It's not Long Lost Family

The International Business Times oversells the Minogue duet:

I know for a fact they've met up at the odd Christmas, and I'm sure there was an awkward encounter at a cousin's wedding back in 1997...

Gordon in the morning: Is this, actually, a job?

Now that she's been "eased out" of whatever one it was she was on, Dannii Minogue has plans:

FORMER X Factor star Dannii Minogue could return to talent judging - on a rival BBC show.

"Return to 'talent judging'"? "Every time I think I'm out of the game of listening to someone for a bit and then saying 'that moooved me' or 'you gotta focus', they pull me back in again."

It used to be that those who could did, and those who couldn't would teach. Now, those who can't even teach sit behind a table and read scripted quips about how thrilled they were.

I wonder if Cowell has a "Talent Judge Showdown" format up his sleeve?

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..."

Dannii Minogue: Aspirational?

The Telegraph says this, this morning:

While most television personalities are desperate to play up their "working class" credentials, Dannii Minogue is thrilled to have been named this week as a middle class icon.

"That's amazing," she said at a tea party at Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge to launch her Project D clothing range. "I'm a middle class hero. I will embrace that title."

The Telegraph doesn't say who or what gave her the title of middle class icon, and Dannii seems to have jumped to the conclusion that she's been called a hero. She could, just as easily, be a middle class icon amongst the upper classes, a warning in teeth and hair: "Don't lose all our money on the Qatari stock exchange, we don't want to end up all Dannii Minogue."

Dannii Minogue: Lessons for the Milibands

How do you cope with a sibling in a similar line of work, but who has done a bit better for themselves? Are there lessons for David in Dannii Minogue's autobiography?

Being compared to the better, more popular, talented one all the time? Water off a duck's back, it seems:

Minogue wrote: "Ever since I arrived in the UK in 1991, the media have pitted us against one another, first favouring my supposed 'cooler, darker' image over Kylie's bubblegum sweetness, then turning on me with a deluge of unflattering comparisons.

"Never mind that Dannii has had ten Top 10 records - Kylie has had 20! Never mind that Dannii's album has gone gold - Kylie's has gone platinum! Less success was no success at all as far as my critics were concerned. As much as it broke my heart at times, it never made me any less proud and supportive of my sister, and I received the same love and support from her.

"The truth is I never felt as if I was competing with my sister. Although I got very tired of the constant comparisons, it wasn't because I was jealous. I think all the Dannii-bashing headlines often hurt Kylie more than they hurt me."

You see, David? You're not competing with your sibling, and the comparisons are just pointless because - hey - remember, you've sold a few records yourself. And were the popular one once. Briefly. Just keep mentioning that, over and over again, with figures if you must, and nobody will ever come away with the impression that you're seething inside and wondering if you could get a fake grin actually botoxed onto your face for those times when you have to stress you couldn't really care less.

Gordon in the morning: What does this mean?

It's early, but even if I were wide awake I think I'd be struggling with this:

PREGNANT X Factor star Dannii Minogue knows how to dress as a heavy - and so does her boyfriend Kris Smith.

The Aussie singer, 38 - due to give birth in July - covered her bump in a smock on a trip out in Melbourne.

Gordon goes on to say that Kris Smith wore sunglasses and a jacket, which made him look like "a bouncer", which makes some sort of sense. But how is "wearing a smock" dressing like a heavy? Although it's not a smock, it's a blouse. And isn't wearing a shirt a fairly ordinary thing for a woman, pregnant or no, to do? Surely writing for The Sun doesn't lead you to believe that most women walk around without shirts?

Cheryl Cole gets stuck on her hairspray

You think it's all fun being paid a ridiculous sum of money to endorse products?

Oh, if only that was the case:

CHERYL Cole's fashion advisors fear she is LOSING this season's glamour battle with rival judge Dannii Minogue - because she is BANNED by L'Oreal from changing her hair.

Girls Aloud star Cheryl, 26, has to keep her tresses the same as on her ads for the hair company under the terms of a £500,000 sponsorship deal.

Meanwhile glamorous Dannii, 38, has been sporting various funky styles including an Elvis QUIFF, Cleopatra FRINGE, pixie CROP and Bardot BOB.

To be honest, if someone gave me half a million to look a little less desperate for attention than Dannii Minogue, I'd consider it money for jam.

Cheryl is also reported to be finding it difficult sticking to demand that she doesn't beat the crap out of minimum-wage toilet attendants for the length of the sponsorship.

Still, she's lucky that other parts of the Nestle empire aren't so fussy. L'Oreal might be insisting she uses their products, but at least KitKat aren't making her force a couple of fingers down before each programme.

Hmmm. She's taking a lot of money from Nestle, isn't she?

Griffin done... Harrods Lights

Dannii Minogue has switched on the Harrods Christmas lights, and Zoe Griffin was there to see it. She was a little disappointed:

They’re green because it’s a Wizard of Oz theme, which doesn’t excite me that much because a London shop should have more of a London theme.

Has Griffin ever been inside Harrods and seen the Egyptian elevator? And does she think that Oz is a real place - like Manchester or something?

But Dannii Minogue loses all of her calm as she grins manically as she pushed the button to turn them on with a young boy from Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Let's be fair: we all know what she means, don't we?

It's what he would have wanted

This may well be the height of good taste, and we're just not realising it:

Dannii Minogue Tweets about how she cried during Ronan Keating's eulogy

Gordon in the morning: Remembering Robbie Williams

Lord, it must be days since Gordon filed a story - or something a bit like a story - to remind us that Robbie Williams is about to release another record.

Luckily, he's got something today, more or less:

move to the Land Down Under.

The singer has said he is looking for a farm or beachfront retreat in Oz after a premonition by his girlfriend AYDA FIELD.

Really? Or... could this just be line he's spinning to Australia to try and shore up his market there?

Robbie mentioned the move on Australia's biggest breakfast radio show on station 2DayFM, which is being guest-hosted by DANNII MINOGUE.

How great must it be to have Dannii Minogue as your holiday cover? You'd never get that nasty feeling on the third day of "what if my cover is better than me at my job", would you?

Oh... hang on, did you say Robbie is thinking of moving to Australia, Gordon? Doesn't that require some lazy cliche?

In fairness to him, it's a wise move.

The chances of throwing another shrimp on the barbie in the sleepy Wiltshire village he now calls home are slim now autumn is here.

The inability to grill seafood outdoors after the trees start to turn is absolutely the best reason to move thousands and thousands of miles.

But this isn't really about Australia, or even barbecues, is it, Gordon?

nd he told Dannii that a track on his new album, Reality Killed The Video Star, which is out on November 9, is about his stunning missus.

Ah, that's the money shot. One last piece of Australian cliche for luck?

Fair dinkum, mate.

Thank you.

Dannii hits back, like a half-defrosted haddock fillet in a high wind

Ha, you just knew that Dannii Minogue wouldn't let Noel Gallagher get away with his suggestion that she was an inappropriate choice to judge other people's talents. She's had a week (and, presumably, the ITV press office) to come up with her riposte. It's going to be a zinger:

"I think he's just looking for publicity.

"I'm hoping he said it as a joke, I hate celebrity feuding."

Wow, that's going to sting... hold up... is that it? "I hope it was a joke; he wanted people to look at him"? And you hate musicians going up against each other in public - despite appearing on a programme that is designed round that very concept?

Darkness at 3AM: I'll have cake

The 3AM Girls struggle with the concept of news:

At Dannii Minogue's recent house party was a giant stack of brightly coloured cupcakes.

But wait - there's more.

We're told all the guests, including big sis Kylie, were getting stuck in.

Person has cake at party - cakes eaten. Seriously, there's going to be firings at the FT that they missed breaking this story.

I know what you're thinking, though - the Daily Mirror wouldn't publish a story like this, not really, unless there was a real news angle. And, indeed, there is:

"They got icing all over their faces."

The 3AM Girls can't even be arsed to throw a "said a pal", or an "according to a shocked onlooker..." here. At the moment, it's unclear if the guests required hospitalisation for this face-covering of sugar, or if they merely wiped their chops with a napkin. We're waiting for CNN on this.

Naturally, though, you turn to the Mirror not just for this quality of reporting, but also the searing insight that the paper's commentary team can provide. The 3AM Girls don't let us down:

Sounds like our kind of party.

Really? The 3AM column's idea of a great party is mildly messy cake eating? We hear there's a kid called Charlie Spaniels who's having a party in McDonalds in Daventry today - you should get yourself there, 3AM. Not just cake - we're given to understand there was ice cream being spoken about as a serious possibility, too.

Peaches is "a bit sad"

Kelly Osbourne finally gets the chance to shake her head at the younger generation:

Kelly Osbourne has suggested Peaches Geldof's marriage to Max Drummey could have been just a PR stunt.

'If it was done for attention, it's a bit sad,' the 23-year-old told Virgin Radio.

'I did stuff like that when I was 19 as well, like get a tattoo because it pissed my mum off. It's just a big cry for help.'

Yes, given that before Sharon Osbourne tried to turn herself in Oprah Winfrey, she worked as a manager for a heavy rock band, the thought of a tattoo must have been so shocking for her.

It's good to see that Kelly - who is employed by both the BBC and The Sun to offer advice to youngsters in turmoil - reacts to someone issuing what she defines as a cry for help by dismissing them as "a bit sad". God help anyone who rings the Sunday Surgery having taken an overdose unless they really mean it, eh.

Actually, it's also interesting to see that Kelly thinks getting her tattoo is on a par with getting married. Admittedly, both carry the overhead of unpleasant injections into your body, but at least Peaches chose a way that can be removed with a quick annulment rather than the need for laser surgery further down the line.

Kelly is rightly annoyed by people who try to draw attention to themselves, of course. It stops people giving attention to her and her fabulous opinions:

Speaking at the Virgin Mobile V Festival she also called X Factor judge Dannii Minogue 'a woman that doesn't like anyone that's younger and prettier than her'

.
Well, that's Dannii's falling-out with Sharon Osbourne explained, then.

Darkness at 3AM: It's all about the hair

While Gordon's report from the Glamour awards noticed that Lily Allen was so drunk she was being, erm, helped by a bouncer, the 3AM Girls only seemed to spot that she had pink hair.

Perhaps the 3AM team missed the drunkeness as they were running round getting other "scoops" such as Kate Moss not turning up and the hilarious presentation of 'tv personality of the year' to Dannnii Minogue. No, really. It's not such an unusual prize, is it? After all, Dannii is on television, and does have... well, she is on television, anyway.

Gordon in the morning: Some things hurt more, much more than cars and girls

Lewis Hamilton and Dannii Minogue are having a secret date. It's on May 25th, in Monaco.

Admittedly, that's not very secret, is it?

It's also not very much of a story - despite a hopeful headline:

Get a vroom will you Lewis!

... the pair are still almost two months away from their first date, never mind touching. So there's a surprising amount of padding. We discover that Dannii "knows a lot" about cars - although there's no mention of how much Hamilton might know about second-string sibling pop. Of course, Dannii has breasts, which is always good for a line or two:

Nice to see she’s playing her cards close to her ample chest.

And, of course, Gordon needs to share his forecast for this relationship:

Lewis clearly knows his way around shiny bodywork and Dannii is in pole position. I reckon this pair could burn some serious rubber together.

Yes, they might screw each other, Gordon. Thanks for your insight.

But if 'couple arrange tentative date' is the big news, what does that imply about the rest of Gordon's work this morning?

Sexy stars and their lucky dogs

Yes, Gordon spends some time looking at photos of people with their dogs and tries to introduce a slightly disturbing sex angle:

IF I get reincarnated, I want to come back as a dog - they grab the attention of some of the world's sexiest stars.
[...]
So I'm praying it's a dog's life for me next time round.

But, Gordon, you know it's not like Jennifer Aniston has sex with her dog, or that Rhianna's dog doesn't think "waa-heeey" - because it's a different species. You do know that, don't you?

RIHANNA's lucky hound looks hot under the collar after being held tight by the singer when she stepped out in Hollywood.

Apparently not. The thing is, the dog in the photo doesn't even look like it's anything other than slightly scared, never mind "hot under the colour".

Gordon in the morning

Gordon has a bit of a struggle filling the page today, having to run with a story about Liam Gallagher. Although there's something almost cute about the thought of Liam Gallagher sometimes having a kickabout with his son before classes start, can it be the best the Prime Minister Of Showbiz can muster for a lead is a "man takes his kid to school" story?

We hear Ray Quinn is thinking of nipping to Morrisons later today, Gordon - you might have a 'man buys sprouts' story to lead with tomorrow.

Of course, Smart's fawning over the Spice Girls, despite the lack of anything much happening beside routines being worked through and cash being counted, means that he's got to run some sort of story about them today. And it's:

Gordon gets Spicy at gig

Ha! But you thought it was going to be Gordon Smart, didn't you? Ha!

CHEF GORDON RAMSAY Spiced Up His Life with a trip to see the SPICE GIRLS.

He took his family to the girls’ big, bold, brash show at the O2 arena in London.

So, alongside 'bloke takes kid to school', it's 'man off telly takes family to see pop concert'.

Gordon does have some of his usual schtick, too: the vague possibility that Russell Brand might be making a Hollywood film results in a bit of lazy Rusell/Marlon Brand-o photoshoppery. And there's a thing about Dannii Minogue's breasts, too.

Minogue: Slow sales

The question about what, exactly, the judges on the X Factor know about the area in which they claim to be expert rises again: despite all the publicity of being on television every week, and a well-timed release-week "storm out", Dannii Minogue's Touch Me Like That is unlikely to sell much more than 1,500 copies. Perhaps she ought to be auditioning rather than judging.

Goodness... Dannii really hates Louis. Apart from the 'really' bit

Having treated its audiences like cash-cow schmucks, ITV now seems content to really treat them like they're stupid: The latest in a long line of staged X Factor 'arguments' happened on Saturday when Louis Walsh read out a line that cued up a walkout from Dannii Minogue:

She failed to return following an ad break, leaving Sharon Osbourne to fill her absence by clambering on to Simon Cowell’s lap.

We're not quite sure what "absence" it is that The Sun is suggesting Osbourne was filling there, and we really don't want to picture it.

Gordon finds his feet

Still, lets be fair to Gordon, it's his first proper day and he probably had to balance writing the column with trying to price a three-bedroom semi-detached in Ruislip,so what else does he have?

Pictures of Jordan's breasts (sorry, "bangers", a word that Smart seems determined to make his own); someone has sent him a photo of Dannii Minogue wearing a tshirt and Amy Winehouse has a secret love of wrestling.

Eh?

Wrestling?

Now, if ever a story sounds like someone ringing up the Smartline - 020 7782 4036, according to the desperate plea for stories at the top of the page - and making something up for shits and grins, Amy Winehouse's love of WWE would be it, but let's assume that it's a true story. You or I might have given it a small, Sunspot style nib at the bottom. Gordon, though, has seized it with both hands, and gone to the extent of imagining what Amy would be like if she was a wrestler. Trained by, erm, Pete Doherty.

Chico has something important to say

In all the debate surrounding the concept of "size zero" models, one voice has remained silent. But no longer: Chico will remain silent no longer.

With perhaps the exception of To Me, To You: The Chuckle Brothers explain Middle Eastern boundaries, it's hard to come up with a meeting of subject so complex with an intellect so lacking. Trying to cope with the complex issues of the demands of the fashion industry as an aspiration-driven industry, the power of the male gaze, the idealisation of the impossible, the use of food as a means of control and the projection of self-image, Chico's response seems to be "ooh, you wanna girl you can grab hold of":

"In my opinion these women are the epitomy of womanhood. Marilyn Monroe was a size 16, and all the other women have this hourglass figure."

He said: "I went on the net and started going into it, and there are models dying, people starving, so I didn't want to concentrate on the problem. I wanted to concentrate on the solution, so size zero's gotta go.

"Cos, you know, us men like them swervy, curvy and shaped like an hourglass."

Unbelievably, the lyrics manage to make Mika's vapid and patronising Big Girl seem like The Beauty Myth:

"Size zero's gotta go, give me Marilyn Monroe, J.Lo, Beyonce got the flow"

Ah, yes. Why starve yourself to death when instead you could aspire to be like Marilyn Monroe and take the more proactive route of taking an overdose instead. Well done, Chico.

Away from his new-found interest in feminist politics, Chico has also been developing his skills as a raconteur, presumably to fill the shoes of the recently-deceased Ned Sherrin:

"It was really funny, we were at the Cannes Film Festival, and on one side there was this guy walking around with a bucket selling roses, and this other guy got the whole bucket and had it sent over to Dannii Minogue.

"So, I said to the guy, 'Do you mind if I take one?'

"She looked over at me and... it was just one of those crazy Chico moments."

It's funny, something surprisingly similar once happened to Peter Ustinov. He once mistook 'a rambling tale in which nothing much happened' for 'a witty anecdote'; however, he at least had the wit to append an ending which rescued the tale.