Gordon in the morning: The wedding planner

Oh no, Gordon has been up all night fretting over a potential clash of wedding dates:

Brad got a wedding licence at the end of last month — which stated they must marry in 90 days.

The deadline could see the big day for the pair clash with the nuptials of Brad’s ex JENNIFER ANISTON — which would spark a bitter bun-fight over celeb guests.

oh no that would be terrible i can barely stand it oh whatever shall we all do

Hang on a moment, though: Aniston hasn't announced a wedding date; not even a "source close to the couple" has leaked one. I don't think the National Enquirer has even bothered to make up a date yet. So, presumably, Aniston could just choose a date that doesn't clash.

The element of non-existent jeopardy gets even smaller the more you read the story:

A source said: “Brad and Angelina left themselves short of time to sort out their wedding because of the licence deadline. A few months is nothing when you’re planning a wedding — especially one as major as theirs."

This assumes that they didn't start doing any planning prior to applying for the licence. Most people would work out most of the detail before heading off for the vital piece of paper, because - I don't know if you spotted this, Gordon - they're only valid for ninety days. (That's a quarter of a year, by the way .)

And given that Brad and Angelina aren't exactly on their last few quid, I suspect if they don't get married in the window currently afforded them by the licence they won't consider it too onerous to, you know, pay for another one. It's not like if you don't use the licence that's it.

Gordon in the morning: Adopting fresh positions

You know who's been a rock during the whole story about Madonna's credit card being refused at the baby checkout? Guy Ritchie, that's who. At least, according to Gordon:

THE thick layer of ice between GUY RITCHIE and MADONNA is starting to thaw.

Film director Guy has been consoling his ex over her failed adoption bid in a series of tearful phone calls, I can reveal.

Sniff.

Guy stunned everyone by issuing a statement supporting Madge

Well, certainly he'd have stunned Sun readers, who have been fed a diet of stories claiming the pair hated each other so much they could barely stand the thought that their lungs worked in similar ways.

He said: �I fully supported Madonna in her decision to apply for this adoption, and I am saddened her application has been rejected.

�She is motivated only by being a caring parent who seeks to share some of the advantages and opportunities that her life has given her.�

Just as a sidebar - could someone at The Sun please buy a book about the internet and stop the big diamond question marks appearing all over their website?

Yes, a surprising statement - especially if you'd spent the last two years reading this sort of thing:

GUY RITCHIE has rowed bitterly with Madonna over her plans to adopt an African baby, The Sun can reveal.

The film director fears his wife may just want the child as a celebrity status symbol ? and that she has not considered the potential problems of such a move.

Still, the paper is currently going through a warm patch in its relations with Madonna, trying desperately to paint 'having adoption rejected because it wasn't legal' as being something else entirely:

...after a Malawian judge refused the adoption, even though other authorities gave it the green light, because she hadn’t lived in the country for 18 months.

Oh, it was just a persnickety judge focusing on a tiny, tiny detail. Everyone else in Malawi was fine with it, right?

Elsewhere, Gordon shows respects for elders:

A FLUFFY grey poncho and matching hat sounds like an outfit my gran would wear to the bingo on a Saturday night.

But ANGELINA JOLIE looks dabber, sorry dapper, in old dears’ threads in her latest movie.

Gordon, mate: probably not a wise idea to take the piss out of older people when your ultimate boss is seventy-seven.

And, in perhaps the most horrible image ever published by the Sun, for some reason we're subjected to a snap of Bono with - apparently - his hand down his swimming trunks. Isn't there some sort of law?

Miley Cyrus has heroes

Naturally, growing up in the home paid for by the royalties from Achy Breaky Heart, Miley Cyrus has never wanted for a hero to look up to. Her dad taught her that any old toot can pay for having the taps goldplated.

But a young woman needs more. Luckily, though, Miley has other role models:

"I'm a huge Jennifer Aniston fan and a huge Angelina Jolie fan," Cyrus said.

And what is it that appeal about Aniston, then? She has managed to parlay a limited talent and some hair into a multimillion dollar career, so perhaps that's it?

"Jennifer Aniston can put on a plain black dress with plain makeup and hair and look so stunning.

Um... yes. Being able to wear a dress. Well, that's a talent, I suppose.

But Jolie, then? She has, at least, shared her views on matters of global importance - perhaps you draw strength from Angelina's demonstration that celebrity can strive to be more than shallow, even if with limited success?

Angelina always looks so comfortable in her own skin. She's also changed, going from wild child to being a mom and having a normal life.

Angelina Jolie's normal life. Yes... yes, I can see how that normal, everyday, turning up at Davos economic fora life she's made for herself might appeal.

But hang on a moment, because Cyrus has remembered there's something else inspiring about Jennifer Aniston. And it's not being able to walk in heels:

And Jennifer Aniston bounced back after her divorce. If anything like that ever happens to me, I'm like, 'Pull a Jennifer, Miley!' She is so classy."

Mmm. Uncomfortably naked except for a tie on the cover of GQ classy.

The mind can only attempt warm-up leaps trying to speculate exactly what Miley has had happened to her that has been on a par with a very public divorce; much less how many events of this sort must have occurred for her to have generated a catchphrase for those happenings.

Gordon in the morning: This charming man

Now, generally, I'm not a big fan of Abi Titmuss. But does she really deserve the headline that Gordon's put on the story about Mickey Rourke's supposed attempts to spend some time with her:

Slapper smacks down grappler

Slapper? Really, Gordon? You think it's ever appropriate for a family newspaper to call someone a slapper?

We're also treated to Gordon's thinking-words on the occasion of the Grammy-BAFTA night:

THE country might be awash with economic gloom but we can take huge pride in the success of our film and music industry.

COLDPLAY, ADELE, ROBERT PLANT, DUFFY and ESTELLE proudly flew the flag for the UK, pocketing a brilliant 15 Grammys on Sunday night.

Back home our actors, directors and talented army of film makers gave Britain one of our proudest Bafta nights ever.

Best bit for me was Orange Rising winner Noel Clarke, 33, who issued a rallying call to teenagers insisting if he could make a success of himself, then anyone could follow in his footsteps.

Our music and film industries are without any question packed with Great Britons.

Apparently, you can create this editorial for yourself simply by humming the Dambusters theme into one of those headsets that change voice into text.

So, how great is the British film industry at creating stars, Gordon? Your three stories from the BAFTA aftershows are that one with Abi Titmuss and Mickey Rourke; one about Pitt and Jolie rushing off and one about Sharon Stone not being able to hail a taxi. Funny, isn't it? This great night for British stars, and yet - apart from Abi, of course - Gordon's only interested in the Americans.

Gordon in the morning: Senstivity

The actual article is written by Beci Wood, but it appears as part of the Gordon Smaret calvacade. It's published alongside an even-grottier-than-usual long len snap of Angelina Jolie:

ANGELINA JOLIE emerges today for the first time since giving birth to twins VIVIENNE MARCHELINE and KNOX LEON in July.

The sighting at New York airport also marks the actress' first appearance since US reports claimed she is suffering from a form of post-natal depression.

So... this is an invasive snapshot of someone who Gordon and Beci believe is ill. Classy.

And what's that about her "emerging for the first time"? It's not like she's been a shut-in, is it? What they mean is "this is the first time she's been in a position where an idiot with a camera has shoved one in her face and we've persuaded Rupert Murdoch to pay for the results", but that's not quite as snappy.

Oh, and there's a full view of the child's face in it, too - presumably Smart believes that the PCC rules on publishing photos of young people don't apply to Americans? Or to him?

Elsewhere, Gordon himself gets excited by a song he believes is an attack on Heather Mills by Paul McCartney's Fireman sideproject. So excited, in fact, he seems to lose track of his Maccas and Muccas and winds up inadvertently calling Paul a liar:

To say the attack is thinly-veiled would be like calling Macca a bit of a fibber.

Surely, Gordon, you know that people (i.e. your boss) call Heather Mucca - it's because of her porn past, dontchaknow?

Cher: What's new, Pussycat?

As the rebooted Batman franchise looks forward to making a second mountain of money ("second movie"), the big question is who is going to play Catwoman.

Okay, the real question is when will they announce Angelina Jolie will play Catwoman, but - wait! Some tension has entered the cat casting question: Cher's face (her current one) is apparently in the frame:

“I would LOVE nothing more than for Cher to play Catwoman,” said her manager Risa Shapiro in this morning’s phone interview. “She’d be great. She’s one of the most extraordinary women anyone could ever meet. But I haven’t received any phone call about this, and hadn’t even heard about it .”

They can do astonishing things with CGI these days, so it might be not beyond the realms of possibility that Cher could be made to look like Jolie in post-production. And she would be wearing a mask most of the time.

Gordon in the morning: Madonna gets all sweary

Bizarre this morning is leading with Madonna's One Big Weekend performance. You might think Gordon is in charge when you read the opening paragraph:

BUSTY MADONNA causes a sensation as she almost pops out of her top

but, no: this excitement at almost seeing a nipple is the work of Sara Nathan, the paper's TV editor. But here main order of business is Madonna swearing. Twice:

The singer used the f-word twice during the Radio 1 Big Weekend gig live on BBC3, BBC HD and Radio 1.

On BBC 3 and BBC HD and Radio 1. As if it was being simulcast?

Holding an S&M-style cane, she introduced her song Hung Up to fans at the concert in Maidstone, Kent, saying: “You guys are going to have to start fucking it up out there ’cos I need to feel some love. I’m going to do an old song. But not too old. Fuck the present. Let’s live in the past.”

Now, most people would think the confused 'not too old - let's live in the past' time paradox was the closest thing to something interesting here, but for the Bizarre column, it's outrage at the f-word:

The BBC was rapped when Madonna, 49, swore at the Live Earth gig last year.

Now, if you or I were the "TV editor" of a national newspaper, we might - at the very least - have added the words "and many others" to that sentence, what with how it was the repeated swearing which earned the BBC censure, not because of Madonna alone. And you might feel obliged to point out the difference between a high-profile, teatime appearance by Chris Rock throwing round "motherfuckers" on BBC One, and a post-watershed, properly-warned appearance on BBC Three. But maybe not.

It's hard to take seriously a column on a "family newspaper's" website which now regularly runs photos of women with their tits out masquerading as entertainment journalism being a crusader for a less crude nation. Especially in an article also rubbing itself because Madonna had bouncy breasts.

Gordon, while this is going on, continues to develop his stalkery obsession with Jennifer Aniston. We don't know if he runs every single snap of Aniston that comes across his desk:

ASK any bloke to say which bikini-clad bird he’d most like to join him for a swim and the odds are JENNIFER ANISTON’s name is going to crop up in the top three.

... but it's starting to look like it. Wonder why Gordon is so enamored of a woman whose main success was playing a character who had an unlikely relationship with a slightly awkward, odd-looking bloke who had a teenager's dream job.

Oh, and, yes: He really does run a little cropped-out photo of just Aniston's breasts. So you can see the shape of her nipples. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel their skin crawl?

Elsewhere, Gordon straight-facedly (very, very straight-faced) uses the word "lez":

Hayden 'lez lust' for Angelina

It turns out that Smart thinks this is an acceptable word to describe lesbianism. But does Hayden Panettiere really have lesbian passion for Angelina Jolie, Gordon?

TELLY Heroes beauty HAYDEN PANETTIERE has claimed she would happily bed Angelina Jolie.

Has she really said that, Gordon?

The 18-year-old — who plays indestructible Claire Bennet in the BBC2 sci-fi hit — has been dogged by rumours she is a lesbian.

She said: “That’s fine with me. If I’m going to be linked with someone, I could do an affair with ANGELINA JOLIE, JESSICA ALBA or CHARLIZE THERON.

“And KATE BECKINSALE is gorgeous. There are so many beautiful girls.”

We've given up on expecting Smart to be able to write properly, but surely a basic grasp of English comprehension should still be required before being put in charge of a newspaper column? Clearly, Hayden is saying that if there are going to be lesbian rumours, at least make them with someone top-drawer, not that she has "lez lust" for anyone. Since Smart would never deliberately mislead his readers, we have to assume he's just unable to understand a joke, don't we?

Gordon in the morning: Madonna will dance for coins

Gordon crunches the numbers on Madonna's upcoming Dubai gigs, and discovers that if you divide an unsubstantiated payrate by an estimated length of concert, she'll be earning an eye-catching but completely spurious £83,333 a minute. We love the way Gordo is accurate to the pound level, despite the numbers he'd making being made-up.

And, while we have no doubt that Madonna will be well rewarded for her visits to the United Arab Emirates, would Gordon be confusing the money paid to stage the concert in total with the cash Madonna will be taking to one of her many homes?

Nice to see that The Sun - still, as I understand it, edited by Rebekah Wade, she of the campaign to rid the nation of paedophiles (and any paediatricians who got caught in the cross-fire, and blokes who were just a little weird but probably up to something) - manages to find room to run slobbering pieces by Gordon over photos of Geri Halliwell dressed as a schoolgirl ("to act out a few fantas. . . I mean sketches") and photos of Angelina Jolie when she was a schoolgirl ("she took part in the racy swimsuit shoot with photographer SEAN McCALL. Looking very fresh-faced, Angelina wore a range of skimpy outfits including a bikini and one-piece bathing suit.")

Gordon in the morning: Swayze and means

Well, it could have been worse. We were worried that this morning's Bizarre would have attempted to crowbar in a reference to how he was once a ghost, but the coverage of Patrick Swayze's cancer isn't quite that cloying. Not quite, anyway. With Emily Smith covering the story, and Emma Morton (the Sun's health and science editor) explaining what cancer is, Gordon is left with little to do but invite people to send messages of support:

Now, the 55-year-old could be spending his last few precious weeks with his family as pancreatic cancer takes hold.

Leave your messages of support by using the MySun link below.

If you did have weeks to live, it's not clear how much of that "precious time" you'd want to spend wading through heartfelt but poorly constructed messages from Sun readers.

Gordon and Emily have a difference of opinion over exactly what Patrick is like. For Gordon, he's:

DIRTY Dancing heart throb PATRICK SWAYZE

but for Emily, he's:

DIRTY Dancing hunk PATRICK SWAYZE

Presumably Gordo was worried that calling a man a hunk makes it sound like it's your opinion, whereas "heart throb" is an observation of other people's reactions.

There's something heartwarming about Emma Morton's attempts to explain pancreatic cancer to the Bizarre readership:

THE pancreas is a gland that secretes digestive enzymes and produces important hormones like insulin, writes The Sun’s Health and Science Editor Emma Morton.

Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat. And it is hard to diagnose, because of its location at the back of the abdomen.

Emma's faith that "abdomen", "enzyme" and "insulin" are going to illuminate the matter for Gordon's readers is touching. Perhaps she should have seen how Gordon handles pregnancy before deciding where to pitch her piece. Angelina Jolie, we're told by the HTML page title, is

Busty and pregnant

while

Super-fit NICOLE KIDMAN also looks swell as her baby bump begins to bulge.

There's not much sign that Gordon thinks his readers did more human biology than giggling over page 72 in the text book.

Gordon in the morning: Rehab gives you breasts

We suppose you can hardly blame Gordon Smart for, once again, breaking the promise to leave Amy Winehouse alone to get well as her record company did get her off to the American embassy yesterday. Still, it gives Gordon an excuse to do what he does best - slightly awkward perving:

IT’S chest what we all wanted to see – AMY WINEHOUSE looking almost back to her best.
[...]
The star’s boobs were on full show for her meeting with the Embassy suits . . . well, I suppose it can’t do any harm.

Yes, that'd work. "Sorry, Ms Winehouse, but you've been filmed using crack and have paid a fine to a foreign government for drug... [glances up, that music Carry On films use when Sid James sees Barbara Windsor in a short skirt plays] ... no, Miss... uh... ooh, have indefinite leave to remain..." Because that's what US immigration is like. It's virtually indistinguishable from Carry On Camping.

Closer magazine has got Javine to recreate the famous Richard Herring gig flier in which he's naked, holding his bulge - the same one Demi Moore copied (I'm pretty sure that was the order it happened in) and the same one that everyone who has been pregnant in the last ten years has done. In fact, it's been done so often, Gordon no longer feels the need to pretend that the shoot has anything to do with the miracle of impregnantion:

IT’S good nudes for pop star JAVINE as she poses naked just days before she is due to give birth.

Yes, it's just another naked woman. We hope Gordon is seeing it just another naked woman and not one of those subsection of men imagined in Dworkin's Pornography: Men Possessing Women who get off on naked pictures of women because it represents a woman's body somehow 'colonised' by sperm.

Nah, Gordon just likes the flesh: he's also excited by a photo of Angelina Jolie's naked back, which gets him all flustered, and offering advice to James McAvoy:

If I was James, I would have that picture tattooed on my arm to show everyone I met.

Yes. That's a normal reaction to seeing a picture of a pretty woman.

We're not sure Gordon read his copy here, though - perhaps he was too busy drawing a picture of breasts on his elbow:

HERE’S ANGELINA JOLIE looking ink-redible in her new blockbuster Wanted.

BRAD PITT’s girlfriend is no stranger to the tattoo parlour.

But for her role as aptly named assassin Fox in the action flick, she’s had a few temporary ones added to the centre of her back.

We know what he thinks he's saying, but he has just claimed that some temporary tattoo parlours have opened on Joile's spine, hasn't he? Let's hope they're properly licensed.

Smart does have a good, solid story this morning, which we shall turn to in a moment.

Beth Ditto: biphobic or blinkered?

We're not actually sure if Beth Ditto is biphobic, or if she just hasn't quite got the capacity to understand what "bisexuality" means. But she's had a pop at Angelina Jolie:

Gay singer BETH DITTO has hit out at actress ANGELINA JOLIE's claims she's bisexual, insisting she wouldn't be dating BRAD PITT if she was.

Eh? What on earth does that mean, Beth?

"If she were actually a lesbian she'd be with a woman."

Uh... yes. That's why she's always said she's bisexual, Beth. You have to hope that she's not one of what we'd hoped were an almost-extinct type of homosexual, the sort who believes that there's no such thing as bisexuality and believe that all bisexuals are either gay people who are too scared to "properly" come out or straight people who are trying to make themselves more interesting.

If Beth Ditto were actually as feminist and sassy as she's supposed to be, she wouldn't come out with such monosexist cant.

How about a role as a desperate popstar who gets her tits out to try and save a flagging career? Oh, hang on...

If you've got some time to spare, do visit the MTV report on what Christina Aguilera is planning for 2003. She's going to tour - although no dates are yet booked - "I'm working with my choreographers, putting together some really amazing things. I'm definitely going to mix it up, put some acoustic stuff in there" says the Mickey Mouse Clubber with the smack whore's wardrobe.

What does that mean? It's just babble, isn't it; she might as well have said "I'm working with my chiropractors, putting together some really yellow things. I'm definitely going to mix it up, put some liontaming in there" for all it means - it's obviously such policy made on the wing that we wonder if her record company are suggesting maybe she should look at spending much of next year retraining as a touch typist.

That would also explain why she's now muttering about spreading the Christina experience to movie work as well:

"Something edgy would be good," she said. "I like the kind of roles Angelina Jolie usually plays, like 'Girl, Interrupted.' Something with substance."

Angelina has a whacked-out background with enough issues to fill out a binder and a mind as wonky as two-legged table, which is why she can play those parts. Christina, you are a schoolie who's stolen a push-up bra and a bright red lipstick from your mother - what could you possibly bring to a role of substance? But before aspiring Hollywood scriptwriters burn their laptops for fear that their hard-wrought characters end up being simpered through by Christina, wait up - Christina might just write her own film instead.

"I have some ideas of my own..."

- why do we find that so very hard to believe? -

"...so maybe I'll get with a screenwriter to put them to paper"

Um, Christina, maybe we're being thick, but wouldn't having your own ideas mean you'd write your own things on paper? You know, like write them down yourself?