Folding magazines: Three titles shutter

None music magazines, although all had connections (greater or lesser) with music - Details, FHM and Zoo have all run out of time today.

Bauer is officially only suspending FHM and Zoo, although it's pretty clear that they're not coming back in any meaningful form. FHM long ago lost its ability to write about music in an interesting way; Zoo never had it.

Meanwhile, in the US, Conde Nast has decided that maintaining Details and GQ is one aftershave-and-cufflink title too many, so it won't sweat the Details any longer. Around the turn of the century, Details would do a regular music issue, and ran a series of sampler CDs, but recently it's been focusing more firmly on the 'men who have an ironing board' market.

Gordon in the morning: The Beatle Ballet

The most interesting thing about Sunday night's BAFTAs was the discovery that Paul McCartney is slowly morphing into Melvyn Bragg. And don't you wish when he did the "joke" about how music makes films better he'd have lobbed in at least a Spies Like Us if not a Give My Regards To Broad Street into the mix?

Gordon bumped into him backstage at the BAFTAs (I suspect this means Gordon was granted a thirty second yell across the floor at McCartney) in which McCartney announced his plan to join in with the latest trend and/or fashion:

He said: "I have been working on a ballet for a while. I'll be making a proper announcement in a few weeks. It's a really exciting project for me."

You can tell how deeply Gordon was embedded at the BAFTA aftershow by the way he, erm, is reduced to relying on Jonathan Ross' twitterstream to bring his readers what happened:

Wossy tweeted: "At Bafta party I told Sir Paul McCartney that since playing Beatles Rock Band as RINGO I had greater respect for him as a drummer... "

This was followed by: "... to which he replied that whenever he played, everyone beat him!"

... which was exactly the same joke that McCartney used at the launch of the game, if memory serves.

Elsewhere, Gordon struggles with Chanelle off Big Brother and her new breasts:

And now she's back in the limelight thanks to a new boob job.

Classy.

Given that she's only "in the limelight" because Gordon has written about them, it's having your bra off and wearing it to mutter about how awful it all is, surely?

That said, I'm sure plenty of lads will be more than happy to see these new shots of Chanelle.

Gordon manages to bring himself to run the pictures, which he's copied out of Zoo. Classy.

Zoopolgies

The organisers of the Zoo8 festival have issued an apology:

Responding to media reports, event co-director Danny Blanche said the mistakes were due to inexperience among the organisers.

He told the BBC: "Our biggest problem was one of miscalculation over cash flow. This required us to make the pragmatic decision to cancel a few acts.

"Obviously, none of this was ideal or planned - and not the quality of experience that we had aimed to deliver - and for that we unreservedly apologise to all those affected by the situation."

Blanche added: "We want to stress that this was our first festival and that we have dealt with all problems directly and will continue to do so in preparation for next year."

Next year? Next year? If the 2008 cash flow was based more on hope, then we wonder what the 2009 one is going to be based upon...

Zoo shambles

Another festival disaster: Zoo8 seems to have been something of a nightmare with half the bands not showing, and the venue (a zoo, of course) having to dig deep into their own pockets to see that Ash would play when the promoters didn't look able to guarantee the payment.

Which means, in effect, that the penguins and tigers of Port Lympne were subsidising a music festival.

Even with Ash secured, no-shows and overflows left fans less-than-thrilled:

Fan David Haskoll said there were four toilets and no taps in the campsite, while the toilets in the main arena were "full to overflowing".

Julia Bray, whose daughter was at the event, wrote on a Facebook page: "Hours of queuing, campsite dreadful, bands didn't show up or moved stages, staff very rude or unhelpful."

Another fan, Rachel Collings, wrote: "Badly organised, badly informed. Worst fest ever!"

Hey - Woodstock II would take issue with that.

Funnily enough, though - presumably following the Eavis playbook - those charged with overseeing the event report a wonderful time had by all:

A spokeswoman for the park said: "As with all music festivals, there were some hiccups.

"This being the first Zoo8 at the park, there were bound to be some problems but they were all resolved quickly and efficiently, mainly by our own staff who stepped in to sort things out.

"According to St John Ambulance, Health and Safety, the licensing office, environmental health and the police, they were all happy."

Then again, none of those fine organisations would be expected to factor in the non-appearance of Dizzee Rascal, Athlete, The Rascals or Wiley.

Hives "let gorillas choose set list"

The Hives are playing some sort of festival at a zoo, and according to NME.com are letting the animals choose which songs they'll play:

Speaking to NME.COM, The Hives' singer Pelle Almqvist said he was letting the zoo's animals influence his choice of setlist for the gig.

"We're a bit scared that the gorillas will start a riot if we don't play the right songs," he explained. "We've never played a zoo before you know? Once we played at a festival in (hometown of) Fagersta in a field and their were cows there. Did they like our music? Well cows are pretty chilled out generally aren't they? So yes, I think so."

Given that the Zoo Thousand and Eight festival at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park also features Chas and Dave, we shouldn't expect The Hives would need to worry about what the animals think of their set; they'll clearly be at the other stage.

Doherty takes things zoo far

We've often wondered what sort of cummerbund throws rubbish into animal enclosures at the zoo. Now we know:

Pete Doherty.

It's not so much that he threw a joint into the penguin enclosure at Burford's Cotswold Wildlife Park; it's that someone who would try and pass themselves off as smart and sensitive would toss anything into a cage where an animal might eat it. You'd have thought that Pete might have sympathy for animals that have been rounded up and locked away behind bars.

The Sun, being something of a nihilistic publication itself, struggles to find any reason to come down on the size of the penguins, but then has a flash of inspiration:

It was a scene that would shock fans of animated movie Happy Feet — about a tap-dancing penguin and his pals.

Good lord, they can't run a story about someone poisoning animals in a zoo without having to find a celebrity angle for the victims.