Gordon in the morning: Jessie J votes for modesty

Gordon Smart has an interview this morning with Jessie J, where she attempts to bring the sort of 'let's keep things positive, everything's for the best' approach she used for judging on The Voice to the vexed question of Islamic dress.

"As an artist I try and be controversial and I have been a bit offensive at times. I have a view on the burka and I'm sure a few of the Muslim girls and their families would have a view of me on stage in next to nothing!"

Some of the families have a view of Jessie J writhing half-naked on the stage. The others bought cheaper seats and only had an obscured view.

Jessie, can you solve the problem of centuries of religious injunctions about the modesty of women, perhaps by pulling a statement that sounds like it's been lifted from a Disney song out of the air?

"I remember while I was at school some of my Muslim friends talked about a handful of people spoiling things in every culture. Hatred or hurt or pain isn't specific to a religion.

"I think it's a matter of acceptance. The one thing the world has to accept is everybody is different. What is normal to us is different and unusual to somebody else."

Expertly swerving the question at the heart of the issue - is it a choice, or is it enforced - Jessie J has just moved us straight to the hug at the end.

More interesting, surely, is the quote that kicks off the piece. Let's look at that again:

As an artist I try and be controversial

Wearing crop tops; making Top 40 pop; doing shows for charidee and tea-time telly. Yes, I can see the Vorticist influence there.

Gordon in the morning: Remember Madonna?

Gordon has a teaser question:

Chain reaction: Who’s the face behind mask?
POP star courts controversy by wearing religious-style get-up and a sword in mouth

It's going to be Madonna, isn't it?

Yes, of course it is.

Madonna courting controversy by a waving a lazy paw at a religion?

No, no, come back - because this time it isn't linked to a Pepsi ad.

What's she done, Gordon?

The Queen of Pop has upset religious fanatics – again – by dressing up in this Muslim niqab-style chainmail mask.

She posted the snap with the message: “The Revolution of Love is on... Inshallah”.

It’s no doubt a comment on female oppression.

Really? This has upset people? I suppose people are touchy.

Well, Gordon, tell us who's upset.





Gordon?



Who are these "upset religious fanatics?"

It turns out there aren't any, and so Gordon falls back on a "friend" insisting that it's all very edgy:

But a pal of the singer, who also shared a photo of herself biting a sword warned: “Stirring up controversy about Muslim practices is something Madonna knows could be putting her life at risk.”

That sound you can hear? It's Salman Rushdie's eyes opening so wide in disbelief his forehead is at risk of ripping clean off.

Michael Jackson 'died from not being Muslim' says Jermaine

Jermaine Jackson knows what killed Michael Jackson, and points the finger firmly at Jackson not being Islamic:

“I felt that if Michael would have embraced Islam he would still be here today and I say that for many reasons,” said Jermaine in an interview to be broadcast on the BBC World Service on Friday.

“Why? Because when you are 100 per cent clear in your mind as to who you are and what you are and why you are and everybody around you, then things change in a way that’s better for you. It’s just having that strength. God is so powerful.”

Oh, no, hang on - it was living in America which did for him:

Jermaine, 55, also said that he had wanted Michael to get out of America because it was “having a cherry-picking time on my brother”.

He continued: “The love that they are giving my brother now he is dead, is the love they should have shown him when he was alive.”

Don't be silly, Jermaine - if they'd have shown him all this love when he was alive, he would have got the money.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet - muslim punk

The Chicago Sun-Times meets Muslim punks. Once you're past the "hey - they're punks, but they're also Muslim" sitcom style pitchery, it's an interesting piece.

Black Eyed Peas: A plausible reason for turning to Islam

The government of Malaysia has issued a ruling barring Muslims from attending a Kuala Lumpur gig this September.

They're worried that the sponsors - Guinness - don't sit well with the rules of the religion. It's unclear if there will be any punishment for people simply pretending to be Muslim as an easy way to get out of going to the gig.

Basingstoke: Is nowhere safe?

It seems that running, straight-faced, stories about extremists lifted from the right-wing papers is a new habit of the NME. Hot on the heels from the non-existent Jewish hate list it saw in the Sun comes something it saw in the Mail about a radio station:

A local radio station's website was hacked into by 'extremists' because they played a song by Cliff Richard, the station's owner claims.

Radio Basingstoke was swapped for a message warning "the west" that they should not insult Islam.

Actually, the station's owner didn't really say that:

[Owner of the station Astrid] Haigh-Smith said: "I just thought maybe it was because we had commented that we hoped our troops would be safe over Christmas. We’ve also played the Cliff Richard version of 'Hallelujah', but we would never dream of running down any religions."

Astrid does offer Cliff Richard as a possible reason for the hacking, but clearly in a "I can't think of any reason we'd be targeted, apart from the odd Cliff Richard record we don't have any religious programming' fashion rather than 'Oh, God - Richard has brought the wrath of Allah down on our heads' way.

The more prosaic truth is that a small web-radio outfit like Radio Basingstoke - whose website has the cheery admission it's "designed by Low Cost Websites" - probably has less of a security infrastructure to head off hacker attacks than, say, Radio 2 might have while still sounding, to someone without an intimate knowledge of the UK media scene, to be a significant web presence to capture.

It could, just as easily, have been Melissa and Daughter

Yusuf Islam has accepted a libel payout from the World Entertainment News Network after the service published a story that extrapolated wildly from his name and claimed he wouldn't speak to women who didn't wear the veil. Oh, and even if women did wear a veil, he'd still only speak to them through third parties.

Which doesn't even make sense - why would it be okay for the "third party" to speak to women if Islam couldn't? Or did WENN think that he used a different third party each time? "You've spoken to women now, so effectively, you're as bad as them."

Islam is giving the damages to his charity. ContactMusic, which also ran the story, is going to chip in, too.

Gordon in the morning: Trouble with the conversion

Gordon Smart has astonishing news of a prison conversion:

Doherty turns to Islam in jail

Really?

Erm, no: it turns out he's filling in some of his time in jail reading the Qur'an - which isn't quite the same thing as "turning to Islam". Doubtless if he'd picked up a copy of Death On The Nile, Gordon would have reported him as having turned to murder.

It's only a few weeks since Smart was claiming that Doherty had become a Scientologist, wasn't it?

Having decided he's adopting a new religion, Gordon then decides to rubbish Doherty's Muslim credentials:

Click on the link below to see all the reasons why Pete would make a rubbish Muslim.

But - let's pretend he's converting, shall we - isn't the point about adopting a new religion that you usually do so because you feel you've been living your life in the wrong fashion? Aren't all religions usually expecting new recruits to have a lot of weakness and sin to offset? Otherwise it wouldn't be that difficult, would it?