Kim Wilde has eyes as wide as saucers

To be fair, the headline does make Kim Wilde sound a bit more detached than the story does:

Singer Wilde sighted UFO after Michael Jackson death

WTVQ kind-of implies that Kim might have been hinting that the UFO was somehow connected to Jackson's death, throwing up a possibility that he might not really have died but gone to live on Pluto, but really she's just using the death to provide a time of sighting.

Because Kim's a bit psychic, see?

The Kids in America hitmaker is convinced she and many of her family possess mild psychic powers, and the extraterrestrial sighting from the back yard of her home in England in 2009 convinced her.

I'm not entirely sure why one would need to have a psychic power to see something from another planet - unless, of course, it was a ghost UFO.

Wilde tells The New Review magazine, "Maybe a part of me was quite psychic, because we have strong psychics in my family, especially on my father's side... I am tuned into it, a little bit. I don't see ghosts and stuff but I did see something very unusual in the sky once, which I can only say was a UFO. But there were lots of witnesses, it was in the local paper, it wasn't just me...

Does that mean that all those other witnesses were also a little bit psychic? Perhaps this spaceship was hovering over a nearby Spiritualist Church?

"It was 26 June, the day after Michael Jackson died, and me and my mate were in the garden and we saw bright lights in the sky. I have to say there's not a day gone by that I don't think about what the hell it was. It was so huge, two of them, going zig-zag for 10 minutes and I knew it was really massive. It could be some very clever thing that someone developed somewhere, but I've got a feeling it wasn't."

So it wasn't a clever thing that someone had developed somewhere. Which suggests it was a natural phenomena.

"Woman sees natural event she cannot explain and remembers the day it happened by reference to a story in the news". There's your headline, then.

Gordon in the morning: Heather Mills not Trumped

The story may or may not be true - Heather Mills dumped from the 'celebrity' Apprentice after demanding she be allowed to get to the final - but it does mean that Gordon is able to revist some of Victoria Newton's best work:

Mucca appeared on the US equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing With the Stars. But she was booted out after six weeks.

Now, if I remember correctly, Gordon's boss actually insisted that Mills would be "booted out" right at the start, what with how everyone was supposed to hate her. Indeed, staying in for six weeks is pretty good going.

More unlikely tales: Russell Brand to do MTV Awards again next year?. Gordon says yes:

RUSSELL BRAND has been asked to present the MTV Video Music Awards again next year after sending ratings through the roof on Sunday night.

His near-the-knuckle gags were such a success, bosses have been falling over themselves to get him signed up for a second year.

Since it's clear from reading blog reactions that nobody had much of a clue who Brand was before switching on, how exactly would MTV be putting that down the pull of Brand, exactly? (The show did do well in the ratings - 15% up on last year - but you'd have to put that down to the Jonas Brothers and Britney rather than Brand, wouldn't you?)

And even more unlikely tales: Robbie Williams can apparently charm extra-terrestrial creatures:

“I had just finished writing a song called Arizona, which is about alien abduction, when there was this glow. It was magic.”

Was it a UFO, or was it magic? Or does Williams claim that aliens can do magic ("take me to your leader so they can pick a card, any card...")?

Amy Winehouse asks for Amy Lame's job - if ET lets her

The NME is dutifully reporting that Amy Winehouse is going to be a "radio agony aunt", something it has extrapolated from the Daily Star, which claims she's "asked" to go on when Mitch co-hosts the Danny Baker show with Gary Crowley.

The NME might want to approach the story with a little more caution, given that the last big Winehouse story the Star broke was this one:

Amy's demise could have inadvertently sparked a link between the human race and life on other planets after new research suggests aliens have been desperately trying to contact the star.

As sightings of UFO'S soared in recent months - with nearly one being reported every week - betting analysts Blue Square have been working out the odds on where the next alien-bod could be spotted.

But researchers were amazed to discover that when the E.T sightings were plotted on a map of Britain they formed the shape of Amy Winehouse's bee-hived head.

Alien watchers everywhere are now convinced that life on other planets is desperate to contact the skinny limbed Rehab singer and help her to change her destructive ways.

"Alien watchers everywhere" are convinced of this, are they? They wouldn't be saying 'why would you try to contact someone by making a massive join-the-dots picture that, if you're half drunk and squint, might look a little bit like you?' Obviously, I'm not expert with matters alien - I did some work experience once summer helping out with their probing, but mostly it was just making coffee for Tharrrg The Mighty Crusher Of Galaxies - but it does seem they'd be better off hovering over house, wouldn't they?

Robbie Williams is not on the shortlist for presenting Today

This should be interesting: Robbie Williams and Jon Ronson have teamed up to make a programme about UFOs for Radio 4. Robbie Williams is known for a long-standing interest in extra-terrestrial life; Jon Ronson has carved a niche of making programmes about eccentric obsessives, gently unpicking their fascinations. There's a preview in this week's Guardian Weekend - because Ronson knows how to use his material to best effect. Or maximum earning potential, anyway.

Gordon in the morning: Robbie Williams is not lost in space

Gordon returns to the Robbie Williams and the aliens story this morning:

ROBBIE WILLIAMS’ obsession with extra-terrestrials has just jumped to lightspeed.

Does an obsession travel at lightspeed?

The beardy pop nob has been spending his free time — which is about 18 hours, seven days a week — visiting observatories in the Arizona desert.

Gordon then goes on to have a bit of a laugh at the idea of Williams going to an observatory, of all places, to look at space. Can you imagine?

Now, while it's true that his obsession with aliens and chumming up with David Icke looks a little flaky, is hiking out to an array of telescopes to explore the possibility of life in other parts of the universe such an eccentric thing to do? After all, NASA was pumping out Beatles songs into space the other week, in the hope that some other worldly intelligence might hear them and thus create some demand for digital downloads of the back catalogue, and nobody started to suggest that NASA had lost its mind. And if Williams is interested in aliens, isn't it actually quite intelligent of him to head out to a place where serious scientific research is taking place to see what they're up rather than asking David Icke which members of the cabinet are shape-shifting aliens?

I know. This does constitute cutting Robbie some slack. I don't like it any more than you do.

Gordon, though, is showing exactly the same sort of grasp of science that makes mainstream journalism what it is today:

Rob has been peering through telescopes looking into space for signs of life on other planets.

Yes. He's squinting through a small tube telescope, Gordon. That's the way it works in Arizona.

Surely writing a new album is more important than staring at the heavens like eccentric, xylophone-playing Sky At Night TV host PATRICK MOORE?

Hmm. There's a slim possibility that Williams might - just might - discover something which suggests that humanity is not alone in the universe, with profound implications for our future as a species, politics, religion and ethics. On the other hand, he could make another record of eartosh. Do you want to check that you're ordering his priorities correctly, Gordon?

There's a strong argument that if other worlds send emissaries to Earth, you wouldn't perhaps want the gurning half-wit to be the one to meet them, but that's another question.

It's not clear why Gordon would be keen for Robbie to get back in the studio anyway:

He added: “I was lying on my sun lounger outside at night. Above me was a square thing that passed over my head silently and shot off.”

That was me, Robbie. I was launching copies of Rudebox at your gaff after 12 pints of Guinness...

If you're wondering why Smart might have lots of copies of Rudebox lying around in the first place, it's probably because his boss Victoria Newton gave the album such glowing reviews before she got into trouble with the lyrics of that one track and the column appeared to declare war on Williams.

Gordon in the morning: Not such a breast expert

Given that he spends so much time talking about breasts, you'd expect Gordon to know something about them. Apparently not, as he responds to a picture of Cheryl Cole wearing a Fashion Targets Breast Cancer shirt without apparently realising what it is:

THINGS look brighter for CHERYL COLE as she steps out in a garish yellow top.

It might be considered a little tacky to describe something worn to promote a charitable end as "garish" without at least acknowledging that there's more to the garment than just being a tshirt. Let's hope one of the journalists at the Sun can brief him properly before poppy day.

Gordon is delighted that Cheryl looks happy in the shot:

I reckon Cheryl is looking much happier now that she’s sorted out her marriage.

That'd be the one you've spent the last month telling her she can only be happy if she walks out on, wouldn't it, Gordon? The one where the trouble started not only because her husband behaved like an arse, but because you made the humiliation very public indeed?

Gordon also carries news of Robbie Williams' claims that he's seen three UFOs and that

He says he also believes cult Scientology “exists”

Uh... Gordon, the cult Scientology does exist. You want to get yourself up Tottenham Court Road, you'll get yourself a scoop. Perhaps what you mean is that Williams believes the fairy-story at the heart of the money-making cult, which would confirm that he's got no judgement worth considering.