Eurovision postscript

New intelligence on what absolutely nobody is calling Snortgate

Look I don't know if this person is correct BUT this is the sort of energy I want to see behind debunking

We all have useless degrees it's time to get using them pic.twitter.com/J0Q4dJrwbH

— Rachael Krishna (@RachaelKrishna) May 24, 2021

Meanwhile, Liz Truss has suggested that the BBC be stripped of its responsibility for choosing the UK's entrant. She squirted this thought into the world on Nick Ferrari's LBC show, and marks a strange decision for Truss to move her remit from the job she's being well paid to do badly, onto something that she clearly doesn't understand. Sorry, onto something else that she clearly doesn't understand.

Perhaps if she knew that the choice of UK entrant is actually one of those public-private partnerships so beloved of the Tories - BMG have a voice, too - she might have come to a different decision. Sadly, Nick didn't take the opportunity to grill Truss on what her proposal for an alternative selection process might look like, nor to ask her what she saw as the flaws in the current process.

With most of the Cabinet currently subtly pushing the line that the BBC killed Diana, I suppose Truss focusing on Broadcasting House's culpability for Jemini marks her out as a more liberal part of Johnson's team.

Meek Mill is piss weak

If you're on probation, and have to submit urine samples to convince the court you're keeping to the terms of that probation, handing over cold water instead of piss is probably a stupid idea.

Didn't stop Meek Mill doing it though:

Mill failed check into court every 60 days to have his travel approved, while a urine sample he submitted was in fact reported to be cold water, although Mill says he did not tamper with it.

Yeah. Taking it straight from the tap doesn't make it any better, Meek. The judge isn't annoyed that she thought you'd put it through a Britta Filter.

A small round of applause

Hadley Freeman sticks up for Kate Moss in today's Guardian, and in the course of it says this:

I’ve heard and read plenty of tut-tutting about Moss’s alleged former drug use, with much headshaking about the global damage done by drug users and so on, and that’s just grand: well done on your “virtue signalling”, to borrow a useful term coined by the New Statesman’s Helen Lewis. Strangely, though, I very rarely hear such qualms expressed about, oh, let’s say, Noel Gallagher, who has talked frequently about his former cocaine abuse and yet now seems on the fast track to national treasure status, despite writing songs so boring I honestly believe they should not be played on the radio out of concern for drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

Venuewatch: Liverpool Lomax packed with drugs, closed down

I'm not entirely sure if the current version of the Liverpool Lomax is officially the second or third iteration of the venue - third, strictly speaking, if you consider the time the original venue closed and moved in with its bigger sibling the L2 round the back of Lime Street.

Whether you consider it Lomax v2, or v3, or v4 if you think of the L2 as actually being v2 is irrelevant now, as the police are asking magistrates to shut the police down.

They raided the place early today and... well, they didn't like what they found:

After closing the premises officers carried out an extensive search of the four-storey premises and found 10 bags of cannabis and some cocaine.

It's been a grim week for turn-of-the-century big names in Liverpool: Garlands was also raided and closed down.

Miley Cyrus suggests self-googling worse than bong-hitting

'Miley Cyrus says Facebook, Google, Instagram worse than drugs' shocker, right?

Well, not quite:

In an interview with Australian news magazine program Sunday Night ahead of a tour down under, Cyrus was asked whether her use of marijuana has deleterious effects on her health. Her response was to dismiss the notion and instead offer the following pearls of wisdom:

“You know what hurts your brain? Googling yourself. You know what hurts your brain? Instagram. You know what hurts your brain? Reading comments on Facebook. You know what hurts your brain? Reading US Weekly."

To be fair, since 1994 US Weekly has carried a surgeon general's health warning on the front page.

But if Cyrus really believes that Instagram is bad for you, should she really have an account with seven million followers? Isn't she effectively destroying brains by the dozen?

NB: This question is rhetorical.

UPDATE: Jesus, I can't tell the difference between Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry any more, even when it's just their name written down. Thanks, Frank.

Great (shabby) moments in pop history: Pulp

You'll recall, of course, when the now-defunct Daily Mirror ran a risible campaign against Pulp's Sorted For Es and Whizz:

Worth remembering the "journalist" who tried to bark up outrage over nothing was Kate Thornton, before her short-lived period editing Smash Hits into destruction and "inventing" Candle In The Wind as a Diana tribute.

Pete Doherty: Don't hold the front page

You think, Pete?

The Bieber "crime" is investigated

The puzzling question about the egging of Justin Bieber's house is what the hell were the police searching Justin's house for?

"We were looking at things that would put him or anything else at the scene," [Sheriff's Lt. David] Thompson said, adding that Bieber's attorneys were not present during the search and the singer was not questioned.

The next door neighbour's house was hit with eggs. What were the police doing? Looking in the fridge?

Turns out they did find something, though:

A police search of teen pop star Justin Bieber's California home on Tuesday in a vandalism case linked to the singer resulted in the arrest of a man after drugs were found in the house, the Los Angeles County Sheriff said.

The police justify the search because the egging caused - it's claimed - over USD20,000 worth of damage.

How many bloody eggs were thrown? Or were they ostrich eggs or something?

Thompson said the cost of damages was high because the exterior of Bieber's neighbor's home was made of imported wood and brick.

That makes sense, assuming that non-American wood and brick disintegrates upon contact with albumen.

There is no way everyone involved is making way too much of this.

Two Macaulay Culkin stories pointing in opposite directions

This sounds positive:

Macaulay Culkin's new girlfriend Jordan Lane Price has reportedly helped him beat drugs after threatening to walk away.

... but I'm not sure it's worked:

We Saw Macaulay Culkin’s Pizza-Themed Velvet Underground Cover Band Last Night

MTV EMAs: Amsterdam largely not bothered

Oh, god. Have we only just got as far as the MTV European Music Awards?

Have the really found a way of making what is already a poor burp after the real awards even more fetid? For example, by giving Miley Cyrus another platform to do something outrageous?

What do you think?

Miley Cyrus lit what appeared to be a cannabis joint on stage at the MTV EMAs in Amsterdam last night (11 November).

The singer was accepting her award for best video for Wrecking Ball.

She opened her bag, took out the rolled up cigarette and lit it in front of the crowd.

That is the most disgusting, outrageous thing I have ever heard. Wrecking Ball best video? It wasn't even the best video featuring someone naked on a piece of building equipment.

(That, by the way, would have been Straddlin' My Theodolite by The Hi-Viz Jackets.)

So, Miley did some "drugs". Did the world inhale with shock?

The fans in Amsterdam did not seem to find it offensive.

No, because young tourists turning up in Amsterdam waving spliffs around is pretty much what people from Amsterdam are used to - Miley was doing the equivalent of turning up at a Blackpool gig, licking a boob made from seaside rock and assuming people will be shocked.

Here's the winners in full, in case you're still interested:

Best video - Wrecking Ball, Miley Cyrus
Best UK & Ireland act - One Direction
Global icon award - Eminem
Best song - Locked Out of Heaven, Bruno Mars
Best female - Katy Perry
Best male - Justin Bieber
Best pop - One Direction
Best hip hop - Eminem
Best rock - Green Day
Best alternative - 30 Seconds to Mars
Best live - Beyonce

Full Disclosure

Just to be clear, Disclosure releasing a video full of people taking drugs, and then pulling the video later because they realised it featured people taking drugs is the sort of accident that could befall anyone.

It is in no way an arthritic stunt to make a so-so act appear to be in some way "edgy" or "hip".

Robin Thicke's dealer sees him coming

You know when the police seize drugs and claim they're worth squillions, and everyone stares at the story, and does the maths, and wonders where the cops think they'd find anyone paying that for drugs on the street?

It turns out Robin Thicke might be the pictured customer, as he's somehow managed to spend half a million dollars on cannabis.

To be fair, he doesn't say how long it took him to get through this cash, and if he was really doing half a million dollars' worth of dope, he probably lost track of days about three hours in.

I know, I'm taking the honking claim of an insecure young man desperate to impress way too seriously. I mean, he can't have been doing all those drucks because he was telling me he was totally driving his car at two hundred miles an hour up and down the A5 last night, right?

Face '83: Grandmaster Melle Mel

This is the spiritual heir to Gudbuy T'Jane - a song which had a 180 degree turn done from its original direction. To be honest, a song about cocaine being a good thing would have been a tricky sell, even in 1983, so probably a wise move to make it an anti-drug anthem. Or, perhaps, a suggestion that if you're going to get involved with drugs, carrying kilos of the stuff in order to avoid jail.



Let's give the point to The Face, to make the final scores:

Recordings that have stood the test of time and thus vindicated The Face's ability to spot a good thing:
25
Recordings which history has undermined and should at least cause The Face to blush:
20

That's not a bad strike rate for the Face, really. In 1983, at least, they knew what they were doing.

Up to a point.

This concludes The Face's best recordings of 1983. Thank you for watching.

Gordon in the morning: The price of fame

Understandably, Gordon has little time for Pete Doherty's explanation of why he's no longer with Kate Moss:

Pete insisted: “Maybe we could have lasted forever.

“When I met her she was just a girl from south London that I fell in love with. But it wasn’t an easy love.

“In a different world, at a different time – if we hadn’t become famous it might have worked.
“But with all the people around us it just couldn’t. They didn’t want us together.”

Gordon points out that it could also be something to do with him running out on an expensive drug rehab programme that Moss had sprung for.

You've got to love the claim that she was "just a girl from South London". Which is odd, because normally someone who is "just a girl from South London" wouldn't be holding a party in their ten bedroom, grade II listed Cotswold second home, would they?

Status Quo: At current prices

We've heard many, many stories of Status Quo's drug years, and the Telegraph is happy to go through some of them again.

But this being the Telegraph, there's an acknowledgement of the interests of their readers:

Indeed Rossi, who formed the band, originally named the Spectres, with his south London school friend Alan Lancaster in 1962, appears never to have questioned how much he was spending on drugs once the band became successful.

He said: “I used to spend £1,200 a week on cocaine, which again doesn’t sound like that much now.”

When it was pointed out to him that the sum amounted to £1.69 million over a decade at today’s prices, he admitted that with hindsight he wished he had not indulged quite so recklessly.

Yes, the paper works out the actual investment the band made in drugs, and uprated it to 2013 prices.

Although the writer, Patrick Sawer, does seem to have used the slightly risky assumption that Rossi bought the same amount of drucks week in, week out, for 520 weeks.

So tell us, Patrick, having burned through all that potential cash must have left Rossi in penury, right?

Rossi - whose fortune is estimated at between £2 and £10m - said his most costly outlays nowdays are his eight children and their education.

There's a chilling warning for the kids: if you spend your cash on drugs when you're young, you might end up with so much cash nobody even seems able to count it.

Justin Bieber: My drug hell

Here's the most interesting bit about 'young pop star might use recreational drugs' story:

Police spokesman Lars Bystrom said a small amount of drugs and a stun gun had been found when officers raided the empty bus parked under the Globen concert venue in Stockholm, where the singer was performing on Wednesday.

He declined to identify the drug, saying it had been "sent to a laboratory for an analysis".

Police acted after smelling marijuana coming from inside the bus when it was parked outside the hotel where the singer was staying.

"We smelled dope, really strongly, from inside the bus so we went and searched the bus that the smell of cannabis was pouring out of. But I don't think we should tell you what drugs we found on the weed bus."

Wyclef Jean: What if you threw a gig for stoners and they were, like, whatever or whatever?

4/20 is, according to Wikipedia, a secular holiday in America - it's not, it's just a day when people who haven't quite got over being pleased with themselves at smoking dope gather to be pleased with themselves in public. It's pretending to be part of a counterculture from firmly within mainstream culture.

To mark the day, Colorado University in Boulder booked Wyclef Jean to do a gig. Although the stressed that he wasn't to mark the day:

From item twelve in the contract ("The Agency Shall" section):

"The Agency shall ensure that Attraction avoids making direct referrences to marijuana and other illegal drugs or make 4/20 related remarks as this is a University sponsored event."

It's like booking Perry Como to do a Christmas Eve set and making him sign a waiver barring him from mentioning Holidays, Jesus or gifts.

So, how did it go, then? Not well, as Jean played to a mostly empty room.

Westword was speculating there were 400 people in the 11,000-capacity venue; even if that number doubled as the evening went on, with Jean getting a flat-fee of $80,000 for the event, that'd make it a $100-a-head event.

Moral: probably don't bother holding a big event on a day when everyone is getting out their faces. They should probably have spent the fee they gave Jean on Curly-Wurlys and crisps.

Blanco family, CPS unimpressed by Doherty NME interview

In the NME last week, Pete Doherty made some large claims about the night that Mark Blanco died.

It was a bit odd that the paper didn't attempt to push him a bit - particularly, on the idea that the Met Police has a video which shows Blanco falling to his death which clears him.

It was even more surprising that, having gifted a large chunk of space for Pete to put his case, the NME didn't bother to contact either the Met or the Blanco family to put a counterpoint. You know, in the interests of not looking so desperate for a Doherty exclusive that they'd let him say anything - however incredible - with barely a mutter.

The second part, in this week's paper, doesn't get much better. Doherty sounds off on the various qualities of London against Parisian heroin while "smoking something". When he tells Jamie Fullerton that in Paris, when you score

"it's like China White"

the response is a weak

It's a better class of heroin in Paris?

as if this was a bit with Alex James banging on about cheese.

Once the interview is over, in the epilogue, Fullerton suggests that Doherty's ongoing drug use is "disappointing", which is an odd choice of word for a man who has been brain-twanging all the way through his talk with the paper. Rather an understatement.

Meanwhile, Jamie Doward for The Guardian has been doing the research the NME chose not to, following up Doherty's tale of the night Mark Blanco died.

First, there's a perspective from Blanco's mother:

Blanco's friends and family have attacked the claims as a desperate attempt to rewrite the past. "Mark was a pacifist who would never raise a hand to anyone," said Sheila Blanco, Mark's mother. "Pathetic, tawdry PR stunts such as these strengthen even further my resolve: to secure justice for my son and to expose anyone who has obstructed the protracted investigation into his tragic death."

And then a quick call to the Met about the video which puts Pete into the clear:

The Met has referred questions about Doherty's claims of video footage to the CPS. Last year the CPS said in a statement that "CCTV footage did show several individuals later leaving the same building that Mr Blanco had fallen from and passing his body, but this evidence does not shed any light on how Mr Blanco fell or who, if anyone, may have been responsible".

So, no film, then. Quite an important point for the NME to not mention, surely?

Blur: No distance left to run (well, a little bit)

John Harris catches up with Damon Albarn for the Guardian, and discovers that we might just about be at the end of the Blur reunion period:

So no more Blur records?

"No, I don't think so."

And will you play live again after Hyde Park?

"No, not really."

This is even bigger news. So that's it?

"I think so, yeah," he says. A little later, he goes on: "And I hope that's the truth: that that's how we end it. I don't know: you can write scripts, and they always end up going… [pause]… well, one thing I've learned, and I'm sure you're exactly the same, is that everything I think I've got totally sorted out, and I know exactly what's going to happen – it never works out that way…"

So how should I put it? That in all likelihood, this is the end of Blur?

"In all likelihood, I would say. [pause] Oh, God…"

This isn't a very clean declaration of an ending - it's a 'ooh, footsteps going near the waterfall'-cum-'well, we never saw the body fall into the canal' conclusion, with a door clearly left open. Albarn is too shrewd - perhaps too realistic - to say 'never again'.

Harris is also very, very good at getting Albarn to talk about drugs, and in particular the extent to which 13 is Blur's smack album. John's honest enough to admit that there's a massive spoon of hindsight to his insight:

But even though Frischmann's drug problems were becoming well known, nobody who wrote about Blur – myself included – seemed to cotton on (much like, perhaps, when Britain averted its eyes from the fact that YMCA by the Village People was a joyous hymn to the gay lifestyle).

Read the full piece, though, it's an excellent interview in a lovely piece of writing - and it explains why Albarn is now friends with Noel Gallagher, but less so with Jamie Hewlett/

Madonna denies cringeworthy drug reference was cringeworthy drug reference

Yesterday, to try and flog her new album, Madonna found herself on Twitter, which gave her a chance to try and clear up her 'has anyone here seen Molly' drug reference at the Ultra Music Festival.

Madonna insists that her drug reference wasn't a drug reference at all:

I don’t support drug use and I never have. I was referring to the song ‘Have You Seen Molly’ written by my friend Cedric Gervais who I almost worked with on my last album

Of course you were, Madonna. Of course you were. Because it's the most usual thing in the world to stand on stage and yell out something a bit like the name of a song you're not about to sing by someone you haven't worked with. It's a well known thing.

Deadmau5 - who first called Madonna on it - seems happy with her explanation, though; and Cedric Gervais has taken advantage of suddenly popping onto the public stage to promote the ass out of himself ("share his interpretation of his own song"). TMZ:

Now, this "friend" -- a DJ named Cedric Gervais (left) -- is coming to Madonna's defense, insisting his song is NOT about drugs ... it's about a girl named Molly who, according to the lyrics, "makes me want to dance."

So, are we all clear, then? Madonna's drug reference was actually simply a mangled reference to a song; that drug song isn't about drugs at all.

Twenty years too late, American culture has finally caught up with "noooo, it's just a song about a man called Ebeneezer who is good" piss-poor fourth-form pretending that it's not about drugs.

Madonna, a 53 year-old woman, is doing the equivalent of humming while teacher is turned to the blackboard and then looking surprised when he turns round.

Still, Madonna doesn't support drug use and never has. Now, can we all forget suggestions she might be childishly poking drug references everywhere and get back to thinking about her album MDMA?