Gordon in the morning: All power to the Dumas

Is Gordon tiring of the tabloid life? He's started throwing about latin and literary references:

IT can only be a matter of time before ID star HARRY STYLES’ tattoo collection contains Latin.

And after hearing about the band’s clever contract, I think I’ve got the perfect phrase for him: “Omnes pro uno, unus pro omnibus”.

Alexandre Dumas’ coined the motto “All for one, one for all” in his novel The Three Musketeers.

Gordon, calm down - this is getting a wee bit highbrow for the column that is usually tracking who is having sex with whom. People might think you're some sort of intellectual. Wind it back it, man.

I know it well from the cartoon Dogtanian And The Muskehounds on TV when I was a nipper.

That's more like it.

Gordon rushed to the library after being inspired by One Direction's new contract:

It is the perfect summary for the legally binding document that Harry, LOUIS, LIAM, NIALL and ZAYN have signed — which basically means that if one jacks it in, all five suffer the same brutal financial punishment.
[...]
[A source said] “If one of them walks away before then, then all five miss out on the money.

“They don’t miss out on a few quid either, we are talking millions.

“They all get on really well, but it would be the kind of deal that would see them through the worst aggro possible.”

Hmm. Isn't the problem with this supposedly genius bit of legal paperwork that, if someone gets so pissed off with being an origami song-and-dance act that they're prepared to walk away from a multi-million deal, they'd probably have reached the point where they'd see being able to quit and cause enormous pain to their former colleagues as a bit of a bonus.

Presumably the yawning, empty days left even her unable to face a third autobiography

Fresh from her success asking an important question at the Reith Lectures - we don't think it added to the debate, but the rapid rotation of John Reith's corpse was harnessed to power a city the size of Dundee for a week - Geri Halliwell has now written a children's book.

Cleverly, rather than bother making up characters, she's just stuck real people in:

Halliwell also revealed how she has based one of her characters on former bandmate Victoria Beckham, who in the book is called Princess Posh Vatoria.

She got Victoria's permission, which is probably wise as "thinly disguised" wouldn't really cover that one, would it?

Gordon Ramsay is also in the book. No, us neither.

Of course, Geri's well-known for her way with words:

"One of the greatest gifts in life is actually to love what you do. For me, writing Ugenia Lavender is one of them.

"When I write these stories about Ugenia I feel like I'm going on an adventure. I start with an idea and I never know how it's going to end up until I get there.

"I have loved reading since I was a little girl. Books by CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and Oscar Wilde have always been my great escape, without getting my fingers burnt.

"Creating Ugenia Lavender was like a rebirth. I started developing the idea two and half years ago, but it wasn't until I was pregnant that I really got down to writing seriously. Since then something has possessed me, and I can't stop. It's like Ugenia Lavender has a life of her own."

... which is quite something for a character that doesn't get much beyond one-dimension.

We love the idea that someone who would write books uses a phrase like "books... have always been my great escape, without getting my fingers burnt" - what does that even almost mean? Does Geri think that the usual way of escaping something is by putting your hands onto a lit stove? Or is she being much cleverer than you expect, and it's an allusion to the idea of a physical escape, climbing down a rope from a window of a high tower, where you might, indeed, burn your hands as you flee?

We're trying to imagine what a book written inspired CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and Oscar Wilde would be like. We imagine the basic prose of Blyton, the inability to create a metaphor without slapping "THIS IS A METAPHOR - LOOK, HE'S JUST LIKE JESUS IN THE BIBLE AND THIS IS A BIT LIKE THE BIBLE, DO YOU SEE?" on it from Lewis and the narcissism of Wilde.

[Thanks to Michael for the link]

Notebooks out, plagiarists

There's something quite inspired about the idea of inviting writers to contribute short stories based on Fall songtitles. After all, even after listening to some of Mark E Smith's songs, you're still trying to work out what the hell he's on about so there's lots of room for further inspiration.

Perverted By Language, edited by Peter Wild, stretches from Niall Griffiths' Bingo-Masters Break Out to Rebbecca Ray's I Can Hear The Grass Grow. Rumours that Gillian Keith is organising a non-fiction sequel, Eat Y'rself Fitter, are lies.