Gordon in the morning: Close Boyle

I suppose, since Streep is doing Thatcher, it left the casting for the pointless Susan Boyle biopic (plot: an hour and a half of pottering round the shops buying cat food, followed by two minutes of Americans watching YouTube and going 'wow', and ten minutes of declining interest) wide open.

Glenn Close.

It's such a pointless idea and such a rotten piece of casting even Gordon scratches his head to try and come up with an explanation:

SuBo and Glenn have got something in common too, they are huge animal lovers.

That's practically method acting right there.

It turns out Cowell had started to work on a film about Paul Potts but dropped the idea when... yes, when he saw that look on your face, going "Paul Potts? Paul Potts? What's that?"

In the end, he wins a fast-evaporating career

Desperate to squeeze every ounce of coin from the Britain's Got Talent And Yet Somehow Feels Piers Morgan To Be The Arbiter Of It franchise, Simon Cowell is trying to talk up interest in a movie about Paul Potts:

The music mogul was contacted by bosses at Hollywood's Paramount Pictures suggesting the idea. "This company got that it's another Billy Elliot, a story anyone in the world can understand," said Simon.

Well, yes: it's a story anyone in the world can understand because it's so bloody simple. Man enters contest. Will he win, although naturally he will because otherwise they wouldn't have made a movie about him, would they?

Does Cowell really think is Billy Elliott II? Does this man with the supposed ability to stimulate the entertainment g-spot of the two nations really have trouble telling the difference between 'cute boy dances against the odds' and 'slightly tubby bloke sings opera and wins TV gameshow'?

But then, what would we know? We thought that 'Bob's Full House: The Movie' would be a disaster until we saw the CGI used when it was time to mix the six.

The Enemy's enemy is a straw man

The Enemy are quite self-assured for a band whose profile depends as much on one of them being linked to Peaches Geldof as any music they might have made, aren't they?

Today, they give Paul Potts a kicking for, erm, selling more records than them:

"I've just heard that we are about to be knocked off Number One by that fat bloke from Britain's Got Talent," Tom told [Zoe Showbiz]. "It's a fucking disgrace.

"Nobody will know who this bloke is this time next year. If he thinks he is going be making music in a year's time then he has another think coming.

"People who win talent shows have a habit of disappearing. They make one hit album, do a wave of promotion - and then it's on to the next big thing."

Yes, that's true, Tom. He might be a bit of national joke. But he is still selling more records than you, isn't he? And while people who win talent shows do have a bit of habit of getting some attention and then disappearing... you could say the same about bands-mainly-famous-for-hanging-out-with-Peaches-Geldof.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Lots of Potts

James P writes to point out Gennaro Castaldo's latest public pronouncement, on the sales of Paul Potts:

'HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo said: "It's incredible how TV can take a complete unknown artist and catapult him to overnight chart success."'

As James suggests:
Yes. Yes, it is. It's incredible, amazing and previously unheard-of that if a man sings quite well on a TV show watched by over 10 million people, some of those people might want to buy an album which that man goes on to release. Thank you, Gennaro.

Presumably Gennaro is still astonished that clouds can make electricity, and it's possible - by simply cutting off the crusts at the factory - to make a loaf without any crusts on.

Astonisnging times we live in. Slightly more astonishing, though, is that ITV news, the Western Mail, and even the NME have felt that the original comment to BBC News site was worth repeating.

Elsewhere, Gennaro has popped up in the Herald to enthuse over the prospects for Mercury-nominated bands:

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for the music chain HMV, agrees: "The publicity that will be generated from now through to the awards ceremony will ensure that all the nominated artists get a lift in album sales, and lesser-known nominees have the platform to introduce themselves to a new and wider audience. Whoever wins can expect a significant boost to their careers. Previous winners such as Ms Dynamite in 2003 and Antony and the Johnsons in 2005 recorded five-fold increases in sales of their nominated albums."

We'd have thought Castaldo would have been able to tell the difference between "a short-term boost to sales of the nominated album" and "a significant boost to their careers", or at least would have had the wit to have picked a couple of acts who have had any sort of profile-enabled post-awards career.

Across the Atlantic, and Gennaro was sent to explain to Americans why HMV did its u-turn and started stocking the Mail On Sunday. He told Time:

"We decided we could either get marginalized or we could get right in there," says spokesman Gennaro Castaldo. "With whatever reservations, our motivation was to give our customers the choice and access to the album."

Ah. This, then, would be a different HMV from the chain which pulled all Rolling Stones albums off its Canadian shelves in a strop when the band did a deal with another chain.