Do you know the way to Knotty Ash?

The Dionne Warwick biopic sounds like it might be, erm, singular:

[It was] announced at a Cannes Film Festival press conference this morning; with Warwick herself confirming the project. The soul icon also revealed to the crowd that [Cilla] Black – who died last August – “stole” her music, and was her “nemesis”.

Yeah. Cilla Black as the evil genius in a movie. I suppose at least she has a name that sounds like a half-arsed scriptwriter would give to such a character.

Can this project sound any more like something which will never see the light of day?

Lady Gaga has been cast as Cilla Black

Yes. Yes, it can.

A Courtney Love lawsuit

There was a time not so very long ago when you'd barely get through a week without hearing of Courtney Love being in some sort of legal skirmish.

More recently, there's been no need for the permanent lawyers parking slot outside her home. Which makes today's lawsuit against Love sound like some sort of revival event.

Writer Anthony Bozza has brought an action claiming that he's been unpaid for work on Love's yet-to-be-published "auto"biography:

In the suit, Bozza states that his collaboration agreement with Love guaranteed him a minimum of $200,000 from advances Love received, as well as his expenses, regardless of whether the book came out. Bozza says he has spent around $10,000 on getting his interviews with Love transcribed, an expense he claims she has not reimbursed. Furthermore, he would receive royalties up to a maximum of $300,000. So far, Love has paid Bozza only $100,000, he claims, despite already receiving $400,000 of a $1.2 million publishing advance.

Ten grand might sound like a lot for transcription services, but let's not forget that Love can ramble when she gets going.

Kim Gordon: Coming next year

Kim Gordon's Girl In A Band Memoir. Taking preorders; publishing February next year.

Greg Allman wants his life back

They're making a film about Greg Allman. Or maybe they're not.

Things are going grimly - during a first shoot, the crew were hit by a train, killing camera assistant Sarah Jones and injuring six others. Making it worse, the railroad claim the movie company, Unclaimed Freight, hadn't sought permission to film on its property.

Shortly after this, William Hurt - who had signed on to play Allman - quit the project.

Greg Allman now wants to stop the film altogether. He's suing to get the rights back. ABC explains:

Allman's attorneys say "Midnight Rider" producers lost their rights to the singer's life story when they failed to start principal photography by Feb. 28 and came up $9,000 short of an unspecified sum they had agreed to pay Allman for those film rights. The lawsuit says both those conditions were spelled out in Allman's contract with Unclaimed Freight.

The producers are keeping quite, but apparently believe the footage they got before people died counts as principal photography, and intend to plough on with the film.

Because there's nothing like a film based on an autobiography where the subject doesn't want you to make it, is there?

Morrissey self-censors, helps destroy animals

Morrissey's signed a copy of his fabled autobiography, and is auctioning it off to raise money for PETA.

Odd choice of charity for someone who is usually such a fundamentalist on animal rights, given how they've euthanized tens of thousands of animals, explaining it away as animals which would be killed anyway:

PETA told the Daily Mail that the animals they take in at the center are usually difficult to find homes for and would presumably end up being euthanized anyway: “Most of the animals we take in are society’s rejects: aggressive, on death’s door or somehow unadoptable,” Dollinger noted.

The pile of corpses includes rabbits, whose aggressive tendencies are well known; even if it's true, any animal charity that can't make the promise that they'll never euthanise a healthy animal is probably less deserving of support than one that can.

Still, that's only a small compromise compared with the other one Mozzer's made in the last few days:

Singer Morrissey has left fans in the U.S. baffled after his best-selling memoir was released Stateside minus the details of his relationship with a male photographer.
[...]
The tome, titled Autobiography, details several anecdotes involving Walters, and Morrissey writes movingly of their two years together, but in the U.S. release, which was published on Tuesday (03Dec13), many details in the original book are missing or edited down.

A photograph of Walters as a boy has also been removed, and his name has been cut out of a story detailing a night out with The Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde.

Because, of course, people buying a book about Morrissey are going to find that sort of thing off-putting.

Perhaps there's some sense in giving money to a compromised charity from a compromised book.

There is a title that should never come out: Morrissey - The Autobiography

You spoke in silhouette (but they couldn't name you).

Much excitement today, with the release of the Morrissey autobiography. It's like Harry Potter for the middle-aged; only Harry Potter took several hundred pages to be convinced of his greatness.

Yes, shops have opened at midnight, presumably for people who were afraid that Mozzer: My Struggle might vanish at the first striking of daylight.

The whole bunch of stunt around the launch, though, has surely done more to chip away at the myth more than any book could burnish it? The tacky pretend-strop of a couple of weeks ago, for example: sure, cheaper than advertising but hardly edifying.

And the decision to release on the Penguin Classic imprint doesn't help. I know there's some argument that this is akin to the revival of HMV for his solo albums, but it doesn't quite work. Penguin Classics isn't defunct; it's an imprint that is still going and (used to) have a high barrier to entry.

Letting Moz onto this list diminishes Penguin a bit, but more importantly shows what a dead ear Morrissey has these days. Behaviour that seemed charming when you're a young man who had just written Meat Is Murder looks desperate when you're older and your last single was Something Is Squeezing My Skull.

Going on the Junior Puffin list would have been funny, the sort of swagger you'd expect. Reviving Ptarmigan, Penguin's quiz imprint - that would have been consistent. Penguin Classics? It comes across as lazy bragadoccio.

Let's not lose sight of what this is: it's a cash-in book for the Christmas market; trying to dress it up as something other isn't going to work.

You might once have been the last of the international playboys, alongside Bowie, Devoto and Eno. Now you're just first on the WH Smith signing table wishlist, with Holden, Saunders and Union J.

Bowie has shown this year, once again, that what marks him out is an endless capacity for reinvention.

Stephen Morrissey reinvented himself once, too, as Morrissey. And thank god he did; nobody would wish The Smiths away.

But that one reinvention was all he had; since then, it's just been relaunching and reworking that one idea. It's like getting William Hartnell with every regeneration, only a slightly more pantomimic Hartnell each time.

So have fun, settling scores and tending the grounds of your own memorial pyre. But your lyrics intrigued because they only half-revealed who might be; why throw away your talent for the occluded autobiography by going for the tell-all?

One good reason why Penguin shouldn't have released the Morrissey book as a Classic

Surely the thing that unites the Penguin Classics list is that they are works which reveal essential, universal truths.

Morrissey, on the other hand, struggles with basic, factual truths.

Morrissey's autobiography is less interesting than the tale of the autobiography

So, nobody seems any clearer what the hell was going on with the supposed Morrissey autobiography that - if we believe True To You - was already boxed and ready to go when Penguin suddenly had cold feet:

Although Morrissey's Autobiography was set to be available throughout the UK on September 16th, a last-minute content disagreement between Penguin Books and Morrissey has caused the venture to collapse. No review copies were printed, and Morrissey is now in search of a new publisher.

This comes as a bit of a surprise to everyone.

Obviously, a book due to be sold to the public on Monday would have been printed and ready to go; reveiwers would have had the chance to have a look and prepare timely copy. It's hard to see how any "last-minute content disagreement" could occur, given that it's a book, and printed, and those battles would be fought before the presses rolled, not after.

And shops would be expecting it; and an ISBN would have been created; and judicious selections dropped to the friendly press (assuming there is any press still friendly towards the man).

Yet here is a book, the first word of which appears to be that it isn't happening.

What's that, True To You? You have a clarification. Please, clarify matters, and explain these anomalies:

The publication of Morrissey's Autobiography remains with Penguin Books.
This is a deal for the UK and Europe, but Morrissey has no contract with a publisher for the U.S. or any other territory.
As of 13 September, Morrissey and Penguin (UK) remain determined to publish within the next few weeks.

That certainly clarifies matters in no way at all.

Perhaps everyone is getting confused by JOHN Morrissey's long-awaited Local Authority Enforcement book, as that is due in the next few weeks and, apparently, has two chapters dedicated to calling Mike Joyce names.

Could the whole thing be either an elaborate hoax or a terrible misunderstanding?

Possibly. But we do, at least, know that there IS a book, as the cover has been leaked:

Bookmarks: Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper talks to Time in the run-up to her biography release. Could you imagine a pop star getting their breakthrough at the age of 30 today?

When “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” came out, I was 30. They were saying, “How old are you?” and even then I was like, “Why? You think I’m a car? You need to check under the hood and kick the tires?” I had a mindset to contribute to music and make an effective change that would help women in the world. When I was told “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” would be an anthem, I thought about how it really could be an anthem. And you know, I burnt my training bra, kinda-sorta, at the first women’s demonstration in Central Park. I was there.

Bobbie Brown writes a book

Bobbie Brown is busy slaving away in front of Microsoft Word, reports Blabbermouth:

Bobbie Brown, an actress and model and probably best known as the video vixen in WARRANT's "Cherry Pie" video, is working on her autobiography, "Sex, Drugs And Cherry Pie", for an early 2013 release.

Now, I don't work in publishing, but if I was trawling round for celebrity biographies, and was offered one by 'you know, the woman out a pop video from 1990', I'm not sure I'd be exactly whipping out the chequebook.

Coming in 2013: 'My life as the one in the red top out of the ZZ Top Legs video' by the one in the red top out of the ZZ Top Legs video.

Neil McCormick: Did I mention that I know Bono?

You know what Neil McCormick really likes about his movie about how he knows Bono, based on his book about how he knows Bono? It's a great opportunity to go round places talking about how he knows Bono:

MCCormick tells U.K. TV show This Morning, "At a certain point, he was getting hard to know because I was in the Wembley Coach and Horses (pub) and he was in Miami doing duets with Frank Sinatra.

"He was telling me about all these things. I said, 'I don't wanna hear it. The problem with knowing you is you've lived my life.' He said, 'That's because I'm your doppelganger. If you want your life back you'll have to kill me.'

"In there, a little light bulb went off. Really it's a metaphor - it's about slaying your dragon. He was my dragon. He thought it was a great idea for a title, I was a little uncomfortable about it. He told me I should call it Killing Bono. He left a message on my answerphone one day, saying, 'Hey it's Bono, you have to kill me - it's for your own good.'"

It's a pity that Bono - who Neil McCormick knows, by the way - didn't come up with the idea early enough to prevent the book spending its early years as I Was Bono's Doppelganger.

Neil McCormick knows Bono.

Coldplay: The key word here is "nearly"

Can you imagine anything worse than Chris Martin in a tizzy?

Coldplay's roadie Matt McGinn has revealed the band's lead singer Chris Martin once nearly came to blows with bassist Guy Berryman.

Once. Nearly.

It's hardly the stuff of rock memoirs, is it?

Which is unfortunate, as Matt McGinn has tried to write a rock memoir. With an echo of Lionel's book from As Time Goes By ("it's about my life in Kenya. It's called My Life In Kenya"), McGinn has gone with My Life On The Road With Coldplay. And the fight seems to be dramatic highlight:

Matt McGinn - the band's roadie - explained: "Chris temporarily lost touch with his niceness and called his friend a **** in so venomous a fashion that our loveable Caledonian felt moved to respond thus, 'I'm going to f***ing hit you in a minute'. 'Well go on then!' came the retort, sounding more like an order than an invite.

"B****y hell, here we go, I thought. Guy has confessed to me since that at this point he became so furious that anything could have happened, and he really wasn't much more than a kilt's width from braining Chris with his vintage Fender."

That's not even an almost fight. It barely constitutes name-calling. I've seen post-it notes in fridges which are more violent than this anecdote.

God love him, you've got admire a man who spent his life carting guitars for Chris Martin, but I can't see Hollywood turning up at McGinn's house with storyboards and chequebooks.

George W Bush zings back at Kanye

Kanye West might think he's fast with a line, but he wasn't counting on George W Bush, who has shot back at West's 'Bush doesn't care about black people' jibe just, erm, five years after it happened.

Bush has written a book - I know, bless - and he's currently trying to promote it to anyone who might have some money left after he'd crapped the US economy into a junkyard. On a tour to promote the book, Bush brought up West while talking to Matt Lauer:

'He called me a racist', Mr Bush said on the primetime special.

When Lauer clarified that West said, 'George Bush doesn't care about black people', Mr Bush reiterated that to him those words meant West was claiming, 'he's a racist'.

Meanings of words, George? That was never really your strong suit when you were President, was it?

'And I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now', Mr Bush continued.

Actually, I don't think West was even dignifying you with being racist, George - at least a racist might have been engaging with Hurricane Katrina; West was suggesting you didn't even think it worth your time to think about.

'It's one thing to say, "I don't appreciate the way he's handled his business". It's another to say, "This man's a racist". I resent it, it's not true and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency.

In the book he wrote: 'The suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Hurricane Katrina represented an all-time low'.

Well, there's some common ground between Bush and West; both thought the episode was the low of the Bush presidency, just for different reasons.

But it wasn't really West that made people think you didn't give two hoots for the poor of Louisiana, George. It was more the sitting about on your hands not doing anything while people were drowning, and then the not-saying-anything when the residents of New Orleans were being treated as hostile as they tried to survive in their own city. That sort of thing.

By the way, this passage from the Mail's report on the Bush book is also quite priceless:

Mr Bush also reveals in Decision Points that he stands firm on his decision to invade Iraq, resents being accused of lying about WMDs and even considered dropping Dick Cheney from his 2004 campaign to 'demonstrate that I was in charge'.

The idea to replace Cheney was prompted in 2003 during a private lunch with the former vice president who offered to drop out of the race.

So Bush was going to show how much he was in charge by, erm, accepting the suggestion of the Vice President that he step aside. That's decideration in action right there.

Keith Richards tries to make things better

Keith Richards gives Mick Jagger a bit of a going-over in his new autobiography, but he wants to make it clear that he's not at war with Mick or nuffink:

"You don't expect relationships to remain in the same groove all the time," he remarked.

You'll recall that the highlight of the book is Keith saying that Mick has got a small cock. Which means he perhaps should have chosen his words more carefully when explaining things:

"It goes up and it goes down and we always end on middle ground and find our spot together."

Julian Cope: The movie

This is potentially fascinating: David Morrissey has bought the rights to Julian Cope's Head On and is trying to secure funding to turn it into a movie.

At the moment, Morrissey is thinking of being Bill Drummond and - inevitably - Rhys Ifans is being muttered about for the Cope role. (Really? Is it now a law that Ifans is the only person in the UK who can pretend to have done drugs in front of a camera?)

No word yet on potential casting for Pete Wylie, but I hear that Pete Wylie might be available.

Dannii Minogue: Lessons for the Milibands

How do you cope with a sibling in a similar line of work, but who has done a bit better for themselves? Are there lessons for David in Dannii Minogue's autobiography?

Being compared to the better, more popular, talented one all the time? Water off a duck's back, it seems:

Minogue wrote: "Ever since I arrived in the UK in 1991, the media have pitted us against one another, first favouring my supposed 'cooler, darker' image over Kylie's bubblegum sweetness, then turning on me with a deluge of unflattering comparisons.

"Never mind that Dannii has had ten Top 10 records - Kylie has had 20! Never mind that Dannii's album has gone gold - Kylie's has gone platinum! Less success was no success at all as far as my critics were concerned. As much as it broke my heart at times, it never made me any less proud and supportive of my sister, and I received the same love and support from her.

"The truth is I never felt as if I was competing with my sister. Although I got very tired of the constant comparisons, it wasn't because I was jealous. I think all the Dannii-bashing headlines often hurt Kylie more than they hurt me."

You see, David? You're not competing with your sibling, and the comparisons are just pointless because - hey - remember, you've sold a few records yourself. And were the popular one once. Briefly. Just keep mentioning that, over and over again, with figures if you must, and nobody will ever come away with the impression that you're seething inside and wondering if you could get a fake grin actually botoxed onto your face for those times when you have to stress you couldn't really care less.

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Louise Wener

Hopefully, the next edition of Louise Wener's Different For Girls can drop the off-putting thumbs-up on the cover from Fearne Cotton now that Jude Rogers has reviewed it for the New Statesman:

Wener also dismantles the myth that the likes of Blur were intelligent pop revolutionaries. She describes their rudeness, their ruthless ambition and their "easy, bohemian, moneyed odour". And then there are the groupies. Wener leaves nothing out. The bassist Alex James tells a young woman, "You're ugly, but I'm going to fuck you anyway," while their tour manager is despatched to select attractive girls from the audience and give them after-show tickets, known as "Blur-job passes".

Yoko Ono suggests she might want to sell copies of her memoirs

You don't say, Ms Ono:

Yoko Ono has hinted that she may write about life with The Beatles and her late husband John Lennon in her memoirs.

Well, yes. Assuming she wants to be given a cheque by a publisher in return for writing them, you rather think she would.

The Ken Bruce effect

It seems that sooner or later, every Radio 2 DJ reaches the point where they feel the need to speak out about the state of the network. I guess that, when the celebrities who have been parachuted into the network to the chagrain of Ken Bruce hit that point, then Ken will stop seeing them as outsiders in the wrong job, and embrace them as part of the Radio 2 family.

Until then:

"I have great admiration for people who do fast-moving live television, but an awful lot of television is just 'stand up, smile' and you really often don't have to think for yourself," he claimed.

"A lot of television personalities have done great radio, such as Jonathan Ross, but too often a famous face is parachuted into a prime radio slot with no experience of, or particular aptitude for, the medium."

He blamed the situation on management, who "have lost their gifts as talent-spotters and are too content to rely on a proven public profile to garner an audience".

This has come from his autobiography, apparently, so it's not clear quite how quickly it's been rushed into print as some sort of protest as against being a bit of crackle thrown in to sell the book to as many Christmas stockings as possible.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Juliana Hatfield & Evan Dando

If this is the sort of chapter that got cut from Juliana Hatfield's memoir, you surely have to read the stuff that made it?

On the night that Carl and Evan’s mom came over, we had a bunch of boxes of shrink-wrapped Nicely, Nicely albums stacked up in the condo pad. Gary, who happened to be there at the condo pad that night, and who happened to be what some people might characterize as “radically progressive” politically, and very knowledgeable, seemed very interested in Carl.

Gary asked Carl where he was from.

Carl said that he lived in Washington, D.C.

Then Gary asked Carl what he did for a living.

Carl said that he was a journalist at the Washington Post.

Gary smiled and then it dawned on all of the rest of us simultaneously that this man, who had looked vaguely familiar, was CARL BERNSTEIN. Of Woodward and Bernstein. Evan’s mom’s friend was one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate break-in story which helped to bring about Richard Nixon’s resignation. The two guys who, literally, wrote the book about the scandal (All The President’s Men), and who were played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the movie.

We all tried to stay cool and restrain ourselves from yelling out, “Holy Shit! You’re Carl Bernstein!” or “Oh my God!” and jumping up and down and hyperventilating but it was difficult because this man was a really important historical figure — kind of an American hero, who’d helped bring a dirty president down. And he was standing in our kitchen shooting the shit with us dirtbag indie rocker kids.

Before he left, Mr. Bernstein bought two copies of Nicely, Nicely (eight bucks each). We wanted to give them to him as a gift but he insisted, graciously, on paying. He removed the shrink wrap and had all of us Blake Babies sign both albums. He gave one to his son and left with the other one under his arm.

[An unpublished chapter from When I Grow Up by Juliana Hatfield]