Hear'Say still a going concern

The funniest thing about Dave Cameron's embrace of Myleene Klass and her 'how can you punish me for being rich' special pleading - and the gurgling delight the Mail has shown - is that both seem convinced that Klass is still a pop star.

Hear'Say broke up on the 13th May, 2003 - so not pop for 11 years - and hasn't troubled the top 10 since 2002. So not a pop star for a dozen years.

What's strange is, if Dave had gone with the more accurate 'woman from the Littlewoods catalogue adverts', it would probably have had more sting.

It turns out the Sachsgate swings backwards, too

So, Jonathan Ross is going to do shows on Radio 2 again. I wonder how long it'll take the Mail to ring up Andrew Sachs asking him to be outr... oh, hang on, they've already done it, of course. What's that? He wasn't in? Never mind, his wife will do. Providing she's upset. Is she upset? Is she upset enough?

Melody Sachs said it was a ‘slap in the face’ to give the disgraced presenter a job on the same station on which he insulted her husband six years ago.

Oh, yes. There's some froth there.

The Mail isn't just outraged that Ross is intending to slap Andrew Sachs repeatedly in the face, live on air, as he sits in for Steve Wright for a few sessions. But this man - this monster - is going to be paid for doing so:

He will be paid an estimated £4,000 to host four three-hour programmes between August 26 and 29.

Obviously, though, that will double with every national treasure he can make cry.

The Mail offers no explanation for how they have arrived at this estimate of £4,000; perhaps they got a builder in to tell them how much he'd charge for a similar job.

But, sorry, Mrs Sachs: you were telling us how it's awful.

Mrs Sachs added: ‘I’m so surprised that the BBC has welcomed him back. I’m amazed that they could do such a thing. It’s like a slap in the face for us, especially after Andrew spent so much of his working life with the BBC writing, acting and directing. It’s very sad and thoughtless and disrespectful.’

She continued "it's like they don't care about the time he spent pretending to be Spanish to make people laugh at how stupid foreigners are for not being able to speak English. Did that two years of borderline xenophobia count for nothing?"

You know, Mrs Sachs' outrage is fine, but she's not an elected representative. It's not like the Mail is going to be able to find an MP willing to dredge up... oh, hang on, they have?

Last night Tory MP Philip Davies also criticised the decision to allow Ross back on the airwaves. He said: ‘My view is that what he did was completely and utterly unacceptable. He doesn’t appear to have accepted that, and until he does I don’t think the BBC should employ him.’

You might be having trouble placing Davies. He's the charmer who suggested that disabled people should earn less than other people, and that society was "standing in the way" of "less productive" people with learning disabilities by insisting they earn the minimum wage.

Winningly, when people pointed out that he sounded like an amoral asshat for even thinking this was a positive thought to share, Davies dismissed it as "leftwing hysteria". Which makes it all the more surprising that he should want to fan the flames of this empty hysteria.

Alright, I'm not surprised.

Anyway, back to the Sachs and their grim determination to not move on, not in the slightest:

Although Ross, 53, has said he feels ‘immense regret’, the Sachs family have refused to forgive him and claimed he used the publicity to advance his career.

Given at the time, Ross had the key BBC chatshow, his own radio programme and was regularly invited to MC high-profile events like the BAFTAs and the British Comedy Awards, and now I think he might be doing a chatshow on ITV and does holiday cover for Steve Wright, I'm not entirely sure how they think that works.

Given that it allowed Sachs to sell his memoirs to the Mail for serialisation - and guess which bit they extracted - you might suspect that the Sachs family are doing quite well out of the mini-outrage industry that the Mail has built around the incident.

The pranks were cruel, and unfunny, and childish; yes. But perhaps it wouldn't be so raw, so ever present in your thoughts if you didn't keep talking to newspapers about it every time Jonathan Ross steps outdoors.

Midge Ure: The Daily Mail is a piece of work

I know, I know that the Mail being like a word-flavoured tapeworm extruding from a mangy asshole isn't exactly news, but it's always useful to remember this.

Midge Ure has a new album out, and did an interview with the Mail to promote it. The interview was quite wide-ranging, covering not just the new work, but also how his head got turned by post-Live Aid adulation and how he nearly wrecked his life through excess.

Plenty, you might think, for a newspaper to focus on.

But not the Mail.

They went with this angle:

My father to father letter to my dear friend Bob: Midge Ure, who had known Peaches Geldof since she was a baby, on how he's tried to comfort his Live Aid mate

Inevitably, this makes the thing look like he's trying to use the death of a friend's child to sell a few albums, and the Mail comment area (or "the subtitles for the hard of thinking") rips into him,:

Chriatina, Chesterfield, United Kingdom, 1 hour ago
Why reveal you have sent a very personal letter to an old friend after the death of hia daughter. Jump on the band wagon of getting your name aired. I think its a disgrace no point in it what so ever .

Deedee, Kent, United Kingdom, 1 hour ago
This is not a heart felt letter, if Midge wants to write to Bob then he can. Why does the daily mail need to be involved. This is disgusting.

null, 1 hour ago
Comfort him by talking to the newspapers? All heart

Shropshire boy, Bridgnorth, United Kingdom, 1 hour ago
Nothing like publicity eh

But even some Mail readers, while waving their pitchforks, seem to sense that there's something a bit iffy here:

Gilliedew, Norfolk, 1 hour ago
I didn't like Midge using Peaches death in relation to his come back, Why? Isn't anything private, such as a letter to Bob at such a traumatic time in his life.Most probably it was the journalist sensationalizing it but why give them the chance, some friend I don't think.

Gilliedew, you nearly had a moment's clarity there, before you decided it was Midge's fault anyway for answering a question.

So there's the Mail's nice work for today: driving page impressions and selling ad space on a story that unfairly implies a man is using a death to sell records.

The Daily Mail is a piece of work.

Heavy Metal Thunder

Quite rightly, the identity of the child accused of the horrible murder at a Leeds school yesterday isn't being made public. Not that that has stopped the Daily Mail trawling up enough information to take breaching the spirit of the law up to the very boundary of breaching the letter of it.

And it's here that we see the resurrection of one of the tabloid press favourite tropes: It was heavy metal's fault:

On his Facebook page, along with the Grim Reaper drawing and links to British heavy metal bands Enter Shakari and Bring Me The Horizon, he had posted a picture of himself dressed in black with long hair.

Links? To Enter Shikari? Wearing black with long hair? Clearly, we're dealing with the devil's music here.

It's obviously metal's fault, right?

Except the Mail doesn't even seem certain he is a metalhead:

Another ex-pupil said the 15-year-old often went into school carrying Jack Daniels and beer and that he was a ‘goth’ who drew circles on the floor, claiming to worship the devil.

In subsequent coverage, we're expecting the Mail to also discover he was bobbysoxer, a mod AND a rocker, and a hepcat of dubious renown.

Still, goths and metalheads are at least united by the long hair thing, right? That's something the Mail can cling to.

But neighbours [...] said he had recently cut his hair very short.

Oddly, the Mail neglects to seize on this detail, misunderstand it and over-inflate it into somehow lumping him into the violent cult of skinheaded thugs.

I can understand the Mail's problem here - there's a question 'how could this happen? who could do this?' hanging over everyone's heads this morning, and there are no answers. For a paper which lacks morals and ethics, and apparently believes the world functions on a level of the simplicity of a Fred Basset cartoon, looking at a couple of things the boy liked and deciding they're somehow relevant is the obvious thing to do. It's probably because Viscount Rothermere and Paul Dacre listen to a lot of Wagner.

Won't someone please think of George Michael?

Hundreds of homes. Thousands of people. Numerous businesses. Wildlife across the country.

All these have been affected by flooding, but the wet winter has just got serious.

It's targeting George Michael:

Now, the rising River Thames has almost destroyed the country manor of pop star George Michael.

Floodwater can be seen surrounding the detached property - lapping against its front door and garden wall.

However, it is yet to flow over the wall surrounding the manor in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire - with sandbags also positioned outside the property.

Today, a woman - believed to be one of George's sisters - could be seen standing at one of the manor's windows.

Yes, well done, the Daily Mail - the nation is disappearing under water, but it's still sending out people to peek through celebrity windows. That's the plucky Brit spirit, carrying on being arseholes in the face of adversity, right there.

A UKIP spokesman - obviously a spokesman - nodded sagely and said "well, he's one of them, isn't he? It's obvious that his property would flood. It's in the Bible."

Ellie Goulding wears an outfit

Ellie Goulding played a gig in Cologne earlier in the week. Here's a photo of her doing just that:

How would you describe that outfit?

Hmm. And if you were a shrill, link-baiting former newspaper turned SEO machine like the Daily Mail?

She's not short of admirers: Singer Ellie Goulding takes to the stage wearing bondage-inspired outfit in Germany

Bondage-inspired? In what way (except for 'trying to pick up some murkier Google natural searches') is that bondage-inspired?

It seems the words "bondage-inspired" was, erm, inspired by Perez Hilton describing the outfit thus. So that's a reliable source, then.

Something bad happens near celebrity

Oh, Daily Mail, how your values work:

Yes, if you die in a horrific inferno, you too might find your name getting a lower billing than the fact that LeAnn Rimes was nearby.

Beyonce banned from graves, only not really

The Mail has glossed the results of Beyonce's bad behaviour at the Pyramids:

Beyonce 'banned' from Pyramids by Egypt's Indiana Jones after her 'stupid and rude' behaviour

By "Egypt's Indiana Jones", they mean "an Egyptian archaeologist who loves himself a bit", Zahi Hawass. And by "banned", if you read the Independent version, it turns out they mean that he withdrew an offer to show her around:

"She said she would come at 3pm but she came late. I said 'You have to say I'm sorry I'm late'. But she didn't open her mouth," continued Dr Hawass, credited with modernising the management of Egypt's ancient sites and who claims to have repatriated 6,000 artefacts "stolen" by Western powers.

"I brought a photographer and she also had a photographer and a guard. When my photographer started to shoot, he said 'No, Stop! I am the one who says yes or no, not you.' I said 'In that case since you almost hit my photographer and you are not polite - out! I am not giving you the privilege of having you on my tour.' I said Beyoncé was stupid and I left."

Actually, "Beyonce told she is stupid" is both a more accurate and more interesting headline than the suggestion that she has somehow been "banned" from the World Heritage Site.

Justin Bieber: He wasn't there again today, I wish, I wish, he'd go away

I've read the headline on this Mail story a few times. It really does claim that Justin Bieber doesn't exist, doesn't it?

I think they mean "which didn't exist", but even if they fixed that, it'd still be a dog of a headline.

VMAs 2013: The year Miley Cyrus waved her arse about a bit

Seriously, who cares about the VMAs any more? MTV doesn't even show music videos, unless they happen to be being shot by someone in their never ending poor/rich/Amish/drunk constructed reality shows. I mean, thinking that the VMAs in 2013 are somehow culturally relevant is to show you don't really understand the modern world at all, right?

Yes, that's the Daily Mail not only getting excited by the VMAs, but giving it the sort of "clear the homepage" treatment it normally takes a former PM dying or an election to swing.

The VMAs, though, provide MTV and the Mail with the same thing, though: a little bit of content with women wearing push-up bras. Or no bras at all.

MTV is thrilled by it:

Miley Cyrus is queen of the twerk

The Mail, of course, is shocked:

I say "shocked". I mean "even more thrilled", of course. Seriously, the Daily Mail is so shocklighted that it takes two news stories to cover 'Miley Cyrus continues to do the sort of lungey-sexy thing she's been trying to do ever since she stopped being Hannah Montana'.

To get an idea of how terrible the VMAs are, you don't even have to worry about the winners: the categories themselves scream "executives who think they're still young". For what it's worth, here's the winners:

Video Of The Year: Justin Timberlake, Mirrors
Best Female Video: Taylor Swift, I Knew You Were Trouble
Best Male Video: Bruno Mars, Locked Out of Heaven
Best Pop Video: Selena Gomez, Come & Get It
Best Hip-Hop Video: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton, Can't Hold Us
Best Rock Video: Thirty Seconds to Mars, Up In the Air
Best Collaboration: Pink and Nate Ruess of Fun., Just Give Me a Reason
Best Video With A Social Message: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert, Same Love
Best Song Of The Summer: One Direction, Best Song Ever
Artist To Watch: Austin Mahone, What About Love
Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award: Justin Timberlake
Best Direction: David Fincher for Justin Timberlake's Suit & Tie
Best Visual Effects: Capital Cities, Safe and Sound
Best Choreography: Bruno Mars, Treasure
Best Art Direction: Janelle Monae featuring Erykah Badu, Q.U.E.E.N.
Best Cinematography: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton, Can't Hold Us
Best Editing: Justin Timberlake, Mirrors
Best Latino Artist: Tr3s

Justin Timberlake? Bruno Mars? Sheesh.

You might have spotted that 2012's awkwardly-named "most share-worthy artist" category has been quietly dropped; the suspicion was that was a made-up category to give One Direction a prize.

At least that hasn't happened this year, with the Direction getting, erm, "best song of the summer". Yes, it's a category that hasn't happened before, and will never happen again, but it's in no way a made-up thing to reward the band for turning up to the show. In no way at all.

One last footnote: the Mail lists all the winners of the awards. Except for the best Latino artist, with Tr3s' category mysteriously not making it onto the paper's list.

Glastonbury 2013: Late breaking news

I have no idea how accurate the description in the tweet is, but... it's believable, isn't it?

Man reading about his pension options in the Mail - at the Pyramid stage during Mumford & Sons. #glastonbury pic.twitter.com/HmUsxrfQVB

— Dan Kerins (@dankerins) June 30, 2013

Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the Mail

There's an interesting chance to see not one, but two, of our successful tabloids at work this morning, as Adele is linked to a sponsorship deal.

Gordon breaks the story - and I'm using "breaks" generously here, as it seems to be little more than a collection of things that, theoretically, could happen:

MOST bets on the only brand with a chance of signing up ADELE would have been on Diamond White cider.

But that could all change thanks to a £10million pay cheque.

If they've actually negotiated a price, then the deal must be done, right?

Cosmetics giants including Estée Lauder, L’Oréal and Dior are fighting it out to make the singer the face of their skincare ranges.

Or it could be Cover Girl. Or Number Seven. Or Superdrug.

The vagueness of the story is underpinned, solely, by an unnamed source:

A source said: “Adele is in big demand. She would only accept if the campaigns were to her taste and incorporate her music.

“The last thing she wants is a cheesy ad with a naff catchphrase.

“They would have to be in keeping with her personality.

“It’s going to take a lot of persuasion to get her to agree but, right now, it looks as if she’s close to signing a deal.”

The last sentence there swings violently between suggesting that coming to a deal would take a lot of work, implying it's a distance off, and then saying it's nearly a done deal. Like it was being made up on the spot.

And, given that L'Oreal solely make cheesy ads with naff catchphrases, either the "source"'s claim of the sort of ad she might do is wrong, or Gordon's list of adverts being considered is wrong. Or both of them are wrong.

Gordon reminds readers that Adele has, in the past, been fairly firm about not wanting to do such a deal:

Adele has previously slated fellow stars for taking up similar beauty deals — and said she was concerned endorsements could “taint” her image.

He is generous, though, at this change of heart:

You can’t blame Adele for considering the big money offers. Despite banking £25million from the incredible successes of her albums 19 and 21, an extra £10million in the coffers would be hard to turn down.

So, a fairly typical Sun filler story - vague enough that if nothing happens people will forget it, but if Adele ever does turn up in an advert a 'you read it here first' piece can be built on the back of it - "a source said 'Adele had considered L'Oreal, but chose instead to get naked for PETA...'"

But nobody with half a mind would read this and come away thinking that Adele is already mouthing "get the London look" into a mirror, and planning where to put the money.

Luckily, Lucy Buckland suffers from no such restriction, copying the story across to the Daily Mail website.

Except by the time it arrives in the Mail - with a cheerful admission that the only source is what Lucy read in The Sun - the story has become more of an attack, shorn totally of Smart's 'good luck to her, who'd turn down that sort of offer':

Adele 'tempted to sign $10 million cosmetic sponsorship deal and move to LA' - despite slating stars who 'sell-out'

Oh, yes, there's an addition to the story, which is that Adele is moving to LA. Apparently this is somehow bad, too - though, to be fair, the Mail has always been consistent in its hatred of the idea of migration:

According to sources renting a house in LA was relaxing and after making friends with Robbie Williams' wife, Ayda Field she is becoming more attune to shipping out of Britain for good.

Word together threw, half-assed punctuation attempting not work.

'Adele and her man Simon are looking at a pad in one of the exclusive gated communities of Beverly Hills,' a source told The Daily Mirror, 'because Robbie and Ayda have told Adele that she would be able to have enough land not to feel too trapped, and she could have the privacy she so desperately needs to enjoy life.'

Oh, yes, that bit the Mail lifted from the Mirror, so at least it's a story with two sources.

Naturally, the Mail is unhappy at the idea of a British institution becoming so enamoured of American audiences that she might consider putting their needs first.

Although, let's just look at that headline again:

Adele 'tempted to sign $10 million cosmetic sponsorship deal and move to LA' - despite slating stars who 'sell-out'

Oddly, the Sun's ten million quid has turned into ten million greenbacks - and elsewhere her earnings are rendered in American money. Almost as if that British institution has become so enamoured of American audiences that it's putting their needs first.

Still, the Mail does at least try to add some journalism to the mix:

Adele's spokesman refused to comment after being contacted by MailOnline.

Being contacted about which story? Both? What did MailOnline actually ask? When did the Mail contact them - after these stories appeared late in the day on rival paper's websites, and was the refusal to comment a 'we have no comment', or 'I'm not in a position to comment on this'?

So, from a vague piece in The Sun, the Mail has decided that Adele is on the verge of selling out. I often wonder who believes what they read in Bizarre. I think we've now got our answer.

B*Witched, unblushered and bewildering

God love B*Witched, but I'm not sure they're the best band to go to for a famous faces without make-up article.

Don't you need people to remember what they look like with make-up for it to work?

The Daily Mail sets the scene:

While some popstars have felt the need to go under the knife to keep their young appearances, one girl group never felt the need to.

While welcoming the positive message of the piece, presumably part of the reason why B*Witched haven't popped down the cosmetic surgeon is not unrelated to the same reason that people haven't been popping down HMV to buy B*Witched records, surely?

The whole thing collapses in a self-defeating sinkhole:

'There’s a lot of pressure, especially on young girls, to look like the really polished version of celebs you see in magazines,' she told Heat magazine.

'It’s nice for them to see pictures like this.'

Yes. The best place to go to send out positive messages about body image to young women is Heat magazine, where they will sit unread amongst a bunch of articles about how fat, thin, wrinkly, sweaty and disgusting everyone else is. It's like doing a bit about peaceful dispute resolution in Guns And Ammo.

[Thanks to Michael M]

That Hear'Say reunion you weren't expecting? It isn't happening

Did anyone actually think there might be a Hear'Say reunion? Why on earth would anyone have expected one?

Apparently Daybreak thought it was likely enough to be worth asking Myleene Klass about it.

There isn't going to be one.

The Daily Mail thinks we might be upset:

Obviously, not so upset that we wouldn't also want to know you can see the very top of Klass' tits, but even so: news that had to be "broken", like the death of a pet or the closure of a favourite massage parlour.

[Thanks to @TheMichaelMoran for the link]

Lady GaGa wonders why nobody mentions Adele's weight

The Mail runs a story about Lady GaGa talking about Adele:

In an interview with Stylist magazine the singer speaks out after hitting headlines because of her weight gain and asked why people didn't target British singer Adele.

Speaking to the magazine she said: 'Adele is bigger than me, how come nobody says anything about it? She’s so wonderful and I think her confidence is something I have to match. She has set the bar very high for a lot of women.'

I think the Mail was running that story with a straight face, too.

But, obviously, if the Mail really wanted to point out to GaGa that people do talk about Adele's weight all the time, they had to do no more than dig in their own archives. For example:
Adele displays her slimline figure in a sleek black outfit as she prepares to make her musical comeback at the BRITS
or
Adele shows off her slimmer figure in leggings as she enjoys a busy day with boyfriend Simon Konecki
or
Adele set to slim down even more as she embarks on new fitness plan
or
'She's a beautiful girl... I'm her biggest fan': Now Karl Lagerfeld apologises after calling Adele 'too fat'
or... oh, but you get the point.

The James Blunt era is officially over - possibly

The NME headline might oversell it a little:

James Blunt quits music industry

You know that's not quite true, because otherwise today would be a bank holiday and people would be hugging in the street.

It is, however, going to be a while before he troubles us again:

[Blunt] told The Daily Mail that he has no further plans to write music. Speaking to a reporter from the paper, Blunt said:"I just want to take some time out for myself. I haven’t got any plans to do more songwriting. I have been chilling out since I finished my world tour and I’ve spent a lot of time in Ibiza, where I have a villa."

But that isn't quite the same thing as smashing all his guitars, destroying his four track and having himself hypnotised so that he is unable to go within five hundred yards of a piano. While we may hope its permanent, at the moment music and Blunt are just on a break.

Of course, music might not have noticed anyway.

Mail fumes that Glitter gets gold

As part of its 1970s season, BBC Two re-repeated one of the 1977 Top Of The Pops that have been delighting BBC Four viewers since the start of the year. They chose one with Gary Glitter in - understandable, as nearly the rest of the year's selections to date have been Manhattan Transfer or Lynsey DePaul doing Rock Bottom forever.

The Daily Mail doesn't understand:

Convicted sex offender Gary Glitter stand to get paid thousands of pounds in royalties after the BBC aired a repeat of him performing on Top of the Pops in 1977.
Viewers were left outraged by TV chiefs' decision to rerun the BBC2 programme featuring the disgraced pop star, 68, on Saturday night.
Many expressed their disgust on social networking sites that Glitter, who has been convicted of possessing child porn and abusing two young girls, would receive money from the airing of the TV programme.

Oddly, though, they struggle to find "many", relying on a handful of tweets:

Kristian Carter ‏tweeted: 'Gary Glitter on TOTP. First line "Cuddle me close. Hold me tight." Awkward turtle.'

Another viewer Cath Elliot wrote: 'Gary Glitter on #totp77 is making my skin crawl.'

Neither of those quotes actually seem to have anything to say about the issue of Glitter earning royalties. In fact, the entire Mail thesis is based on one tweet:

RedLiverbirdLou wrote on Twitter: 'Why are BBC2 giving Gary Glitter airtime? They should be ashamed! I don't pay my licence to watch Peado's!'

Peados. Presumably some sort of hairstyle on a vegetable?

Well done, though, RedLiverbirdLou - your single Tweet has generated an entire Daily Mail article. Presumably her equally impassioned call for a vet to be sent for to help the meerkat on Planet Earth Live is going to result in a full-page piece in tomorrow's paper: "Viewers call for medical intervention as BBC watches creature die".