Girls Aloud switch off

I don't think there's much surprise here - it couldn't have been more obvious this was a farewell tour had it been called "The Farewell Tour" - but it's been confirmed Girls Aloud are no more. They announced the end through a series of tweets:

"Dear Alouders, we just want to say from the bottom of our hearts Thank you!!

"This tour has been an amazing experience and the perfect chance to say thank you for being on this journey with us through a decade.

"It has far exceeded any of our dreams and we hope we are forever your inspiration and reminder that dreams really do glitter!!

"Your love and support will stay with us forever but we have now come to the end of our incredible time together. Love you lots."

It's not a bad outcome for winning a gameshow.

Oh, go on, then:

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?

Gordon in the morning: Summit up

Apparently unaware that he's talking about a relationship and not a business deal to provide a small chain of stores with lightbulbs, Gordon focuses on a forthcoming summit:

TOM Crane is jetting into the UK next week for showdown talks with Sarah Harding.

Doubtless there's a slightly-too-small conference room in a Holiday Inn off the M25 being prepared with off-brand bottled water and too-thin ballpoint pens for these talks.

Nicola Roberts not bothered by success

Record sales? Nicola Roberts isn't in it for the record sales:

"You don't make music for commercial reasons. You make music because it's what you love to do," she told The Sun. "Not everybody can always like something. That's just the way it is. Maybe they'll like the next one better. That's how I look at it."

Of course she's not just putting a brave face on her solo album juddering to a halt at number 40; clearly, she's only ever made music because of the love of the music she's making. Why else would she have gone on a talent show to try and win a place in a band, any band, if she wasn't solely motivated by the desire to make whatever sort of music it would be that she'd be told to make in that band?

Gordon in the morning: You're fired

In order to help with her cosmetics range, Nicola Roberts is doing some research:

NICOLA Roberts is about to start taking Alan Sugar to bed with her.

The Girls Aloud star has bought the mogul's book, What You See Is What You Get, to become more business savvy.

I'm no business expert, but I'd suggest that not taking advice from the bloke who created the Amstrad Emailer would be a pretty fundamental business tip.

Gordon in the morning: In the teeth of common sense

Nicola Roberts has had her teeth fixed. Strangely, this seems to be unacceptable cosmetic surgery for Gordon, who has decided to poke fun at her:

NICOLA ROBERTS could always join The Beano if her singing career goes up the spout.

I'm not sure how a real person would "join" a comic, even if she had teeth.

Did I say it was Gordon who was having a go? Oh, no, let me correct that:

Her GIRLS ALOUD bandmates have poked fun at her new teeth by nicknaming her Gnashers.

Yes, it's "the rest of Girls Aloud" who are doing the laughing. Because, you know, it'd be unseemly for a man in his 30s pointing and giggling at a younger girl who had worries about her appearance.

Still, it's better than the dull story about one of Kasabian giving a boxer an England shirt, which appears to be little more than free advertising for Umbro.

Girls Aloud: Dark doings behind the scenes

A few years back, Kaiser Chiefs popped up on light ent confection An Audience With Girls Aloud. It turns out now that Ricky Wilson had got cold feet about the idea:

"By the same token, it felt like the wrong thing at the wrong time. We tried to pull out, but we were basically... threatened. That's all I can say about that right now."

I'm struggling to think of a scenario where anyone organising a Girls Aloud special would be so desperate to keep the Kaiser Chiefs onboard that they resorted to the old "be a pity if anything happened to your drummer" routine. It's fair to say that the band had perhaps started the southwards part of their career cycle at that point.

In other Kaiser Chiefs news, they've launched their new album The Future Is Medieval as a pyramid sales format. You choose ten tracks from the twenty on offer, and make a 'personal' CD. The twist is that, if you can get someone to buy 'your' version of the album, you get a pound. Which is a novel idea, kind of a limited affiliate marketing scheme.

Gordon in the morning: Olympian

The headline is pretty clear:

Girls Aloud set for Olympics

Really? Is the Team GB BMX squad scraping around for members?

No, of course, Gordon is telling us that the band are going to play at the Olympics:

GIRLS ALOUD are planning their biggest ever gig - to mark their 10th anniversary next year.

They have their eyes on the OLYMPIC GAMES for their landmark celebratory show.

Eyes set on... so you mean: they'd like to play?

[Manager Hilary Shaw] is now talking to promoters about a slot alongside top acts such as COLDPLAY and, potentially, THE ROLLING STONES.

In other words, she's hoping that by trying to make it sound like it's going to happen, by plopping the story in the press, it might have to happen.

Coldplay frontman CHRIS MARTIN is a big fan of the girls so he will fight their corner to get them on the bill. And KEITH RICHARDS wouldn't be found complaining either - with RONNIE WOOD on his best behaviour he'd be delighted with a better looking backstage boozing partner in Sarah.

Oh, yes. That'll swing it - there must be someone for Keith Richards to crash about backstage, pissed out their heads.

Apparently, the idea was to play Glastonbury, but they were the last people to find out that there isn't one next year; so instead, it's the Olympics.

Although actually, it isn't even the Olympics. If you were thinking "opening ceremony", or "closing ceremony", you'd made the mistake the headline was trying to get you to make. This is some grisly "best of British as judged by the sort of people who assemble gigs like they're trade shows" which is going to be happening in the O2 at the same time.

Delicious: Roberts and Metronomy

You've got to be that whatever emerges from Metronomy working with Nicola Roberts, it's going to be a whole hat-full more interesting than Will I Am churning out something with Cheryl Cole.

Gordon in the morning: Limited release leads to limited sales shock

Gordon has some fun poking Nadine Coyle with a stick this morning:

NADINE COYLE has sold an embarrassing 117 copies of her debut solo single.

117 is quite disappointing. Although a couple of paragraphs later, Gordon admits that she hasn't actually sold 117 copies at all:

The singer, who released Insatiable exclusively through the supermarket, flogged 117 copies, according to official first-day sales figures on Monday. Digital sales were dire too - just 2,439.

So, "sold 117 copes of her single" if you ignore all of Tuesday's sales and all the download sales. And you can only buy the physical record in one place - a store which tends to do most of its business at the other end of the week. And you can't find the mp3 everywhere, either - Amazon don't have it, for instance.

So, in that context, perhaps not such a terrible result.

CHERYL COLE's sales figures rub further salt into Nadine's wounds.

The X Factor judge has shifted 566 hard copies of track Promise This and 27,643 on t'internet - in her second week of sales. And she sold a whopping 157,000 copies in the first week.

T'internet? You're still doing that, Gordon?

Given that Cole is everywhere - both metaphorically and in terms of stockists - and it's only the second week of sales, I'd say those figures are probably more worrying for Cole than Coyle.

RIHANNA racked up 47,000 downloads with new song Only Girl (In the World).

That doesn't really sound like many. Sure, Nadine's not shifted much, but isn't the story here that all the sales figures are pretty grim here?

Smart pegs Coyle at 35 in the midweek charts - which is more interesting in its own right. If you're down to about 3,000 sales before you get out of the Top 40, how many singles do you have to sell to make the top 100? I feel as if I should be turning up there. I've not sold any singles at all, but it looks like that should guarantee an entry in the low 80s.

But Gordon's story isn't about the state of the music industry; it's all about kicking the heck out of Nadine Coyle:

At this rate she'll be in the reduced aisle with stale muffins by Thursday.

There's no mistaking Nadine's got a good set of pipes, but she's about as endearing as malaria.

Maybe if she'd put some work in over here instead of keeping her head down in LA, it would have fared better.

Most people who Gordon write about go to California, and they're living it large, Hollywood-style. Nadine Coyle goes there, and she's sneaking away in some posh foreign hidey-hole.

Her increasing rift with popular bandmates SARAH HARDING, NICOLA ROBERTS, KIMBERLEY WALSH and Cheryl can't have helped either.

She's in a rift with the popular ones.

Popular with The Sun, clearly.

Smart's bullying looks like a desperate attempt to keep in with Girls Aloud and The X Factor mothership.

It also makes you warm more and more to Nadine Coyle.

Edith Bowman: Rock critic

Edith Bowman unhappy with the current state of pop:

[She] hit out at current pop acts for offering nothing different, reports the Daily Star.

"We need something different - everyone is the same," she said.

Yes, yes, you've got a point there, Edith. If only you had some position to influence that - you know, like some sort of programme on a national radio station where you could promote new and interesting music. That'd be handy.

Perhaps you could try persuading Radio 1 to replace the woman with same name as you who does a programme for them - it can't be the same Edith Bowman, can it, as that Edith Bowman packs her show with The Hoosiers, 30 Seconds To Mars and Kasabian.

This Edith Bowman, the one talking to the Star, is much different. She has a mind like a forensic music-blade:

On The Saturdays, whose new single charted at number three yesterday, she added: "They are just copying Girls Aloud."

You know what, I think she might be right. I've investigated, and it's almost as if some people in an office had attempted to concoct a version of Girls Aloud that cost a little less to run using slightly cheaper ingredients. I can't imagine how I'd missed that before Edith pointed it out.

Mind you, having opened my mind to the possibility that this sort of thing happens, I'm now starting to suspect that Edith Bowman might just be copying Jo Whiley. Surely that can't be, though?

Gordon in the morning: No Cher' Cole by the charcoal

Having thrown his lot behind the idea that Nadine Coyle is heading out Girls Aloud, Gordon is now scouring information to try and support his hypothesis:

NADINE COYLE has denied there's a problem with her and the rest of GIRLS ALOUD.

So why wouldn't she invite CHERYL COLE round for a tasty chargrilled sausage when they were just a few miles apart?

The singers are in the same neighbourhood in Hollywood but the Geordie's invite for her Irish chum's barbie must have got lost in the post.

Or maybe she was invited and had something else to do. Or maybe it's ridiculous to suggest that because they work together they have to socialise as well - I'll be Dominic Mohan has loads of parties that he doesn't invite Gordon to. All the time, I'll bet. But just because Dominic breaks out the grill, and is throwing on fat juicy steaks and opening the second-best wine without Gordon being there wouldn't mean that there's some sort of rift, surely?

Gordon in the morning: Nadine Coyle is the new Robbie Williams

The really strange thing about the coverage of the decision of Nadine Coyle to quit Girls Aloud (or, rather, the rest to quit Nadine) is the way it's being pitched.

Gordon, having already restored Cheryl's married name, seems to be running some sort of party line. This isn't a split in the band, it's merely a reunion to which one person is not going to turn up:

GIRLS ALOUD are definitely getting back together next year - but not all of them.

The fantastic five will be slimmed down to a fabulous four as NADINE COYLE will have no part in the reunion.

SARAH HARDING, NICOLA ROBERTS, KIMBERLEY WALSH and CHERYL COLE have begun sketching ideas for their comeback - but their Northern Irish bandmate does not figure in their plans.

It's been something of a running joke how quickly bands reunite after their splits these days, but I think Girls Aloud might have the record for having the reunion before they've even split up.

Whoever has fed the story to The Sun is keen to rubbish Nadine:

A source said: "It's been a painful decision for Sarah, Nicola, Kimberley and Cheryl but they have decided that the future of Girls Aloud lies without Nadine.

"They've all been on a roller-coaster ride since 2002 and have just grown apart from Nadine.

"Relations with her had been strained within the camp for a while."

And if they weren't before, they will be now.

Gordon in the morning: Is it possible to find something worthwhile to report about Cheryl Tweedy's malaria?

Even Gordon knows mother visits hospital to see unwell daughter is a pretty lame story, which might be why he's sent one of his team to cover it.

But hang on... here comes an exciting new angle:

JLS star ORITSE WILLIAMS sent Cheryl his best wishes, saying: "I've had malaria and it's pretty bad. Get well soon, Cheryl."

I know that JLS don't exist without publicity, but trying to showboat on someone with malaria is pretty low. Let's just hope Tulisa N-Dubz isn't trying to knock together a "it's like when I had swine flu, only it wasn't, but it was sort of like it..." press release.

Gordon in the morning: Raking over the cold Coles

Gordon calls in Virginia Wheeler to help him with this morning's big story - a world exclusive, no less: Cheryl Cole is divorcing Ashley.

Yes, a world exclusive. I'll bet the New York Times and Liberation are kicking themselves they've missed out on this one.

Cheryl is portrayed throughout like someone The Sun desperately needs to keep sweet ("like some sort of saint"):

GENEROUS CHERYL COLE is not asking for one penny from cheating husband ASHLEY in the divorce action she launched yesterday.

Multi-millionaire with several lucrative jobs not needing support from other multi-millionaire, then.

But it's not just that she's not seeking money from the divorce. Oh no, Saint Cheryl is also timing the divorce so as not to ruin the World Cup:

And she has told lawyers to rush through a quickie divorce because she is determined the key England defender must go into the World Cup without being distracted by "emotional turmoil". An insider told The Sun last night:

"Cheryl made a swift decision to put England's World Cup dreams ahead of herself. The divorce should be finalised before England's first touch of the ball in South Africa on June 12."

A cynic might wonder if the timing is more about maximising the publicity impact of the divorce by timing it when it becomes a World Cup story. This is the marriage break-up equivalent of those Edam flavour crisps - there's not any real reason for them; they don't really have any connection to the World Cup; they smell a little odd and taste even ranker.

If Cole really was putting the World Cup ahead of her emotional wellbeing, wouldn't the timing of the divorce have been at a totally different time, rather than slap-bang in the days before kick-off?

The marriage always had the air of a business deal; the ending of it as The Official England Team Divorce (TM) doesn't really do anything to dispel that notion.

In other Gordon-flavoured news, the gap at the top of the Glastonbury bill is worrying him:

Zeppelin guitarist JIMMY PAGE immediately put his band in the frame to replace the Irish rockers. He said: "I refuse to rule anything out."

That's not really putting yourself in the frame, is it?

The band haven't played together since 2007; they haven't been preparing for this. Parachuting into a headline slot in a month's time sounds a bit of a stretch. And that would be if Robert Plant was interested. Which he isn't.

Mind you, things could be worst:

Eavis is also talking to CHRIS MARTIN about COLDPLAY filling U2's boots, and I reckon they will accept. They are big fans of Glasto.

Well, yes, they'd be worthy replacements, allowing most people to switch the TV off and yell "that sodbag" at exactly the point they would have done if Bono had come on.

As I revealed earlier this week, DIZZEE RASCAL, already on this year's Pyramid Stage bill, has been asked to prepare for the job too.

Really? No disrespect to Mr Rascal, but that's really like parachuting John Craven in to present Newsnight, isn't it?

Gordon in the morning: Choices, choices

For Alexandra Burke the city was crowded, her friends were away, and she was on her own:

While other chart stars had headed off to Bangor in Wales to perform at Radio 1's Big Weekend, Alexandra chose to thrill the crowds in the capital.

She played GAY - which really has become just another tick box on the list now - rather than playing the big, high-profile Bangor event on the TV and the radio and the onlines. That much is true. I'm doubting there was very much "choice" involved, though.

Meanwhile, Cheryl Cole is burbling on about how GREAT it is to be thin:

The 5ft 3in X Factor judge, who weighs 7st, revealed a fan keeps her image on the fridge as motivation for gym sessions.

She said: "I like to think I can be inspiring someone like that."

Surely that would only work if you took your fridge to the gym? Wouldn't it be better to have the picture of Cole on your gym locker? Or does she just despise Cole so much, she can't stand to be in the house if there's a photo of her on the fridge?

I wonder which picture of Cole the fan has put on the fridge door? Perhaps this is the one she uses to "thinspire" her:

But it's not all great for Cheryl, you know:

But Cheryl, 26, finds being a beauty icon "cringeworthy".

Well, if by "being a beauty icon" she means "appearing in Nestle's L'Oreal adverts", yes, that is pretty cringeworthy.

Gordon rounds off his piece with this helpful background detail:

The GIRLS ALOUD star is rumoured to follow the blood group diet, which limits foods to a person's blood type.

That's unlike the rest of Girls Aloud, who enjoy all the blood groups in their diet.alex

Gordon in the morning: Thin day

Coming this spring to Channel 4 - a whole new season of Dharma and Greg. She's a free-flowing free spirit who loves life; he's an uptight, buttoned-down kind of guy who finds intimacy and spontaneity awkward. Can their love survive their crazy mismatched coupling?

Oh... hang on a moment, it turns out that's actually a photo of Gordon Smart meeting Nadine Coyle for a chat.

I bumped into her yesterday in London's Air Studios

What a strange coincidence - and just a few hours after Gordon published a story about how thin Coyle looks these days. Just happened to bump into her, with a photographer alongside him.

Gordon, of course, doesn't really understand all this obsession with weight:

I'm a fella writing a column and I find the obsession with female celebs' weight a bit odd.

Really, Gordon?

Except when it comes to Colin Farrell, presumably:

COLIN FARRELL looks like a man who has been hanging around with AMY WINEHOUSE.

Colin was snapped after a dip in Malibu, showing off the body of a man who hasn't had a sniff of Guinness in months.

Or when reporting on a song telling Keira Knightley she's too thin:

The lyrics go: "Keira, Keira, eat your dinner. Keira, Keira, you can't get much thinner. Go to a restaurant with Michael Winner. Keira, Keira, eat your dinner."

Brilliant.

I can't imagine weight-conscious Keira will be too pleased with the tune though.

It might even put her off her dinner.

To see if you agree with Jilted see more pics of Keira in our slideshow.

And, naturally, if it'a about Amy Winehouse, well, you'd have to chip in:

AN emaciated AMY WINEHOUSE partied in London last night in scenes that have become worringly familiar for the skinny star.

And, obviously, you can't write about James Corden without mentioning it:

EDDIE LARGE, LES DAWSON and RONNIE BARKER are comedy giants in every sense of the word.

Big guys with huge personalities who got to the very top.

The latest in this noble line of plus-size funnymen to find fame is Bizarre Award winner JAMES CORDEN.

But alarming news reaches me - the cuddly comic may not stay tubby much longer.

For a man who doesn't understand the obsession with weight, he seems to write about it a hell of a lot. Perhaps he doesn't really like Kasabian, either.

Still - despite not really understanding the obsession - Gordon carried out his fearless investigation into Nadine's body shape:

To give the size of her legs some scale I put my thigh next to hers. Nadine is tiny but she didn't look unhealthily skinny.

That might just sound like a chance to rub your thigh on a pretty woman's leg, but actually - since the body mass index was revealed to be flawed - comparing your leg with a model of Gordon Smart's has become a recognised medical test.

Naturally, Gordon didn't spend all his time wondering if he should suggest comparing chest sizes, but the Ashley Cole part of the conversation was so groundbreaking, it requires its own URL:

[T]he Girls Aloud star insisted she would blank love rat ASHLEY COLE if he walked into the studios where we were chatting.

She said: "I'd just sit here and say nothing."

Woman not prepared to tolerate mate's cheating ex. Front pages, surprisingly, unheld.

Gordon in the morning: A record of sorts

Sun single breaks charity record

Well, yes, although (as we observed last week) not quite the record they were originally aiming at:

THE Sun's Helping Haiti single sold 350,000 copies in just FOUR DAYS - becoming the fastest-selling charity single of the millennium.

That's very careful wording indeed. Not biggest selling, not even biggest selling charity single, but fastest-selling charity single in the last ten years.

Obviously, it's put about a third of a million quid in the pot for Haiti, and so it's not a bad thing, and it's selling alright. But even with the combined weight of The Sun, ITV, Simon Cowell and Gordon Brown behind it, it's been something of a stutter. You can't help wondering if all those rich people involved, with all that time, and all that coverage, could not have come up with something a little more imaginative than yet another charity sing-along.

Still: selling a bit faster than the X Factor single for Great Ormond Street. There's always a positive angle.

Back in Gordon's normal realm, and - after a spell where he seemed quite happy with their sticking together - Gordon's returned to last year's attempts to persuade Cheryl Cole to liquidate her contract with Ashley. Today, he's using the rest of Girls Aloud as sock puppets:

A close friend of the group said: "As far as they're concerned Ashley is holding Cheryl back. He doesn't deserve her and she doesn't deserve any of this worry."

Gordon! Are you calling yourself a close friend of the group now?

Gordon in the morning: Uncoyling

Gordon has something of a scoop this morning - if it's true - pointing out that Nadine Coyle's attempts to spin her a solo career has failed:

Nadine was even turned down by Girl's Aloud's OWN record company, Polydor, and other labels in the same Universal business group.

Polydor had the first rights to sign any of the five ladies if they wanted to go solo.

A source said: "Nadine had meetings but none of the Universal labels wanted to take her on. She's tried to get a deal elsewhere but with no luck."

This seems a little odd; Nadine being a better singer than Cheryl Cole. Perhaps she's less keen on jumping through hoops? Or maybe she had her own ideas about what she wanted to do, which run contrary to the record company model (= push-up bra, short skirt; whack some shop-bought tune through a computer; promote on Loose Women and GM:TV. Repeat until fade.)

Oh, let's hope she's being difficult. But surely she must have the money to pay for a studio and self-release some stuff?

Still, Gordon seems pretty clear that failing to land a record deal is the end of the dream.

Up to a point, though, as elsewhere it's not even a setback:

Boomtown Brat PIXIE GELDOF is yet to sign her record deal but will be releasing a single soon.