Noel Gallagher is worse than his brother at fashion

To be honest, we'd assumed that Pretty Green set the bar so high for 'terrible Oasis related fashion activity' that it was a record which would never be beaten. Like Seb Coe's 800 metres in 1981, it looked like we'd found a marker in human endeavour that would endure.

But like Seb Coe's record, nothing lasts forever.

There's something worse just round the corner:

Noel Gallagher has partnered with Adidas for a new signature shoe.

The former Oasis guitarist has designed his version of the Garwen SPZL trainers as part of Adidas’ 2017 spring SPEZIAL range.

Hang on a moment, though. It's not just Noel Gallagher Has Designed A Plimsole. Because that would be worthy of being terrible in its own right. But it's the design he's come up with that really lifts this to 'world-beatingly godawful':

The shoe comes in indigo leather and is said to be 70s-inspired, featuring a picture of Noel on the shoe’s tongue and his date of birth inside.

Ninety Nine Pounds. For a shoe that only really functions as a way that Liam can remember when he's meant to send Noel a birthday card.

Some of the Adidas celeb tie-ups now are so bad, I suspect they're just an elaborate trolling activity on the part of a company which has frankly grown bored of fiddling with the sleeve length on football jerseys.

There's a new Coldplay album, everyone

At first, I assumed this from the BBC website was an early review of A Head Full Of Dreams:

- but then I realised that there's going to be a lot more boring songs on the album than that.

There was a useful capsule review on Twitter, though:

You guys Noel Gallagher is on the new Coldplay album. This tweet is our review.

— Norman Records (@normanrecords) November 6, 2015

Horrifying as this news is, it makes a bit of sense and you can't help wishing that maybe Coldplay and Oasis had merged back in the early days of the century, so we could have concentrated on avoiding just one lumbering beast.

Could the prospect be made any less appealing, though, than this hooking up of Gallagher with Coldplay? Oh, yes. Yes, it can:

Coldplay have explained how Guns N' Roses influenced their new track 'Adventure Of A Lifetime'.

Now, you're probably thinking what I did - "presumably like Guns N Roses they realised they'd reached the end of what their basic talents would allow, and decided to try and disguise it with overblown pomposity?" - but that's not quite it:

Martin continued: "I’d been begging Jonny [Buckland] our guitarist for years to make a riff that I like as much as 'Sweet Child O' Mine' by Guns N' Roses, then he showed me that one, and I was like, 'That's it!' So those elements all came together, and we just wanted to kind of embrace our love of joyful music and sort of let it free."

"Why don't you write something I like as much as Sweet Child O' Mine" shows a surprising level of self-awareness on Martin's part, assuming that he realises he's admitting that nothing Coldplay have yet recorded is as good as that. (To be fair, he could also ask Buckland why he doesn't do something as good as Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs for the same reason.)

So, a bright new Coldplay album out at the start of December. Start practising your "oh, this gift is just what I wanted" faces, gang.

A small round of applause

Hadley Freeman sticks up for Kate Moss in today's Guardian, and in the course of it says this:

I’ve heard and read plenty of tut-tutting about Moss’s alleged former drug use, with much headshaking about the global damage done by drug users and so on, and that’s just grand: well done on your “virtue signalling”, to borrow a useful term coined by the New Statesman’s Helen Lewis. Strangely, though, I very rarely hear such qualms expressed about, oh, let’s say, Noel Gallagher, who has talked frequently about his former cocaine abuse and yet now seems on the fast track to national treasure status, despite writing songs so boring I honestly believe they should not be played on the radio out of concern for drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

Noel Gallagher seems to think we want an Oasis reunion

If you were told that Noel Gallagher was issuing demands about the possibility of an Oasis reunion, you'd probably assume he was making threats - "give me a knighthood or I swear we'll do a four-night residency at the Albert Hall", that sort of thing.

Instead, it seems like he's convinced it's a thing people want and is trying to negotiate on that basis:

Tell [McCartney] if he writes our comeback single, it's on. Tell him to write an Oasis track and then we'll talk. I'll just put that out there.

Apparently having pretty much written the entire Oasis back catalogue isn't enough; Noel wants McCartney to actually write a song for Oasis instead of just doing all the groundwork.

Coming tomorrow: Gallagher says that if Ringo Starr agrees to do the clean-up, he'll take a dump on your living room carpet.

What the pop papers say: Ails to the chief

Noel Gallagher's on the cover of the NME this week, which can mean only one thing. (And, yes, it does - Pete Doherty's on the cover next week.)

Noel on the cover; and inside, there's an amusing interview with a grouchy, funny giant of the Manchester music scene.

No, not Noel; Mark E Smith:

I mean, the Arctic Monkeys, come on. They've been to music college [this is not true]. They've got degrees in tock music [this isn't true, either]. I think some of them have got passes in The Fall.
[...]
I get sent magazines with all this advice for new bands... and it's 'Number one, get a decent bank account.' It's like applying to university. There was always privilege in music, but nowadays you don't have a chance in hell."

That's the way you do it. But then Smith doesn't have the problem Gallagher does - he's not trying to square a working class hero image with struggling with paying to send his kids to school; his anecdotes are about Pixies fans trying to take selfies rather than (as Noel does) stories about being on the red carpet at the BAFTAs.

The NME is still calling Noel "the chief"; I'm hoping this is ironic, given his timorous, weak new album - the way men in their 80s who were something in the Raj were still called The Major long after the sun had set on the Empire they once bestrode and the career they once had.

There's six pages of Noel, and Tom Howard gives him an easy ride. Especially when there's a strand of his thinking that's a little disturbing.

First, Gallagher trots through the Ali G defence for sending his kid to private school. We've heard this before, of course:

Good for you that you don't have to go to fucking school and come home talking like fucking Ali G, because, believe me, I would beat that out of you

Let's hope that Noel's using "beat that out of you" as a figure of speech. Let's hope that.

But - as the last time he used 'I don't want my kids to sound like Ali G' justification for swerving the local comprehensive - what does "sounding like Ali G" mean?

It could be that he simply means that he doesn't want his children to sound like working class kids do these days - a strange position for a man who has made his money out of tales of working class upbringing. Suddenly, Gallagher is concerned about "speaking proper", is he?

Or it could be that "talking like Ali G" means "talking like Ali G" - co-opting the speech patterns and slang of young black men?

Later on, Gallagher is talking about his support for the Teenage Cancer Trust - one of the things that reflects really well on him. It's a great cause, and Noel has really gone above and beyond in the work he does for them.

There's a but.

I like it because it's a charity for British kids, and it's real, you know

Not a charity for kids who are unwell; not that they're facing a massive challenge at a time of their lives when they should just be enjoying themselves.

It's a charity for British kids.

As opposed to what, exactly, Noel?

It's not as if Noel hasn't helped charities aiding people cursed with the misfortune to not have been born British on top of their other problems - Oasis were one of the main attractions for War Child, for a start. It makes the phrase even more puzzling.

Like the Ali G remark, it feels less like a racist stance and more a throwback to Victorian charity-begins-at-home Little Englanderism; a faint whiff of the UKIPs that Noel himself would probably be surprised to notice.

Maybe The Chief has more in common with The Major than we'd first expect.

Elsewhere, Laura Snapes watches Sleater-Kinney, deftly linking Carrie's claim that their music is an "obliteration of the sacred" with their presence as "some sort of religious totem".

Emily McKay talks to Kim Deal, making a game attempt to get to the bottom of the Pixies split but deciding it's better to hear about the Breeders than it is to pursue the matter.

You do wonder, though: The Fall, Noel Gallagher; Sleater-Kinney; a Radiohead The Bends feature; Mark E Smith; The Breeders... why on earth are young people not buying the NME? Is it because they're not really much in the NME these days?

One last thing: Between page 52 and page 59, Pete Doherty has morphed in Peter Doherty. Might want to decide on which it is before you lay out next week's cover, guys.

Noel Gallagher puts a price on an Oasis reunion

Is an Oasis reunion out the question? Not as far as you might hope, as Noel Gallagher has terms:

Noel Gallagher recently sat down for an interview with Vulture, stating he would reform Oasis for a fee of “half a billion”. Gallagher readying the release of his new High Flying Birds album ‘Chasing Yesterday’, which is out Monday 2nd March.

Asked about a possible reformation in the future, Gallagher added: “If somebody puts that on the table, I’ll pack my bags in the morning and say, “How many gigs do you want?”

To paraphrase Churchill: we know what sort of man he is, now we're just haggling about the price.

Noel Gallagher knocking on heaven's door - or perhaps just in the area

An eye-popping headline from NME.com:

Noel Gallagher told he would 'drop dead' if he came off medication

That's quite serious, then - so he was told he'd die if he didn't take the medicine, right?

Right?

Oh.

"Then I went on holiday with the kids. And I was getting out of a swimming pool with one of them in my hand and did my back in. Then my doctor put me on these tablets – I won’t tell you what for – [and] told me that if I didn't take them I would virtually drop dead."

So that's 'Noel says doctors told him he'd be quite unwell without taking medicine', then.

Noel Gallagher: Class act

Noel Gallagher - you'll remember him, he used to appear in that glitzy gossipy Sunday Times column written by his then-wife Meg Matthews about their life in whatever part of London it was - is complaining that there aren't enough working class types in the charts these days. He blames other people:

"Music is very middle class, I’d have eaten Bastille alive in an afternoon in the '90s, one interview, destroyed, gone, never to be heard of again. Easy, had ‘em for breakfast. My bass player summed it up, we’re constantly saying, 'Where is the next band coming from?' and he rightly says, 'Never mind the band, where are the people?'

"When I first started I wanted to get in the charts and wreck it, like stamp Phil Collins out and Wet Wet Wet, they've got to go, and all that '80s gear, we don't need that anymore. I don't see anything from the working class, I just don’t see it."

Ah, yes. Gallagher's war on Wet Wet. So successful that was that, after just three Oasis albums and three years of Gallagher activity, Wet Wet Wet's 1997 album 10 only managed to limp to, erm, number two in the album charts spawning just two top ten singles. And the destroyed Phil Collins only managed to sell a million copies of 2002's Testify so much damage had been inflicted upon him by Gallagher's sharp tongue.

Apparently, this is all the Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian's fault:

"Well you only have to look at the charts, what happened at the end of the '90s, all those bands used to be in the Top Ten, like us, Manic, Pulp, The Verve, Suede and Blur, and I think bands like that have been marginalised and side-lined," he replied. "There's X Factor and all that kind of thing, can you name me the last great band that came out of this country? There's not really been any great bands in the last 10 years."

When it was put to him that One Direction might be considered great in terms of their global success and fame, Gallagher added: "They're not a band, they’re a group and good luck to those lads. Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, that's ten years ago now and shame on those two bands for a start because they didn't inspire anybody else. The working classes have not got a voice anymore, there doesn't seem to be a noise coming from the council estates, you know what I mean?"

It doesn't seem to enter Noel's head for a moment that there are other possibilities - that for kids growing up now, making fifth-wave Beatles echoes might not be inspiring because there are other, better uses of their time; or that there's always been a talent-show-to-fame path that working class people have followed and the X Factor isn't really anything new in that respect; or there's actually a really vibrant music scene full of people of backgrounds less comfortable than Gallagher's which he doesn't think is there because it's neither about him, nor for him. (Clue, Noel: it's the latter.)

The saddest thing - and were he not such an anal chapstick you might even feel a bit sorry for Noel - is that he's sat on his comfy sofa, reliving the war on Phil Collins, blissfully unaware than for a a kid turning 16 this year, he's their Phil Collins.

Twitterblob: Liam Gallagher

Interesting:

I actually really like Adrian Chiles… said no one… ever. I’d rather listen to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds than listen to Chiles. LG

— Liam Gallagher (@IiamgaIlagher) June 12, 2014

Not that Liam Gallagher has these opinions, but it's interesting that he signs his own tweets (presumably a compromise given he can't use sealing wax and a signet ring).

It's also interesting that he's still doing "said no-one ever". I look forward to Liam's I can haz cheezeburger tweets in about six months' time.

UPDATE: Parody account. Bollocks. Pwnd.

Noel Gallagher has some views

GQ has decided that Noel Gallagher is its Icon Of The Year.

No, I checked, it's definitely from this year. It's unclear what Noel has done that is iconic this year - maybe he had a hand in the death of Thatcher that we shan't discover until the Thirty Year Rule reveals its secrets.

As a thank you to GQ, Noel has given them half-an-hour of his 'drunk nan at Christmas' worldview. Shall we take a look?

On radio promos: "Why have I got to be there at seven in the morning? Who's listening at f***ing seven in the morning? C***s, that's who's."

Perhaps if you weren't fading into pantomime damery, they'd give you a slightly better slot, Noel?

It's interesting that Gallagher seems to have abandoned his man of the people act here; the obvious response - 'those cunts are the ones who get up at six thirty to go out and work to earn they money they spend on seeing you play your stupid Union Jack guitar' - has eluded him.

On the Brit Awards: "You can be sat at a table with a load of people from an insurance company. 'Where you from? Classical label?', 'No. AIG.' 'Well, what the f*** are you doing here?'"

Noel, you've gone to an event organised by that major record labels to sell their products. Who do you think own those labels? Are you assuming they're some sort of mutual organisation? They're owned by shareholders; most of those shareholders will be insurance companies and pension funds and investment banks.

Those people are your bosses. Your role at the Brits - and, really, have you not worked this out after all these years? - is to be a dancing bear for the people who underwrite your career.

I really hope someone from the AIG team leaned over and said "these are the 2013 Brit Awards - what the fuck are you doing here?"

And Noel has a thing to say about books, too:

I only read factual books. I can't think of... I mean, novels are just a waste of f***ing time. I can't suspend belief in reality... I just end up thinking, 'This isn't f***ing true.' I like reading about things that have actually happened. I'm reading this book at the minute - The Kennedy Tapes. It's all about the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis - I can get into that. Thinking, 'Wow, this actually f***ing happened, they came that close to blowing the world up!' But... what f***ing winds me up about books...

...is, like... my missus will come in with a book and it will be titled - and there's a lot of these, you can substitute any word, it's like a Rubik's Cube of shit titles - it'll be entitled The Incontinence Of Elephants. And I'll say "What's that book about?" And she'll say, "Oh it's about a girl and this load of f***ing nutters..." Right... so it's not about elephants, then? Why the f*** is it called The Incontinence Of Elephants? Another one: The Tales Of The Clumsy Beekeeper. What's that about? "Oh it's about the French Revolution." Right, f*** off. If you're writing a book about a child who's locked in a f***ing cupboard during the f***ing Second World War... he's never seen an elephant. Never mind a f***ing giraffe.

On the same basis, I'm launching a class action lawsuit against Noel and The High Flying Birds because there are no birds whatsoever in the band, and nothing particularly high flying about them either. Why didn't he just call the band what it is, Noel Gallagher And Some People Who Have Mortgages.

There's something unsurprising but dispiriting about a songwriter - a fucking songwriter, as Noel would put it - who lacks the ability to even understand the concept of metaphor. At all. A songwriter who cheerfully admits he lacks imagination.

This, then, is GQ's icon - a man happily ill-equipped for his job, and too stupid to realise it.

Gordon in the morning: Maradona praises Noel Gallagher

Tucked behind the paywall this morning, Gordon Smart has a strange story in which Diego Maradona, out of the I, Ludicrous song, has hailed Noel Gallagher as "God".

Just as you process this, remember Maradona was so fond of mind-altering substances he drugged himself out of football and into hospital, so it's not totally impossible that he's seen the face of God at some point.

However, I'm not sure that this claim is quite the good news Gordon seems to believe it is. I know precious little about football - I'm from Brighton - but even I know that Maradona claimed that it was God who had handled the ball in the World Cup. In effect, he seems to be blaming Noel Gallagher for putting England out the competition.

Who is the smartest person in rock?

It's almost cruel to share the name of the company which has spent its money pulling together a poll to discover the "most stylish rockstar".

Almost, but not quite. Jesus, Stuarts of London... really? At no point did you see the way the votes were going and think 'let's quietly kill this, or lie and say, I don't know, Kele from Bloc Party or something'.

Noel Gallagher won.

Let's look at Noel when he's dressed up, shall we?

Noel, there, with that guy who was in the Chilcot Enquiry. Yeah, that's stylish.

Noel beat Liam Gallagher - yes, the next-most-stylish rock star is a bloke who wears fussy parkas and Lennon specs. Third place was Alex Turner.

This could also, you appreciate, a list of pop stars that the people who run a London trouser shop might have heard of. Best to approach it on that basis.

Gordon in the morning: Sticky backed plastic

What the hell is this horror, from The Sun?

No, it's not someone who looks like Noel Gallagher being sought through a dodgy e-fit; instead, it's the team at The Sun trying to imagine what Noel Gallagher would look like wearing a Blue Peter badge.

They're going to be charging to look at stuff like this soon, you know.

Noel Gallagher: And while we're talking of One Direction

Noel Gallagher popped up at the Ivor Novello Awards this week to talk about real music:

Asked why the awards mean something to him, he said: ''There aren't any clowns like One Direction here.

''It's not about what clothes you wear or how nimble you are or who you are s****ing.

''It's about the songs. Songs last forever. You can have that lyric.''

Right Said Fred are amongst the previous winners of an Ivor.

Blur/Oasis: If they bury that hatchet any deeper, even Tony Robinson won't be able to reach it

Well, it's a happy ending of sorts: A Blur/Oasis crossover edition marking the end of the Britpop wars:

Former Britpop rivals Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn have buried the hatchet and performed together at a charity concert.

Oasis guitarist Gallagher joined Blur singer Albarn and his bandmate Graham Coxon at a Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

At long last, they've buried the hatchet.

Except... hadn't they already done that?

According to The Onion's AV Club, the pair buried the hatchet last May, when Albarn offered Noel the chance to sing along with soem Burundian drummers:

Blur's Damon Albarn, Oasis' Noel Gallagher bury the Britpop hatchet, finally

Albarn says he'd be happy to collaborate with the onetime brains behind Oasis who's since gone solo. "Well, why not?" Albarn says. "He should come on the Africa Express train [an Albarn-formed music collective] in September." Self-serving, sure, but a nice sentiment all the same.

Bit harsh to call Noel Gallagher "onetime brains". I'm sure he's used them on at least three occasions.

But hang on, surely the hatchet was buried before that? In February of 2012, when Albarn announced the cessation of hostilities at a post-Brits party:

Gallagher, 44, kissed both hands of Albarn, 43, before planting a smacker on his lips in front of shocked guests including Professor Green, Cesc Fabregas, Adam Deacon and Coldplay's Chris Martin.

Albarn, who had earlier collected the lifetime achievement award with his Blur bandmates, said: "It's funny to think Blur were last here 17 years ago when we were big rivals. Isn't it funny how we've both mellowed after all these years? We've buried the hatchet."

No, hold on. It was back in October 2011, wasn't it? The hatchet was buried back then, when Noel was generous in a Shortlist interview:

"Funnily enough, when I was out last night, I bumped into him," Gallagher told ShortList of Albarn. "I literally haven't seen the guy for 15 f**king years and I bump into him in some club.

"We both went, 'Hey! F**king hell!' and then he said, 'Come on, let's go for a beer'. So, we're sitting there, having a beer, just going, 'What the f**k was all that about 15 years ago? That was mental'.

"Then he said, 'It was a great time, though', and I was like, 'Yeah, it was a f**king good laugh'. It was cool, man."

In fact, Blur and Oasis have been burying the hatchet now for the best part of a decade. Here's The Guardian in 2004:

Just over nine years later, it looks as though Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher will finally bury the hatchet - both have signed up to perform on the new Band Aid charity record, due to be released in time for Christmas.

The Britpop feud might have been a great marketing scam. But, boy, the hatchet-burying is proving to be something of a strong pension scheme.

Bad news for artists who want to sound like a bad Beatles pastiche

How does Noel Gallagher react when people ask him to write a song for them? (No, he claims it happens all the time.)

With good grace, of course:

'I must have been asked to write songs for people about 20 times, 'Hey man, we should write some songs together,' F***ing write your own songs. I spent 46 years busting my a**e to get here, slaving over a line in a song for a month.

So no, I won't f***ing write a song with you, you little prick. F**k off! It just annoys me.''

I think the most telling thing about that - apart from how he sounds more and more like Karl Pilkington - is that he's only been asked 20 times to write for anyone. That's about once a year.

The thought there are lines in Gallagher songs which took him a month to write is also a little bit boggling. "He thought he was King Creole" took as long to construct as a solid two-storey village hall would. Blimey.

Gordon in the morning: Watching David Bowie with Noel Gallagher

Gordon has been reading the NME, and in particular Noel Gallagher talking about the David Bowie comeback:

[T]he HIGH FLYING BIRDS frontman is confused by the video to the legend’s track Where Are We Now?

Confused, you say?

“We’re still talking about that song. The video’s mad – like his f***ing cat directed it.”

That's not actually "confused", is it? It's just Noel saying that it's a bit out there, surely?

However, you can forgive Gordon struggling to make sense of anything Noel says. let's look at that lifted quote in full:

He told NME mag: “It’s great to hear his voice singing something new. The more you hear Where Are We Now? the better it gets.

“We’re still talking about that song. The video’s mad – like his f***ing cat directed it.”

But Noel added: “What it proved to me is that reunions are f***ing s****."

So, it's great to hear Bowie doing new stuff; and the new stuff gets better the more you play t; and it's an exciting talking point. So, er, that proves that reunions are shitty.

Sorry, what?

(Also: can you have a reunion if it's just you?)

Gordon in the morning: He wasn't mod enough for me

I know what leaves you unable to sleep at night. Why, you wonder, why did Robbie Williams ever fall out with Oasis?

Wonder no more. Indeed, if you will, Wonderwall no more. Gordon has the answer:

ROBBIE WILLIAMS says he fell out with OASIS in the Nineties because he wasn’t “mod” enough.

Really? Not being mod enough for Oasis is a bit like not being gourmet enough for Charlie, The Little Chef.

But Robbie, it seems, is convinced - why, how could he hope to fly so close to such a band?

Liam’s voice was the voice of a generation

No, it wasn't.

and Noel seemed to be writing the songs of a generation

It would be churlish to just dimiss this with curt 'no he wasn't'; on the strength of the first album, you could say that Noel did seem to have something of a knack for crystalising something, and at the time Williams was fawning round the band like a bear trying to wrestle his way into a bin full of sausages, you could forgive someone for thinking that might be the case.

They were our Beatles for around 18 months.

Again, the temptation is to just snort at this - but, of course, snorting is what led to a bunch of people believing this to be true in the first place.

However, if you look again at what Williams has just said there, you'll notice that he's turning the knife, which makes that "seemed to" when talking about Noel seem less an accident of phrasing and deliberately, delicately putting the boot in.

Because The Beatles, if they are anything, did not have a time period slapped on them. Being "The Beatles for 18 months" is like being God for a fortnight - if you don't transcend your time, you're doing it wrong.

Gordon seems to think Williams is praising Oasis; in fact, he's very gently, and somewhat sweetly, putting them in their place.

Gordon in the morning: Brand new show

Talking of radio stations and the decline from offering an alternative to thinking that just not playing N-Dubz is enough, news from XFM. Gordon Smart - himself a presenter on the station, although he doesn't mention that conflict of interest - brings news of a short series:

THE women in RUSSELL BRAND’s LA yoga class can look forward to a well-earned breather next month.

Bizarre’s four-time Shagger Of The Year is making a return to UK radio with his old on-air sparring partner NOEL GALLAGHER.

The Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of radio are reuniting with the original team behind the Russell Brand Show.

Although Brand and Gallagher have done the odd radio show together in the past, I'm not sure I'd claim that their pairing was quite as iconic as Butch and Sundance.

Still, Gordon's excited:

Russell told me: “I miss radio. It was lovely when we did the show. It will be great to get the old team back together.”

It was the very show that landed JONATHAN ROSS and Russell in hot water over the Sachsgate business.

You can bet your boots the Ofcom boys will be tuning in and stroking their chins in anticipation of some bad behaviour. Good luck to them — the radio hasn’t been the same without their carry-on.

Yeah, stupid old Ofcom and their rules on taste and decency which forced Brand's Radio Two show off the air.

Remind me, what line was The Sun taking that line at the time, when the paper complained about the programme's 'obscene bullying', "disgusting stupidity", "a childish act of verbal violence" and "foul-mouthed insults".

It turns out what The Sun meant all along was that radio wasn't the same without all that, and you should ignore those "chin-stroking" moralists.

Funny, that.

Gordon in the morning: Noel did want what he hadn't got

Gordon's picked up a story from this month's Uncut, in which Sinead O'Connor reveals that Noel Gallagher asked for her hand in marriage.

That does oversell it a little bit:

“Noel once asked me to marry him, just before he married MEG MATHEWS.

“He won’t remember as he was off his face at a festival in Amsterdam.”

So this was a marriage proposal with all the veracity of being told that you're somebody's best mate, then, rather than a striking incident in an unexpected romance.

Even so, it's a pity Sinead didn't call his bluff.