There's a new series of the X Factor

How exciting for all the people setting out on their X Factor "journey" tonight. Because it changes your life, doesn't it? Fame is only just round the corner.

How, you might wonder, does one of the other stars made by this poke-and-prod show spend the day of the new series?

By jumping off a pier, if you're Jonathan Ansell out of G4. Not because of remorse or loss, but because his career now involves taking part in the Worthing Birdman competition. It's a fairly safe bet this isn't a sign of an imminent booking of an arena tour.

Soulobit: Johnny Carter

The death has been announced of Johnny Carter, soul singer.

Originally a member of The Flamingos, Carter left the band twice. First for a spell in the military, and then - more finally - to take up a role with The Dells when their lead tenor Johnny Funches quit in 1960. Although not an original Dell, he was with them for their greatest moments - Oh What A Night, most notably - and, in a reverse of the usual form for a 60s soul band (main line-up stays together until late in career, when they start to swap out members), The Dells got their personnel changes out the way in 1960 and remained with the same team throughout. The band played together for one of the last times in 2004, shortly after they had been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

Interestingly, Carter had earlier been induced as a member of The Flamingos, thereby making him one of the few double-dippers.

Carter was 75. The cause of his death has not been reported.

A musical footnote: The Battle Hymn Of Lt Calley

I first came across this track a couple of decades back on the NME's Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die compilation, which gathered Vietnam-era tracks from both sides of the American political divide. It's by a chap called Terry Nelson, a US disc-jockey who rushed in to the studio in 1971 to churn out a patriotic song in support of Lieutenant Calley. Calley was the soldier who ordered the My Lai massacre - and the only US soldier convicted for his part in the crime.

The conviction wasn't popular - as many as three out of every four Americans felt it was the wrong verdict. Nelson's record put words into Calley's mouth, with a lyric that actually does manage a riff based on "I was only following orders":



All stirring stuff. The only problem is that it turns out Calley won't be trying to justify himself when he gets to the entrance of the afterlife. William Calley has apologised for his actions:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry....If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a 2nd Lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them — foolishly, I guess.

I guess Nelson at least got the "following orders" part right after all. I wonder if Nelson (if he's still with us) would like to record a more accurate version?

Peter Andre reaches the stage of sitting by the door looking sad

Obviously, there is no real dignity to be lost in the affair of Peter Andre and Jordan, but dignity-like substance that Andre has been clinging to - you know, the one where he screamed at the mother of his children through the medium of Star magazine; that substance - seems to have evaporated:

Peter Andre is releasing a cookery book of "meals for one".

Rumours that his next single will feature the sound of a fork popping through cellophane and the lonely ting of a microwave announcing the slight overcooking of a reclaimed chicken product in some sort of sauce are almost certainly going to prove to be true.

Gordon in the morning: The sun slides down behind the tower

Gordon stretches his mind this morning to try and bring us a think-piece in response to the news that Radio One haven't playlisted Madonna's new single.

And after some digging through chart history, that's the first time one of her singles has not made the playlist.

Not quite sure why you'd be digging in "chart history" to explore Radio One playlists - a bit like exploring House Of Commons history to find out who the leader of the TUC was; I'm also not entirely convinced that Everybody would have been playlisted, even if Burning Up was. Still, that's small potatoes, and Madonna not making the playlist is a marker point, if not quite as significant as Smart would like it to be.

You wouldn't expect an Elton John track, even if it was a violent return-to-form, to end up on the Radio One playlist, would you?

Madonna can console herself in the knowledge that at least Radio 2 have found a place for the song and have been playing it for the past two weeks.

Yes. Where there's overlap between her market and their target audience, you mean?

Still, this must be difficult for Gordon, having to run bad news about one of the artists he believes his readers cherish the most, right?

Her Madgesty's last album, Hard Candy, didn't do as well as expected. Probably because it was rubbish.

What... because it was rubbish? But I thought you called it an album with "an edgy, urban feel for her latest reinvention" with "a few tasty treats" when you gave it a good write-up last March? Sure, you did sound one or two downbeat notes, but nobody reading that review would come away thinking the album was "rubbish".

I'm also sick of the sight of her parading around in her undercrackers

Although as I've observed before, that seemed to come quite quickly, as one day you were still finding it quite exciting:

Queen Of Pop Madge, meanwhile, has been flashing her undies in new promo pics for album Hard Candy.

I wonder if Lady G will look as good when she hits 50.

.., and then the very next day you were pretending to be bored:

WHEN I set eyes on this picture of MADONNA yesterday I felt for the first time that I had seen enough of her posing in her undercrackers.

Literally the next day.

On September 29 Madge will release her latest Greatest Hits compilation, also called Celebration.

I think I'll celebrate when she finally puts her feet up and calls it a day.

You might feel that, Gordon. On the other hand, what would you do if she did go? According to Journalisted, you tend to rely on her to fill your column rather a lot:

Charlatans axe North American tour

Americans and Canadians keen to stand within showering distance of Tim Burgess' gorgeous spittle are going to be disappointed, I'm afraid. We have locked him in a cupboard and aren't going to send him. Jon Brookes has done his shoulder in, needs surgery, and can't drum right now.

Wolf howls

Sure, this is a week old, but it looks likely that Patrick Wolf won't have calmed down yet. He was onstage, doing his high-end Mika thing, at a Köln pop festival, when somebody switched off the PA earlier than he would have liked.

He had a chuckle, and it was all soon forgotten.

Oh, hang on: no, he didn't:



To be fair, it does look like it started out a little tongue-in-cheek. Started out.

[via Stereogum

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Floor manager

Radio Active used to show its contempt for angry listener's letters by passing them to their Head Of Carpets to deal with. But surely only a made-up radio station would even have someone in the role of head of carpets, right?

Maybe not, for what is this we find in a press release for Amtico Flooring, pushing their Spacia Access range?

Gennaro Castaldo, head of press and PR for HMV said “We have used Amtico International products in a number of our 260 stores around the country. We're pleased with the results and feel that the functionality and maintenance of the flooring meets the practical and aesthetic needs of our stores. We were particularly impressed with the speed of installation, which was finished in just four weeks, with the Spacia Access flooring taking only a week to complete. ”

The Beatles, video games, hard-wearing coverings for heavy-traffic public areas? Is there nothing Gennaro cannot bring his expert eye to shine upon?

Alice Cooper helps fleece the masses

I guess the idea of getting Alice Cooper to front a TV commercial encouraging people to trade-in their TVs rather than throwing them out of windows makes for a marginally amusing concept. And it's not like Cooper is the sort of artist for whom appearing in a Sony ad is going to ruin his reputation. In fact, compared to his pieces pushing Sky with Ronnie Corbett, this ad is the model of integrity.



And he did this, too, of course, flogging golf clubs:



And he did make this charming spot for Staples:



So, given that he's the shills' shill, perhaps its more surprising that Sony wanted him in the advert rather than coming up with a new idea.

The real worry about the advert is the message behind it. MediaGuardian reports:

Matt Coombe, the general marketing manager at Sony UK, said that the campaign aimed to capitalise on the need for all sets to be digital by the time the UK's analogue terrestrial signal is switched off in 2012.

I'm sorry, what, Mr. Coombe? While it's true that all sets must be capable of receiving a digital signal by switch-off, that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with buying a new TV. Indeed, one of the central planks of the Digital Switchover campaign is stressing that while you might need a new aerial; you might need a new set-top box; you might think about a satellite dish, the one thing you don't need to do is buy an expensive new television. Quite elaborate lengths have been gone to to make it clear that old TVs can adapt to getting WestCountry Tonight in digital.

So Alice Cooper is lending his commercial heft to pushing an upgrade that nobody needs to get involved with. Good work, Sony. Good work, everybody.

Disney to Disneyfy The Beatles

Could there be any way to make a pointless Disney 3D remake of Yellow Submarine even more annoying?

Disney intends to release the film to coincide with the 2012 London Olympics.

Ah, yes. Because of John Lennon having held the UK triple jump record for seven years back in the early 70s, of course. Why wouldn't you want to celebrate the very made-up links between The Beatles and The Olympics?

There are still negotiations being pursued before the project gets under way - presumably trying to shave three cents off the production costs of the Blue Meanies plush toys.

Gordon in the morning: He must be on points

Gordon Smart's continuing, bemusing role as patsy for the JLS PR department continues this morning as he dutifully types up an event featuring one of JLS and puts it on his pages.

Obviously, a story with Aston Merrygold isn't really a story at all - no matter how eager to please Simon Cowell the Bizarre team are, they have to have something to convince people that this isn't just an advertising feature reminding people that JLS exist.

How about if they throw in Jade Ewen? Yes you do... she didn't win Eurovision, and then managed a number 27 hit with the song. And - how fortunate! - she's just a couple of weeks away from releasing her debut album, just as JLS are preparing their debut album release, too. Why, you might have thought these two would have better things to do than go out on dates together - shouldn't they be busy arranging paper-thin stunts to get their names in the paper to try and promote their respective releases instead?

The trouble is, even the thought of Aspin Merrymeade and the other Jade going out to stand in front of cameras for an evening isn't going to convince observers that this is a story. Gordon, call on your powers: can you make this an exciting gossip story - perhaps by working in a glittery party with a genuine celebrity?

ASTON MERRYGOLD snubbed CALVIN HARRIS's album launch party to take JADE EWEN out for dinner.

Other famous people they weren't near at the time include Shirley Bassey, The Queen, and Kasabian.

PETA turn to random abuse, lose support

Peta are known for doing some dumb stunts, but now it's starting to look like they've just decided to take on everyone who isn't, like, you know, one of them. They have just run some ads in Orlando which call larger people "whales".

The poster features the back of an overweight woman and has the slogan "Save the whales - Lose the blubber - go vegetarian". That would seem to be making a pretty strong whale-person link, right?

"It appears you are implying that overweight people are like whales," WJXT-TV reporter Scott Johnson said to a PETA representative.

"Not at all," said Ashley Byrne, of PETA. "It's just a way of grabbing people's attention. It's just a provocative way to grab attention."

So putting a photo of a fatter person next to a big slogan saying "save the whales" isn't comparing a person to a big, blubbery whale, it's just being "provocative"? But isn't it being provocative because it's insensitively hurling abuse at fat people? And if it isn't hurling abuse, then how would it be being provocative?

Oh and... what is the point of being provocative just for the sake of it? What is there to respect in an organisation which is happy to run sexy pictures of slim people (like every fashion product ever), and now run photos having a go at the overweight (like diet product ads) , and yet thinks its in some way progressive?

Is it really helpful in the culture we're stuck in for an animal charity to encourage bullying of fat people?

And - come to that - if being overweight is such a terrible thing, and animals are so great, what's with the using "whale" as a term of abuse? Or is the poster suggesting that being overweight puts you on a par with one of nature's majestic giants? Or is it not even fully thought through?

The adverts have provoked some reaction though - and this, by the way, is where we get onto the music connection in this story. It's provoked Tegan And Sara to revoke their support for PETA. They just tweeted:

feeling a bit ashamed that we ever supported PETA. They should be ashamed over this.

The time to really have felt ashamed about supporting PETA, though, was when it started to emerge that, while they're very good at getting people to prance about in the nack to promote them, they're actually shit at caring for animals, and killed 95% of the animals they were 'caring' for last year.

U2: Spiderman, Spiderman, does... what-evah

Bono and The Edge has been talking about the Spiderman musical like it isn't a financial nightmare.

Sorry, did I say musical? Oh, hush my mouth:

The guitarist was keen not to describe the production, directed by Julie Taymor, as a musical, but rather an "opera".

And what makes the musical not a musical but an opera?

Now, you or I might answer this question "generally, an opera will be sung throughout, while a musical has dialogue; and in a musical the characters will dance." But The Edge seems to use a separate distinction, which is "if I am involved, the show will be whatever is cooler":

"It is a new challenge. The thing is we don't really like musicals. Most musicals are really pants. They're really not very cool," said The Edge.

This is, of course, arrant wasp toss, to borrow David Quantick's phrase. Musicals are pants and not really cool? A man who is churning out eye-podge like the Zooropa tour and the current U2 "Oooh, look, we've got a big mechanical crab" effort is suggesting that the work of Oscar Hammerstein is "pants"? Seriously?

"It is much more like opera than a straight musical. We're actually not calling it a musical for that reason because we don't want to put people off."

Oh, yes - protect that all-important audience of Spiderman fans who are more likely to go to an opera than a musical.

"We just thought, 'Well if we're going to do this we should do something that knocks it out of the park and hits on every level with great tunes'."

Ah, yes. That's exactly making it sound like an opera and not a musical.

So, with The Edge tossing wasps left, right and centre, you'd have thought Bono would be able to take the day off. But, oh no - if there's a self-aggrandising bar being raised, Bono is going to be keen to be having a go at that target:

Bono explained the characters won't be the same which appeared in comic or the film adaptations of the original Marvel comic series.

"Our Peter Parker is much more…not Kurt Cobain, but a kind of slacker, a more kind of shy sort of guy," said Bono.

Now, I read The Amazing Spider-Man, in three panel chunks, when he replaced Modesty Blaize in the Evening Argus, and the one thing about Peter Parker in that was that - yes, he was nothing like Kurt Cobain, but he was quite shy and something of an under-achiever. I await Bono reinventing Batman as some sort of millionaire with a fetish for teenage kids, or Superman as - hey, how crazy - a bloke from another planet who's allergic to Gordon Burns' Krypton Factor.

But just when Bono has done one big reveal which turns out to be dud, he turns out to have another sleeve with nothing up it:

Bono said: "We've got a new villain, it's a girl. It's a very extraordinary role. We've taken it to a much more dizzy place than you'd expect."

Oh, you've got a female villain? What an extra-ordinary twist you have come up with, Mr. Bono. A bad female? Whoever else would have had the sheer gall to suggest a lowly female could be the bad guy? You certainly have shaken all my preconceptions, like a man shaking an Etch-A-Sketch so hard it will never show another drawing.

Give Chico a Chico timecard, says Equity

Good luck with that, then, Equity: The actors union is trying to get ITV to pay the X Factor contestants:

The union is to table a motion at next month's TUC conference calling on TV companies to pay talent show contestants.

The motion will read: ''The contestants in such programmes are often compelled to enter into restrictive contracts and because of a loophole in the National Minimum Wage Act for competitions they generally do not get paid.

''These programmes may be very popular with the public but are based on exploitation and humiliation of vulnerable people, which cannot be acceptable. The public's demand for high quality entertainment should be met by professional drama and light entertainment which has been replaced by this cheap exploitation.''

This follows on from Equity's ultimately unsuccessful attempt last year to secure minimum wage for animals which do the funniest things.

Seriously, the idea isn't as unlikely as it sounds - the BBC pays for people who take part in their singy-singy shows when they're at the 'coming back week-in, week-out' stages - but you suspect the real thinking behind Equity's call is that their core membership are finding fewer and fewer jobs because reality TV is much cheaper to make. If you can make reality TV costs shoot up a little... well... that gap will start to close a bit, won't it?

Gordon in the morning: The 19th hole

You know that golf tournament that Gordon was telling us all about yesterday? All a little embarrassing and self-indulgent, wasn't it? Still, it's just one day in summer. It's not like Gordon would return to his pitch and putt for a second day, is it?

Oh.

And today, it's the big lead in the paper. Which surely means that there was another a big story came out of the day, right? Although, bemusingly, one that wasn't so big it had to be reported yesterday. So what is so big, but not so big, Gordon?

I HAVE a confession to make.

Uh-oh. Don't tell me the penis-size comparison got out of hand.

When ANDY HOPKINS from The Enemy hops on to play the V Festival on crutches this weekend, it's partly my fault.

Oh. (How do you play bass on crutches?) That's it, is it?

The poor lad smashed his heel in a drinking game which got out of hand at the inaugural Bizarre golf tournament.

If you thought Gordon was pushing it detailing the results of a golf game paid for by a PR company, you'll be delighted to hear the even-more-detailed coverage of the hilarious hi-jinks that followed once everyone got drunk.

In short, it was a drinking game:

If you took more than two shots to get the ball in the hole, you had to down half your drink. More than four and the whole drink had to go.

Some terrible putting and a few rounds of rum and ginger and Andy found himself doing his best JURGEN KLINSMANN impression along a slippery outdoor bar.

He got drunk and fell over. Hilarious. Let's all give the guys a round of applause, because becoming drunk and incapable is such a hoot.

What else is there in the Sun today, I wonder? Ooh, here's an interesting piece about David Cameron's new proposals:

The Tory leader plans to stop supermarkets selling boxes of strong lager at rock-bottom prices - sometimes cheaper than the cost of bottled water.
[...]
There is growing evidence that many youngsters get "tanked up" on cheap booze from the supermarket before heading out in the night.

And cops fear access to alcohol after pubs and clubs have closed can be a key factor in triggering violence or injuries.

It's terrible, isn't it, The Sun? I wonder where people get the idea that getting drunk and incapable is some sort of a hoot?

Darkness at 3AM: It is always 3AM now

The desperate attempt by the Daily Mirror to spin the 3AM column into Britain's answer to TMZ has had its on switch flicked. Understandably, they've only soft-launched; there was no big fuss. It's not like this is the launch of a new computermybob for comparethemeerkat or anything.

So, what's it like? It's written by someone who speaks Imperial Period Smash Hits, but only as a second language:

Like duh, you need to log in.

It has all the veracity of those black-and-white movies from the late 60s where elderly scriptwriters tried to write in youth argot. Like having a section called "chinny reck-on", you can see what they're trying to do but in a bid to give the site a personality, they've fallen short. Instead they've given the site a comedy jumper and a repertoire of silly voices.

But what of the content?

A headline boldly announces this picture of Posh demands to be analysed to death. It's a picture of Posh with a hat, carrying a teddy bear and walking one of her kids through an airport.

The 3AM team then, indeed, does analyse the picture, working through seven possibilities, of which this is the least weak:

5. That's not a teddy bear, that's David. She bought a book of love spells and turned him into a toy so that he can never leave her.

To be fair, they do come up with this possibility:

3. She's just a mum, like any other mum, going about her mumsy business, and we should give the poor woman a break and stop tearing apart her every movement.

But they never got to point eight, which I'm betting would surely have been "as a newspaper site and thus working under the rules of the Press Complaint Commissions, this picture appears to feature a child simply because his parents are famous, and as such shouldn't have been published, so perhaps Victoria is trying to avoid drawing attention to herself in order to save ourselves from once again showing certain parts of the UK newspaper industry can't be trusted with the concept of self-regulation."

Elsewhere, there's this cheerful opening to a story:

Since we know that Peter Andre is a fan of our site, we think it's only fair that we write stories that will make him chuckle. The latest bad PR for his dear lady ex-wife is that she's been accused of threatening to run over a young fan with her ridiculous pink horse box.

Ah, yes, what could possibly be more chucklesome than the mother of your children being accused of threatening to run people over? Let's hope the 3AM team start writing a sitcom soon.

One last jarring note: the stories don't have links to "read the full story". It says "Care? Read on."

Back home, what news of MySpace Music?

While MySpace has been drumming up the cash to buy iLike, how are things going at the last brilliant idea to put MySpace at the heart of social music?

That would be MySpace Music. You remember MySpace Music, don't you?

It's doing well. Kind of. It's certainly bringing a lot of traffic to the site, which is a bit of a problem, as they're attracting greedy ears and not open wallets, and so to cut losses, they're switching off autoplay:

But all that popularity comes at a price - billions of free streaming songs are costing MySpace up to $10 million a month in streaming fees, says a source, and the joint venture may lose $20 million or more this year.

So autostreaming is now off in a bid to try and stop some of the bandwidth costs sucking the money out the service.

Although 'making visitors hit a play button' doesn't quite sound convincing as a business plan to turn the fortunes of the site around.

Murdoch buys iLike

Sometime while Location Location Location was on, it was confirmed that MySpace had struck a deal to buy iLike.

Now, ultimately this makes iLike part of Rupert Murdoch's empire - which is interesting in itself, because while Rupert believes that newspapers online will have to charge or fade away, another part of his empire is investing heavily in a property which doesn't have charging its users as part of its business plan. Not much clarity of vision as to the future of the web over at News Corp, is there?

What's equally interesting: this is MySpace that has bought iLike. Not MySpace Music - you'd cautiously suggest this as a sign that the team in charge at MySpace are starting to think their current music spin-off isn't working.

What's also equally interesting is that iLike is strongest not on MySpace, but on Facebook. It'll be interesting to see how thrilled Facebook will be with one of their more popular apps falling into the hands of their rivals.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Saint Etienne/The Field Mice

I Taught Myself How To Grow Old explores the genius of Kiss And Make Up - including talking to the man who wrote the song, Bob from the Field Mice, on his relationship with the Saint's version:

BW: I haven't heard it in a very long time and although it's always a compliment when someone covers one of your songs my heart does sink a little every time it's reissued because the publishing has never been straight forward for Kiss and Make Up.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Travel

The National Geographic Intelligent Travel's Brad Scriber shares his recipe for making place-themed mixtapes:

Take the selections from my recent trip to Barcelona, for example:
This Catalonian city has stirred many a visitor's musical heart. Its name turns up in hundreds of options, from the punkish "Barcelona" by the Plasticines, to the more melodic lilt of "It's About Time" by the band Barcelona. It also led me to the jubilant Swedish troupe I'm From Barcelona, who are as persistent in promoting their adopted hometown as they are in promoting a little hop in the step of their listeners. Unable to decide between "Barcelona Loves You" and "We're from Barcelona," I nabbed them both, plus a relentlessly joyful homage to well-used passports, "Collection of Stamps."

Twittergerm: Oasis

Ah, Simon Heffer, that you should be alive at this hour, to see the Daily Telegraph running a piece lifted from the NME cover story.

Actually, does it look worse for the Telegraph that they're pinching chunks from the NME's Oasis piece, or for the NME that their cover story fits snugly inside the Daily Telegraph demographic?

Either way, the Telegraph is mightily charmed with this snippet from Liam, the wittiest man alive:

Just days before Oasis headline the V Festival, the band's frontman said the pair last spoke during a row at an airport which left Noel in tears.

He said they opt to travel separately on tour and only see each other onstage and only contact each other on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

"He doesn't like me and I don't like him, that's it," Liam told NME.

Liam, honey, if Noel really didn't like you, he'd have blocked your updates months ago.

Actually, the Telegraph's prurience makes their coverage of the NME interview look more like a sodoku board:

Liam said today that the pair now simply trade insults on the internet rather than face-to-face "to save the------- tour imploding".

He said Noel wouldn't have the nerve to criticise him in person "because he's a ------- lightweight and he knows where he'd end up".

Liam continued: "We don't travel together, do we ... so I never really see him, the only time I see him is onstage and we're a little bit busy that time to be ------- scratching each other."

Liam said the last conversation ended in a row. "I think it might have been about some ------- ---- support band he wanted to play with us and he didn't ask my permission. So we had a ------- ding-dong in the airport and I think he started crying then – that was it – doesn't travel with me anymore."

The Telegraph's belief that this spares children and sensitive adults' feelings was rudely shaken when a party of nuns mistook the interview for a game of hangman.

[Yes, yes. I know that officially Simon Heffer is alive]

Streaming now: Bad Lieutenant

Benrard Sumner's new outfit Bad Lieutenant are offering a sample of their wares over on the MySpace right now. Recalibrate your expectations before clicking: it's not New New Order. It's not even Modern Electronic.

Katy Perry as the lights go out

What's happening here?



Yes, what this is the reaction of Katy Perry's manager to his charge being asked a difficult question in an interview. Panicking that Perry might not be able to handle the hard-hitting enquiry, the manager had pulled the plug on the interview.

Literally, he pulled the plug. Perhaps he didn't realise that it's meant to be a figurative phrase; perhaps it's lucky he went with "pull the plug" and not "knock the thing on the head" or "pull her out."

The challenging enquiry was "do you admire any Australian artists?", although to be fair - and by "to be fair" I mean "making him look even more like a chump" - he hadn't heard the question properly, and thought that Perry was being asked about the pointless dispute she'd been dragged in to where she tried to sue Australian Katie Perry for being in the fashion business.

That was a ridiculous idea in the first place - trying to use legal action to block someone who had been using her own name for years, in a business that isn't actually Katy Perry's focus. It's almost as if Perry is being managed by an intemperate buffoon or something.

Still, everything got smoothed out:

Hafner added: "[Katy] was just delightful and very keen to make amends. She calmed him down and, after several apologies, the interview resumed."

Wow, her manager is really lucky that his star is so good at calming situations down and keeping everyone on side when he's behaving like a prima dona. She's surely worth the 10% of his income she must charge him.

[Thanks to James P for the story]

The Libertines reform... up to a point

Exciting - or, possibly, depressing, myth-killing news - from the NME this morning:

Pete Doherty has confirmed his plan to reform The Libertines to play UK festivals in 2010.

Really? They're reforming next summer? How on earth did Pete persuade Carl to get involved?

The Babyshambles frontman told NME.COM that he had already convinced former bandmates John Hassall [bass] and Gary Powell [drums] to reunite for gigs, and that as soon as Carl Barat agreed, dates would be finalised.

Ah. So Pete's plan would seem to be 'announce it to the press, then back Carl into a corner where he can't really say no without looking like an evil dream-killing villain. There's nothing like a reunion at knife-point, is there?

The comeback, by the way, is entirely motivated by artistic impulse and nothing whatsoever to do with the sluggish sales of Doherty's solo work.

Griffin done... portion control

Time to check in with Zoe Griffin, "the UK’s coolest party girl." This morning she's thinking about, erm, tappas:

When you order a selection of bread, olives, chorizo, calamari and patatas bravas etc, you may think it is all quite healthy but you never know exactly how much to order. And I hate wasting food, so I always end up trying to eat it all.

Isn't eating something you're not enjoying wasting food - it's not like forcing down an extra portion of squid is going to put its tentacles back and release it into the sea.

And does anyone really have trouble ordering tappas? Isn't a generally useful rule of thumb to get three items, plus a bread, and if that turns out not to be enough you can order some more?

Still, Zoe has some advice:

Tip of The Day: It’s way less stressful - and better for you - to go to restaurants that serve full meals on plates.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to write that on a Post-It note and stick it somewhere I can always see it.

So: Zoe is never starstruck by celebrities, but can be brought down by some olives and feta.

Twittergem: Zane Lowe

It's hard to know exactly what the most soul-crushing part of this tweet from @zanelowe is, but I think it might just be "all of it":

Last time I spoke with Ed Vedder, he had just been surfing on the wake of a tanker in Puget Sound. It was impressive

Gordon in the morning: My baby got the yips

Yes, since you ask, that would be Gordon Smart, stood clutching a golf club, stood alongside Vernon Kaye (TV's Les Dennis), Harry Judd (from mother and daughter country duo The Judds) and Danny Jones (one quarter of The Monkees).

Or, if the caption is to be believed, it's a:

Tee-mendous line-up ... Vernon Kay, Biz Ed Gordon Smart, Harry Judd and Danny Jones

And, you'll have noticed, they're holding golf clubs. That's why the caption says that tee thing.

This, it seems, was a golf event promoting something or other, and Gordon seems to think that we'll be interested in every moment of his corporate jolly with the sort of celebrity that even he would bump from the lead story if something about Beyonce Knowles came in.

Actually, given that Vernon Kaye was there, it's the sort of celebrity who would be bumped if a story about Solange Knowles came in.

Actually, one of the "celebrity" players was Chris Riley, who is a mate of The Enemy. This bunch would be bumped if a story about Nick Knowles came in.

Even Gordon knows that the event lacks a little glamour, but does his best to try and suggest that this isn't like a team bonding day for the Office Of Fading Stardom:

The competition was fierce at The Grove hotel in Hertfordshire - where the England footie team stay before home international matches.

When you're relying on the idea of Peter Crouch carrying an overnight bag to add glamour to your piece, you're in trouble.

But Gordon's smart, and knows that pro-celebrity (or rather no-celebrity) golf has an air clinging to it:

Forget JIMMY TARBUCK, BRUCE FORSYTH and RUSS ABBOTT - I'm joyriding their celeb golf buggy now.

Yeah, forget the time when celebs playing golf was all about the sort of people who spent their days presenting ITV game shows. Now, it's all about Vernon Kaye.

Oh, hang on.

Perhaps we could inject a little sex into the proceedings, Gordon?

The longest drive of the day belonged to Jamie. Or as he said: "I am a few inches bigger than you, Smarty."

That's not actually a double entendre, is it? In fact, Redkanpp might very well have been actually comparing his cock with Gordon's, as describing a distance as "bigger" makes no sense. Or maybe Jamie said "longer", and Gordon just can't read his notes because he was shaking with so much mirth.

Still, while nobody who wasn't there would be in any way interested in these events - good lucking pricing up the paywall for this, Messrs Murdoch - at least it's important to Gordon, right? I mean, there's no way he'd just leave the article hanging on a meaningless odd line, is there?

But his bandmate DANNY JONES landed Bizarre's Beginner gong and a swine flu boiler suit.

Bosnia says bye-bye to Bono

Sometime in the past, Bosnia gave Bono a passport.

Now, though, Bosnia wants it back:

Civil Affairs Minister Sredoje Novic tells CMU Music, "If we establish that a passport was given outside a regular legal procedure, we will have no other option but to take it away. We cut no slack to anybody, not even for Bono."

The passport had been a gift from Alija Izetbegovic when he was president; it might have been better if Izetbegovic had given a more traditional gift for a well-meaning pop star, like a hat or an orphan.

Jackson's doctor just wants to say thank you

Given that whole being-implicated-in-the-death-of-his-most-famous-client business, Doctor Conrad Murray is having trouble keeping in touch with family, friends and people who don't believe he could have done anything wrong and could they just get a little extra demerol, doc?

So, he's done what any one of us would have done, and popped a video on YouTube to say sorry and thank you:

“I want to thank all of my patients and friends who have sent such kind e-mails, letters and messages to let me know of your support and prayers for me and my family. Because of all that is going on, I am afraid to return phone calls or use my e-mail. Therefore I recorded this video to let all of you know that I have been receiving your messages. I have not been able to thank you personally which as you know is not normal for me. Your messages give me strength and courage and keep me going. They mean the world to me.”

... oh, yeah, and the innocence thing. Being, you know, innocent of nearly everything - that keeps me going, too.

Ampobit: Ted Weber

Ted Weber, amp and loudspeaker king, has died.

Weber trained as an electrician and shaped his skills while in the US Army. On his return to civilian life he tried to find a role in local bands, but soon realised his greatest contribution would be to help those bands by making amps and loudspeakers. A hobby quickly became a job, and a job became a company - once which has thrived for fourteen years and currently employs 10 people; one which provides equipment for a large number of - mainly - country artists.

Weber was 58; he had been sick for some time.