Yacht: coming last in the boat race

Surely the weakest link in Yacht's tiresome sex tape hoax was the fundamental problem that - for their story to have worked - you would have to have believed there was a market for a Yacht sex tape in the first place?

Gordon in the morning: Worried for Tulisa

Gordon Smart picks up the keyboard this morning to paint a worrying picture of Tulisa's finances:

TULISA will have to watch her pennies – she faces paying more than £100,000 in legal bills for suing over her leaked sex tape.

The X Factor star has to foot the bill because the people she accused of releasing the clip don’t have that kind of wedge.

Gordon's worried that Tulisa is spending a lot of cash on "top flight lawyers" but might only end up with "a moral victory".

Why, it's almost as if he's keen to try and put a halt to Tulisa's continued pursuit of the people who put the sex tape online, and then attempted to draw an audience to it. But, of course, if Tulisa stopped now we might not get to hear the interesting story of how the tape got noticed by newspapers. I'm sure Gordon wouldn't want us to miss out on that.

Mind you, if the idea is to shake Tulisa by laying out the costs of justice...

..you might want to be a bit more careful with the numbers. More than one hundred pounds, eh?

Gordon in the morning: Gag reflex

Given that much of the attention to the Tulisa sex tape was down to the massive coverage of it in Gordon's showbiz pages, now that MC Ultra has apologised in court, will the paper be feeling a little ashamed at its part in bullying the woman?

No.

Today there's a story - apparently written by three people - about her going on holiday. And the headline?

Tulisa’s blown the lot

Sex video star has wild time in Ibiza

Blown? Do you see? Because it was a video with a blow job.

(And isn't it adding insult to injury to describe her as a "sex video star"?)

Just in case you missed the subtle joke, they repeat it almost instantly:

BIRTHDAY girl Tulisa Contostavlos has been blowing her money, candles and a lilo in Ibiza as she gets over her sex tape hell.

Yeah, it's a jape, isn't it, guys?

Gordon in the morning: More bullying from Bizarre

Having played a major part in helping develop awareness of the sex video sold by Tulisa's ex, Gordon continues to bully the young woman this morning.

His 'story' is that she went to a party but left after people going on about the video made her feel awkward. Is there any way that Smart thinks detailing that in a paper is kind? Or worth publishing?

Remember, this is something horrible that happened to her, without her agreement or knowledge.

If Cowell really wants to support his protege, how about cutting off the supply of stories he feeds The Sun until they stop this constant harrying of her?

Gordon in the morning: Taped

There's an unfortunate juxtaposition on Gordon's pages this morning:

That's the only amusing moment in something of a grim morning, as Tulisa has been bullied into admitting that she is in the sex tape after all:

X FACTOR judge Tulisa Contostavlos last night apologised to fans as she admitted it was her in a sex tape touted online.

So, if I've got this story straight, she was filmed by someone she thought she could trust in the bedroom; that person then flogged the tape; the tape was touted around porn firms; aided by The Sun's promotion, the footage was put online and charged for; she tried to pretend it wasn't her but the Sun, and former friends, rushed forward to insist it was and now she's been bullied into putting out a video effectively confirming the provenance of the tape.

What is it, exactly, that she's "apologising to fans" for?

Given that she's the one who has had her privacy so brutally invaded, and been gleefully pursued by Gordon and his team, shouldn't the apologies be flowing in the opposite direction?

I suppose you could try and condemn her for having tried to pretend that it wasn't her in the film, as if there's some sort of law insisting that if you're violated and exposed on the internet you're obliged to identify yourself.

But you'd have to be a bit a bit of an asshat to believe that. Not quite as much of an asshat as someone who'd flog off the sex videos on their phone; and obviously nowhere as near an asshat as a person who would use the pages of a national newspaper to bully you over it. But an asshat nevertheless.

The Telegraph reported this week that Murdoch is apparently trying to offload his UK newspapers. Behaviour like this would make a skip the most obvious place to do that.

Gordon in the morning: Fake

Oh, simply everybody who, in a low light might look a little like someone famous has a sex tape, darling:

The quotes around 'fake' might suggest that there's some doubt over if the film really is Tulisa or not. The story makes it clear that there is no Tulisa sex tape, online or off.

In fact, the quotes would seem to belong to the word 'row' - as there doesn't seem to be one, just a swift legally-enforced takedown.

In effect, what Gordon and his typing chums -

By GARY O'SHEA and COLIN ROBERTSON, TV Editor

- have done is give over a large chunk of a "family" newspaper to describing a porn video with anonymous participants in it:

The film, from a high quality camera phone, shows a blonde performing a sex act for over six minutes.

A high quality camera phone, you say? Why, that sounds like the sort of equipment you'd only have access to if you were rich, or famous, or capable of having walked into a Carphone Warehouse at some point in the last few years.

Since Gary and Colin clearly aren't stupid, they know the video is just somebody else, but they're desperate to...well, fake it up:

Tulisa Contostavlos at centre of sex video storm

She isn't. She's on the edge of it.

The more interesting question is, if Gordon would be leading on the film, providing what sounds like a QVC sales pitch...:

An internet firm put the footage online, charging £3.90 to download it. The site was suspended yesterday afternoon.

... if it really was a film of Tulisa having sex. Would encouraging readers to seek out film of a named person fucking be the sort of invasion of that person's privacy that The Sun is pretending it doesn't do while Leveson is sitting?

Foxx mocks Cyrus; AP weighs in

Jamie Foxx's idea of advice to Miley Cyrus is, admittedly, crude:

Foxx is heard saying: "Who is Miley Cyrus? The one with all the gums? She need to get a gum transplant!"

He also says: "Make a sex tape and grow up!"

Because, of course, that's the mark of a mature woman.

Crude, and clueless. But when exactly, Associated Press, did this happen?

It's not clear when the comments were made.

Sorry? Given that Foxx only does one show a week, and the AP is always stressing how bloggers and aggregators are feasting off its prime-quality, fresh reporting, isn't a shrug and saying "it happened sometime" a bit... well, weak? Presumably the AP's Nekesa Mumbi Moody must have heard the broadcast for themselves? Couldn't they at least offer a "in a programme still available online" or "recordings of the programme found online"?

A woman is heard calling Cyrus the b-word.

Bastard? Bugger? Bollock-licker? Bumhole? Brian? Biscuit? Booger?

Come on, AP: your audience have just seen a grown man suggest a teenager show maturity through the medium of a sex tape; do you really think the word "bitch" is going to be upsetting in that context?

Gordon in the morning: It's just porn, mum

Given that "a contestant on a reality TV show which, because it is in a foreign language, is unlikely to ever be shown in Britain" hardly constitutes a celebrity in any meaningful sense of the word, when Gordon publishes a video of Gina Lisa from Germany's Next Top Model having sex, he's just running film of random people fucking, isn't it?

Trapped in the dock: Kelly trial updates

There's obviously much movement on the R Kelly trial, now that it's finally underway, and the press are struggling to balance the seriousness of the charges with the obvious comedy value of a case that throws up a defence desperately trying to use Marlon Wayan films to make their case:

[Attorney Sam] Adam, in an attempt to suggest that Kelly's head could have been superimposed onto somebody else's body in the sex tape, asked [alleged victim's friend Simha] Jamison whether she had seen the Wayans brothers' movie "Little Man."

He said, "They put the head of Marlon Wayans on a midget and it looked real, didn't it?"

But, to widespead laughter, Jamison replied, "Not really!"

God knows what they'll try next: 'Have you seen Wishbone's story the Prince and the Pauper? Could this be an R Kelly lookalike who was in his clothes at the time, while Kelly himself was living the life of a pauper?'

Meanwhile, the defence has also had a go at suggesting that the prosecution attempted to throw off all potential black jurors - to go for a racially-weighted panel; this might have had some nobility to it if, erm, the defence team hadn't used all their objections to jurors to get rid of only white potentials.

The case continues.

Hendrix "sex tape": Kerry Katona not involved

The sudden appearance of a grainy movie which may or may not feature Jimi Hendrix having sex has upset the Hendrix estate. Which is perhaps unsurprising; they get upset whenever anyone (other than themselves) turns a few quid off the Hendrix name:

"On behalf of both the Jimi Hendrix Foundation and Brave New World, I want to address the despicable news in regards to the Jimi Hendrix 'sex tape.' Regardless of the tape's authenticity, it is obvious that this is an intentional means to profit off of the exploitation of the greatest musician of our time. This by no means is a reflection of the contribution he's given to us all through his talents and therefore we will aggressively pursue any and every legal course of action to protect the integrity of his legacy."

An obvious attempt to profit, you say? Why, yes, it would be.

Of course, half the potential interest in the tape disappeared when one of the key market segments discovered the tape was filmed while he was still alive.