Gordon in the morning: Vickers gets a smack

Even Gordon Smart can see that Diana Vickers has pretty much torpedoed any defence she might have had against claims she ripped off the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

The legal wrangle was pretty much inevitable.

Diana confessed in a recent interview she'd been listening to Under The Bridge the day before writing the chorus for her own song. She said "Sod it," when asked about the similarities.

She added: "Yeah, that happened without even knowing.

"We wrote the song in an hour. We had the song and it didn't have the My Wicked Heart bit in it and then we put the vocal in and we were like, 'Why does it sound so familiar?'

"Then we realised it was because we were listening to Under The Bridge the day before. We were saying, 'Should we change it? Should we not? What should we do? Sod it, no, we're just gonna keep it, it works'."

But this bit in Gordon's coverage just bemuses me:

Diana will be re-enacting her new video on tomorrow's X Factor, dressing as a circus ringmaster and a clown.

She might be feeling like that again when the lawyers' bills come in.

When the lawyers bills arrive, she'll feel like she's dressed as a ringmaster?

Gordon in the morning: making something out of nothing

It's a bit of a thin day at Bizarre, with Gordon reduced to trying to create a story out of nothing:

LEONA LEWIS'S boyfriend has been noticeable by his absence from her live shows.

Has he? I don't think anyone noticed.

Her bloke LOU AL-CHAMAA was not there for the opening night of her Labyrinth Tour in Sheffield. Or the second night in Liverpool. Or Nottingham on Wednesday.

Man doesn't hang around while partner works out of town. Colour me shocked. Gordon doesn't mention if, when he went to see Leona in Liverpool, he dragged his wife to stand by him and watch him scribbling in his notebook. There's no mention of Mrs Smart in the review. I would have thought that completely normal, but now I'm not so sure it isn't a sign of something.

Perhaps Gordon is just worried about Lewis not getting the support she needs. After all, the headline makes it obvious she's struggling along on her own:

Loner Lewis

Who can not fail to feel sorry for her, abandoned to entertain-sort-of hundreds of people in the north, all on her own, eh, Gordon?

[S]he has got her mum MARIA and dad AURAL on the road with her, as well as her manager and the rest of her entourage.

The singer's mum has taken up a full-time job as Leona's personal assistant on the tour.

Poor Leona. For a loner, she must find it bloody hard to get any time to herself.

In other non-news, Charlotte Church has gone on holiday. Or, as Gordon would have it:

Love split Charl on secret hol

A secret holiday? What does that actually mean? Do you mean she's sitting in a hotel now, eating breakfast in a suit, pretending she's actually on a business trip?

Charlotte, 24, jetted off with the couple's two children after telling friends she just wanted to "get away from it all."

It's one of those secret trips where you tell everyone you're going on holiday, then. So why do you insist it's secret?

The Over The Rainbow judge flew out of Cardiff to a mystery European destination saying she did not even know when she would be back.

Ah "secret" in the sense of "I do not know where it is".

Let's hope Gordon doesn't carry a grudge. You'll recall that he was very upset when Diana Vickers ignored one of his team. However could Diana win him back over?

DIANA VICKERS has taken Bizarre behind-the-scenes of her video shoot for new single The Boy Who Murdered Love.

The promo sees the X Factor star sexing up her image as she sprawls on a bed in a little white dress.

Yes, That would do it.

Feel free to delete that little bit of respect you found for Vickers, standing up to the Sun for a little while.

Gordon in the morning: Vickers in a twist

Well, that's Diana Vickers growing in most people's estimation, then:

FOR a second day running DIANA VICKERS has broken a rule of Bizarre's renowned school of celebrity

Yesterday, it turned out she was dating someone from Big Brother - apparently there's some sort of rule against reality show also-rans cross-dating with people from other shows.

So what she's done today? Signed up to record an album with Lembit Opik? Oh, no, it's much, much worse:

Now, she's snubbing my staff.

Gordon seems convinced this story reflects badly on Vickers, and it doesn't seem to have occurred to him that it might be his face upon which there is the egg.

[S]he lost Brownie points at the afterparty. While I had a 20-minute audience across town with WESTLIFE - who have sold millions of records worldwide - Diana didn't stop and shoot the breeze for more than a minute with my team-mate LIA NICHOLLS.

That's not cool.

Holy Jesus in a bucket - you were talking for twenty minutes with Westlife? No wonder right-thinking people were skirting your column like it was ticking.

Given that yesterday morning you cleared half your page to mock her for having Billy Bhatti as a friend, Vickers actually comes out of this reeking of dignity. While a man who runs a story saying 'even a minor pop star won't talk to me and it isn't cool'... perhaps less so.

Darkness at 3AM: Vickers in a to-do

Diana Vickers 'accidentally' tells the Mirror she's going out with someone:

Blushing, Diana said: “I don’t know why I said that – I am dating someone. I just got really flustered. We’ve been casually dating for a little while.

“He’s just a regular Joe, so he’d kill me if I say his name and because it’s at such an early stage I don’t want to tell anyone yet. I’m so busy it’s hard to fit a boyfriend in, we’re just seeing how it goes.”

How delightful for Vicker's paramour to open the paper today and see himself described as "an ordinary joe." I wonder if she makes him dress up in a boiler suit?

What makes it even more bemusing is that it's Diana Vickers. You're not Lady GaGa. You can imagine Mr. Ordinary Joe telling his mates "yeah, I'm seeing this woman - it's nobody you know, though..."

Vickers and arts: RCA caught like litter in the wind of public opinion

Who knew that anyone would have been waiting for Diana Vickers to release an album? And that, once it came within shouting distance, those people's reactions would not be one of stunned gratitude, but discontent?

James P takes up the story:

Diana Vickers, an X Factor reject from a couple of years back, is releasing an album soon. As is often the way, the record company thought that a good way to pique fan interest would be to tease them with a preview of the album cover artwork.

Unfortunately, the fans hated it.

The messageboards are awash with gripes. Some people hate the font, some hate the photo, some hate the colours. Interestingly though, RCA have taken these complaints on board and started to tweak the image. In what appears to be a depressing collision between pop music and focus groups, they've changed the colours used in the artwork and, as the fans are still grumbling, this may not be the last amendment they make.

It does make me grateful that the internet wasn't around forty years ago, album covers would've been rubbish. "The flowers are nice and I like the different-coloured suits, but it's too cluttered and I don't recognise most of the people. Couldn't they just use a photo of the band leaning over a bannister or something?" "What's a cake got to do with bleeding?" "Why isn't Paul wearing shoes? They should put some on him, otherwise people will think he's dead or something"

(It does make me wonder if it would be possible to organise a Facebook campaign demanding that the next Kasabian album features a photo of the band being mauled by bears, however)

It's interesting to see that RCA is responding to consumer demand so minutely. Almost as if they think they need every sale they can muster. Perhaps they should try a print-on-demand cover?

Presumably this wasn't in the X Factor contract? Surely?

Simon Cowell has whored out two teenagers' relationship in a bid to try and get people to watch ITV on Saturday night.

UPDATE: Due to some sort of machine translation error, the original text of this post appeared in a garbled form. It was intended to read Simon Cowell says X Factor couple Eoghan Quinn and Diana Vickers are 'in love'. Apologies if the impression was given that Cowell is prepared to stoop to any level to try and bark up an audience for his show and treats the ITV tea-time audience like credulous dopes.