It's important to remember that Morrissey isn't racist

There have been few things more divisive in British public life this century than Brexit. And you know who can't hear the word "divisive" without deciding to share his view?

So, Morrissey. Tell us what you think about Brexit:

“As for Brexit, the result was magnificent, but it is not accepted by the BBC or Sky News because they object to a public that cannot be hypnotised by BBC or Sky nonsense. These news teams are exactly the same as Fox and CNN in that they all depend on public stupidity in order to create their own myth of reality. Watch them at your peril!”

Morrissey appears to be doing media studies at GCSE. I was half expecting him to add "you might say someone is a terrorist, but somebody else could call them a freedom fighter."

Morrissey, of course, doesn't live in Britain and when he visits he feels it's important to mention that he hears people speaking languages other than English, but obviously not in a racist way. In other words, he's pretty much prime UKIP material.

It's fascinating that he feels the most important thing about the result isn't anything to do with the EU, but merely proves something about the BBC. Naturally, living in America he'd be in the perfect position to judge the tenor of BBC News coverage of the referendum. In precisely the same way that a person living in Didsbury is able to tell you about the weather in Miami right now.

Pitchfork also reminds us that he's as addled and deluded about music as he is about, sadly, everything:

Later in the same interview, he discussed how his legacy as an artist is folded into the Smiths’ success. “The Smiths are listed as, for example, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees, because people generally think that the Smiths also covers Morrissey—which it doesn’t.” Though they were nominated for the Hall in recent years, the Smiths were not nominated this year.

Then, he said, “we have PJ Harvey as a Hall Of Fame nominee,” which also isn’t true (though this was the first year Harvey became eligible for nomination). He continued, “It can’t be argued that she has ever meant more than Morrissey in the USA, and needless to say I have never been a nominee.”

This is a man angry that someone who hasn't been nominated for something he hasn't been nominated for isn't, in his opinion, any fitter for the prize that they both aren't in the running for.

It's a bit like me getting angry that Nigel Farage's eligibility for the Nobel Peace Prize instead of me.

The claim that a Smiths nomination doesn't include Morrissey isn't right, either - individual members of the band are inducted, and I don't think you can be inducted more than once. And, let's be honest, Moz - your best chance is getting considered for Strangeways and The Queen Is Dead rather than Years Of Refusal and... your other solo albums. The one about the ring or something?

And as for meaning than PJ - admittedly, Viva Hate went gold in the US back in 1993, and Bona Drag managed to scrape gold after a decade on the racks. But PJ Harvey's records consistently enter the US charts - maybe not at such a level that Taylor Swift will be worried, but still enough to show she has a strong base of interest in the US. And she's still doing interesting work, rather than... well, just complaining about a lack of respect.

Somehow Paris attacks have become about Morrissey

And so we turn once again to Morrissey, who has somehow managed to turn the murders in Paris into a thing about him. True To You, the fanzine which effectively functions like Pravda to Morrissey's Kremlin, published this email:

Universal Music, the approach made to David Joseph, since denied by David Joseph


On 18 Nov 2015, at 15:29, Boz Boorer -------------------- wrote:


Dear David,


My name is Boz Boorer and I represent all of the musicians who played
on I'M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS (Morrissey).


We are shocked that you have made no move this week to promote the
above song (download/special 7-inch/special CD) to support the people
of Paris. Any other artist would be number 1 with this song RIGHT NOW.


Why are you doing nothing? There is no other song in modern music that
aptly supports the people of Paris.


Most sincerely yours


BOZ BOORER


JESSE TOBIAS
GUSTAVO MANZUR
MATTHEW IRA WALKER
MANDO LOPEZ.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: John Reid --------------------
Date: November 19, 2015 at 6:39:51 PM GMT-2
To: Boz Boorer --------------------
Subject: Re: Paris


Dear Boz

Thank you for copying your email to me.

I think we all know that this would be an appropriate and compelling gesture.

I spoke with David Joseph today. His position is that owing to Universal having a very close connection to the events, much as they see your point, they are not intending to release any records in response to the tragic events of last Friday. They feel it is too raw for them given the death of one of their staff members and instead they are going to show support and solidarity in other ways, including concerts in Paris later this year by some of their artists.

However, I believe that Universal would licence the song back for eg a release for proceeds to relevant charities (which I assume would be the plan). In short there may be a possibility here but it would have to be a release via a third party. Personally I think there could be a very forceful statement to be made. It will of course require M's input. Have you discussed this with him - I assume so.

If you want me to pursue this, please let me know. Time inevitably is of the essence.

Yours sincerely

John

John Reid
Partner
Russells Solicitors

It's an odd situation to be in, feeling sympathetic towards a major label, but... actually, their line of "it's too soon to do something like this, but let's talk about doing something" seems to be more appropriate a response than an email going "we should be number one by now".

That reference to number one could be put down to clumsy phrasing, were it not for this bit:

There is no other song in modern music that aptly supports the people of Paris.

Not "this song is a love letter to the people of Paris". Not just "this song aptly supports the people of Paris". Not merely "we believe this there is no other song that supports Paris as aptly."

Just an arrogant assertion that there is no other song at all, in the whole of modern music, which supports the people of Paris.

One thing this sorry tale needs less of is fundamentalism.

An old friend reappears

Ah, it's been a while since we've sighted someone saying "hey, why does everyone think Morrissey's glum, he's actually very funny" as if that's not the whole point of Morrissey - in effect the "why does everyone focus on how wet the sea is, because if you taste it, it's actually quite salty" of music.

Turns out the thought isn't extinct, though. NME has one in the wild this week:

http://wilderdevotee.tumblr.com/post/132927388884/theres-some-morrissey-stuff-thats-genuinely

Morrissey, the ray of sunshine, predicts death for Corbyn

Morrissey played Plymouth last night, and took the chance to comment on current events. In particular, he suggested Jeremy Corbyn might want to check his brake cables before cycling:

Fans on Twitter disagree on the exact quote – see tweets below – but all agree that Morrissey said that left-wing Corbyn's vegetarianism and opposition to both war and the monarchy put him under threat. NME has spoken to someone who attended the gig last night and who verifies that Morrissey did say this about Corbyn.

Yes, I'd imagine the All New Free NME went to great pains to verify that Mozzer said something, what with their history.

It's not impossible that the establishment might move against Corbyn - the experiences of Benn and Wilson suggests it's a real possibility - but I somehow suspect it's not going to be over his rejection of sausage rolls. Nobody is going to be meeting in a clean room at MI5 fretting that a leader who won't have a shepherds' pie is going to drag us into a dystopian nightmare. "It's not that he's going to quit NATO and dump the nukes, Commander. It's that he won't be eating a bacon bap while he does it."

Morrissey patted down, touched up

Disappointingly, the official TSA blog has kept quiet about Morrissey's claims that his penis was fondled by a security screener at San Francisco airport - although they do report twelve people around the US trying to take bear mace through in their carry-ons. You've got to be one hell of a nervous flier to think you need to be prepared in case there's a bear on the plane, surely?

The TSA have denied that anyone groped Mozzer, though:

A TSA spokesperson said in a statement to Rolling Stone magazine Thursday that after reviewing closed-circuit TV footage of the encounter, the officer in question appeared to have “followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual.”

"TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect," TSA spokesperson Mike England said in the statement.

That respect thing must be difficult when you're faced with someone who thinks it's okay to climb aboard with a can or two of bear incapacitant - or the dozens of yahoos who want to take their loaded guns to have with them as they fly.

The appearance of Morrissey in this story shouldn't shift the focus away from the TSA, as this isn't the first time screeners have been accused of sexually assaulting travellers. It's not even the second time. Depressingly, allegations of sexual assault by screeners are incredibly common.

In fact, if you travel through Denver in 2014, you'd be lucky if it hasn't happened to you. It was quite the thing:

According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he “gropes” male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA.

“He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.”

It took three months from the TSA in Denver being told about this before they did anything about it.

And that's just the top of the pile. Some allegations have been revealed following a FOI request, and they make pretty grim reading:

The female TSO then proceeded to roughly feel of [sic] her breast including her nipples. The TSO didn’t go under her arms or along her sides. She indicated that she did not receive a proper pat down. The search was limited to her breast… Two other individuals came over to where the supervisor and gentleman were and they began laughing. The caller indicated that the incident was not the business of the other two officers and not a show for them. The caller indicated that even the Supervisor, along with the others, began to roar with laughter.

So when Morrissey says he was assaulted at the screening point, the only surprising part of that story is that Morrissey wants to leave San Francisco. Everything else is too grimly believable.

Morrissey talks about race again. No, it's not what you think.

Without even going near the High Court endorsed viewpoint that Morrissey Is Not A Racist Nor Ever Shall Be Called Such, it's clear Mozzer has a complicated worldview that probably can't be summed up comfortably in one word.

He's just called out Obama for acting like black lives don't matter:

Obama has mystified me because he doesn’t appear to support black people when they need it most… Ferguson being an obvious example. If Michael Brown had instead been one of Obama’s daughters, I don’t think Obama would be insisting that the nation support the so-called security forces! How can they be called security forces if they make the people feel insecure? Obama seems to be white inside. There is an obvious racial division in America and it’s exploding and Obama doesn’t ever support the innocent black people who are murdered by white police officers who are never held accountable. You would expect him to be more understanding of what it means to be black. But so far, he hasn’t been.​ There’s no point in continually saying that we must support the police when it is obvious to the entire world that the police in America are out of control.

How can this Morrissey then go to London and mutter about not hearing English accents in Knightsbridge and the gates to England "being flooded". It's almost as if (pop psychology alert) that having spent so much time in America, Morrissey finds it impossible to talk about Britain except through a character - part cartoon, part one-of-the-sleeves-of-a-Smiths-record - in the same way that, say, Lousie Mensch's attempts at providing commentary on American politics is powered by a belief that she should know about this sort of thing, but without enough context to clarify into something that isn't a bit embarrassing.

And in case you're thinking "well, this is Morrissey just saying something liberal to try and offset the view in some people's minds", that doesn't seem to be the case either; it feels thought-through. Compare this with what he has to say about racism in the music industry (American music industry, of course) where he's a bit sketchier:

I think rap has scared the American white establishment to death, mainly because it’s true. James Brown once sang “Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud”. No pop artist would ever be allowed to say that today … they’d be instantly dropped from the label. If Billie Holiday approached Capitol Records in 2015 they wouldn’t entertain her for a second. Also, yes, I feel that I bring my spirit to America, and I feel very much a part of it and I’ve played in most cities big or small. America has been so important to my musical life, and the audiences have always been incredible. I’ve always felt privileged even though I know I’ve been locked out of mainstream considerations. That’s life! Me and Billie Holiday, good company, at least.

It's a pity they didn't ask him to expand a bit on what he meant by "rap" - the quote here could have come from thirty years ago; does mainstream rap really still worry the establishment in the same way? It's hard to believe that tracks like Trap Queen are going to cause too many Bank of America execs to nervously run a finger round their collar. There's a sense of the "I'd imagine" about this part of the interview; like his descriptions of Britain and immigration in the fateful NME interview, it's as if he's generating a viewpoint based on half-impressions and fractured memories.

I think we're nowhere different from where we started - Morrissey has a complex intersection with questions of race and identity in the modern world.

And while you don't need Morrissey to point out that a lot of white American cops have a problem with a lot of Americans who aren't white, the fact that he is may say something about just how bad that situation has become.

Labour leadership: Not true to you

Never mind Yvette Cooper's sudden realisation that, actually, she always hated Ed Miliband and everything he said, or did, or thought, or liked, or touched, or tasted, or loved, or licked, or coloured-in, or flirted with, or smelled, or drilled, or folded, or applauded, or arrested, or fed from a packet of seed he kept in his pocket, or folded, or bought, or proposed, or endorsed, or Googled, or polished, or filed away for safe keeping, or sang to, or wrapped.

As John Rentoul has reminded us, last year Andy Burnham went cold on The Smiths. In an interview, Burnham talked about how Morrissey changed his life, but:

[But it hasn’t lasted?] I feel that. I play it to my kids [13, 11 and 8] and the only song that they will really relate to is “How Soon Is Now?” And it has a vibe, or a beat, a bit more of the reverb thing going on, but the jingly-jangly yodelling-type lyric does feel a bit trapped in Eighties indy-land.

When you see those early Top of the Pops performances it’s like a historical curiosity. Did they really do that back then? I’m also – a bit predictable again – a huge Stone Roses follower. I was younger when I liked The Smiths and then the Stone Roses came along, ‘89, ‘90, and I was 19, I was old enough to follow them around. I went to the Heaton Park thing in Manchester when they reformed last year and they’ve also got a film out recently. One thing you notice about the Stone Roses is that they are more Everyman. They are less an introverted sixth-form thing, and they are much more the lads in hi-vis jackets, they are everyone’s band in the way that The Smiths never were. The Smiths were always, I’m a student therefore – The Stone Roses [has] a more timeless feel to it, more relevant.

Also, Morrissey's position on thresholds for strike ballots is so anti-business.

Twittergem: Morrissey

And if a Double Decker bus...... @JohnRentoul pic.twitter.com/u3Nc0vO2Bl

— Josh (@JoshuaJPE) February 10, 2015

Morrissey backs down from head-to-head with The Queen

Channel 4 still broadcasts an alternative Queen's Speech every Christmas Day, a hangover of the time before it was all Hollyoaks and upcycling. This year, they invited Morrissey to do the talk - presumably on the grounds that his last semblance of genuine radicalism vanished at about the same time Channel 4 lost theirs.

Still, Mozzer must be relishing the chance to finally go eye-to-eye with Her Maj, right? Look, he's just opened the invite and he's sitting right down to start his speech... hang on, no, this isn't a speech... it's a... no thanks letter:

My view that the monarchy should be quietly dismantled for the good of England is reasonably well-known, but I don't think Christmas Day is quite the time to be trading slaps. The Queen should be allowed the impassioned trance of her annual address to the British people, if only to once again prove that, in her frozen posture, she has nothing to offer and nothing to say, and she has no place in modern Britain except as a figure of repression; no independent thought required. The Queen very well might be the most powerful woman in England, but she lacks the power to make herself loved, and the phony inflation of her family attacks all rational intellect.

All over the world highly civilized peoples exist without the automatic condescension of a 'royal' family. England can do the same, and will find more respect for doing so.

So let's just get this straight, Morrissey: you reckon that The Queen is the manifestation of an abhorrent institution, but don't want to call her out because you don't want to spoil Christmas.

What a plastic revolutionary.

"Ooh, we could have them all in tumbrels by midnight, but it looks a bit chilly out."

"The Crown could be on its knees today, though having said that it is Thursday and we don't want to spoil EastEnders for them, so maybe tomorrow."

"I'd love to storm the place with you, but I've got a spa booked this afternoon."

But even while he was turning tail and showing us where his spine would have been, he still manages to overestimate his own importance. The idea that he'd been trading blows with Elizabeth would be amusing if he probably doesn't believe she'd have started her speech "Morrissey has a thing or two to say about me, but I won't be silenced..."

What the pop papers say: Rounding up the best albums

A quick word of praise for NME's current issue, the 50 Best Albums of the Year - one of the few list-based issues that makes sense. And it's been done in a lovely way - each album given a full page, and a lovingly written piece about it.

It's also striking that, when asked to talk about the current music it loves, the NME is a very different beast from the magazine you'd expect looking at the parade of the dead and the sainted that mark the front pages.

In fact, the only record on the list which feels driven by market forces rather than genuine passion is Morrissey's World Peace Is None Of Your Business. Three writers have a crack at explaining what it's doing on the list, and even then the sense that this is a continuation of the High Court Apology to Mr Morrissey never quite goes away. "It's a return to form" - well, yes, but it's a return to disappointing mid-solo career form, which is hardly a leap forward. "It's the best thing he's done since You Are The Quarry" - well, yes, but that's like saying "no more painful than sciatica."

St Vincent comes out top, and her prize appears to be a cover feature for next week. That's quite a coup, as shockingly, she'll be the first woman to appear on the cover since the start of November. November 2013. When it was MIA. (There was a montage which had Wolf Alice, if you want to be pedantic.) That's a pretty poor show.

Morrissey: Still ill

Morrissey's tours are, commonly, disrupted by poor health; the latest disruption is, however, slightly different as his European tour has suddenly been overshadowed by his announcement of cancerous tissue:

The ex-Smiths star has recently battled bouts of ill health but revealed the cancer news during an email interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

"I have had four cancer-scrapings, but so what. If I die, I die," he wrote. "If I don't, then I don't. As I sit here today I feel very well."

The singer started his latest European tour in Lisbon, Portugal, on Monday.

In the exchange with journalist Javier Blanquez, he wrote: "I know I look quite bad on recent photographs, but I am afraid this is what illness does to the overall countenance. I will save relaxation for when I'm dead."

There has been no further elaboration, but there is one oddity about this announcement.

Seasoned Morrissey watchers will know that the great man's main channel of communication is via True To You; but on that site, the news page hasn't been updated since September 25th, and then with a piece about an online shop, and DVD chart positions. It's a bit like the Vatican Bollettino not bothering to run a piece that day the Pope resigned.

Does anyone have the energy for a Morrissey story?

The ongoing spat between Morrissey and Harvest Records has taken another shall-we-call-it-lurch-towards-the-edge, as Harvest Records have yanked World Peace Is None Of You Business off the digital market:

According to a source familiar with the situation, "Morrissey has not been dropped by [Harvest Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Music Group, itself a subsidiary of Universal Music Group] but out of deference to his request they have reluctantly removed his album from all services."

Billboard thinks this shouldn't be too frustrating to Mozzer fans:

Since its release the album has sold 25,000 units -- 15,000 CDs, 3,000 LPs and 8,000 digital downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. With those kind of sales numbers for the physical formats, Billboard speculates that Harvest probably built about 50,000 physical units for the U.S. market. That means there is still plenty of World Peace stock left for Morrissey fans to track down, if they're so inclined.

Bless Billboard, convinced that people's response when discovering they can't download a record from iTunes or stream on Spotify is to pull on a coat, get out the car and drive to town to look for a CD. That's quite sweet.

With the record vanishing, now would be the perfect time to announce a European tour, right?

No, really; he has announced a European tour. Apparently including the O2 Arena. Good luck getting that venue meat-free, Morrissey.

Morrissey 'parts company' with his label

It's been a great summer for Morrissey, right? The new album was given massive support, and garnered a lot of applause (although the record itself wasn't really a leap forward). Even the NME, forever outside the circle now, had to swallow it and produce an entire issue inspired by the release, in a "lots of interviews with people who were involved apart from Morrissey" style.

He must be thrilled.

His label must be delighted.

Oh... hang on:

Three weeks after the release of Morrissey's World Peace Is None Of Your Business (#2 UK, #14 US), Capitol Records/Harvest have ended their relationship with Morrissey, as directed by label boss Steve Barnett.

Morrissey is once again in search of a record label.

Got to love that line; painting Morrissey as very much the Littlest Hobo of indie pop.

It seems there's been a falling out. Morrissey appears to believe that the label hadn't made enough of a splash:

I am indebted to three sources that have placed their own well-crafted videos on You Tube for the song World peace is none of your business. The three individual sources are named as Sharon Jheeta, Héctor González and wpeace123456. These videos fully understand the intent of the song, and I am relieved that these films exist. Yes, a similar document ought to have been harvested by the record label, but please understand that the pop or rock industry can be as dedicated to perpetuating public deception as the world of politics itself. God bless social media!

Liberty, equality and fraternity are the essence of the song; no monarchic rule, no political hierarchies, no bought-and-paid-for government thugs, security forces no longer beyond prosecution, and an end to megalomania, repression and corruption. Meat consumption is climate change, and if ever there were a self-evident lost cause it is the British so-called "royal family". Societies have never been so nervous; Pan Am Flight 103 differs not a jot from Malaysian Flight 17. The United Nations failure to imprison Tony Blair and George W. Bush for war crimes against Iraq has told us all that there can never be enough bloodshed, and the world is suffering its worst nervous breakdown. Do not feel powerless!

Many apparently powerless causes have succeeded in shifting political stupidity and greed. You are intellectual sanity. It is possible for nonviolent change; there are more people than there are aging despots; there are more people than there are world leaders. In truth, the world is leaderless. Please stop watching Fox News; anti-monarchial Britain has given up on the BBC – we know that every slot is paid for. We know that the number 1 position on the pop charts is "bought"; this is not 1955.

Thank you to all of my friends in Israel, Chile, Sweden, Poland, Argentina, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Italy who bought World peace is none of your business. It is 30 years on since The Smiths album entered the UK chart at number 2 with zero airplay and zero promotion, and the struggle for the airwaves remains difficult. Yet, I am writing this to you now, and you are reading it.

In answer to many people who have asked, I should like to finally make it clear that I have not received any television invitations – worldwide! – to either discuss World peace is none of your business, or even to sing any songs from the album.

Thank you for reading this. We have our first World peace is none of your business concert booked in Lisbon (Portugal) on October 6th.

All we have is each other.

for the animals, for intellectual sanity ...

Pssst, Mozzer. If you're going to point to the number two position for your album as a good thing in one part of True To You, you might not want to insist that every position in the charts on the charts is bought.

But then, there's no coherent logic to this post at all - indeed, had Courtney Love published it, the internet would be rolling round snurkling at the crazy rant. But because Mozzer is a bloke, it even gets a respectful write-up on the BBC, despite how Britain (or maybe just the anti-Monarchial bit of Britain) has given up on them.

Where do you even start? The suggestion that The Smiths got zero promotion - true, if you ignore night-time Radio One, and the four music weeklies (still a big deal at the time); the offensive attempt to try and draw a line from 'not having a video made for me' with the murders of Lockerbie and Ukraine. The almost touching belief that he and Fox News would share an audience.

Maybe the standout moment is the 'it's not 1955' bit - it's not, Morrissey, which is why nobody much cares what the number one (or number two) album record is in the charts; much less how the piddly sales figure was arrived at.

And, oh, the Partridgesque "I wanna be on the telly" cry at the end - having suggested that television is just death-wank designed to keep the supine in their place, how painful to then complain that you don't get asked on. (The tendency of Morrissey to speechify along these lines might be the reason interns are not often sent to dig out his phone number; a history of saying awkward things, and then complaining when those things included are in the interview might also be an explanation.)

Perhaps all these things will be ironed out in the next episode. Until then, though...

Aaaaand that's the formal cancellation

Inevitably, then, the Morrissey US tour has been cancelled.

It's now thirty-four years since Morrissey completed anything (on that occasion he finished the general knowledge crossword in a copy of the New Family Titbits).

But of course, it isn't his fault, says an official announcement:

Morrissey announces the close down of the present U.S. tour with "unimaginable sorrow".

On Saturday, June 7th, following the show at Boston Opera House, Morrissey collapsed and was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital where doctors treated Morrissey for "acute fever". Difficulties had arisen on May 31st following Kristeen Young's opening set at the Miami Knight Concert Hall, after which Kristeen confessed to "a horrendous cold", the symptoms of which were passed on to Morrissey resulting in the cancellation of the next show in Atlanta.
For the good of all, Kristeen was asked to step down from the immediate upcoming shows, but instead she decided to leave the tour entirely. Morrissey and the band wish her well and hope she is now in good health.

Morrissey received medical attention in Miami, and once again in Boston, but it was not enough to shake off the virus, the recovery time for which is too lengthy to meet the final 9 shows of the tour.

These devious people with their apparently weaponised colds.

Morrissey and the band are otherwise delighted and very grateful for their experiences on the U.S. tour, some shows of which they considered to be their best-ever.

It's the best-ever on the basis that, this time round, they actually got as far as doing a few soundchecks and actually turned up to run through some songs. On several occasions.

If you thought the current Morrissey tour was going too smoothly...

It was never going to happen that Mozzer made it through a tour unscathed, was it? He's just rescheduled two dates on medical advice; last week he cancelled Atlanta altogether because of a "virus".

Morrissey tickets: all the fun of a lottery ticket.

Morrissey, Cliff and Tom Bloody Jones: The Men Of A Certain Age tour

The news that Morrissey has announced dates with Tom Jones and Cliff Richard isn't really as surprising as people seem to think.

First, if we've learned anything from the last couple of years, it's that Morrissey's great strength is announcing gigs; he's less good at turning up to play them. On that basis, why not book extraordinary names? It's frankly more surprising that he's not publishing bills with Princess Grace, that main dude from The Lego Movie and Nostradamus.

Secondly, we all know how stung Morrissey is when people suggest he's a little bit racist. How better to prove your credentials as embracing everyone than by sharing the stage with Cliff Richard (born in India) and Tom Jones (who has orange skin)?

More generously, Mozzer has never hidden his affection for British culture of the early 60s and, if you put a piece of paper over both Jones' and Richard's cvs to cover off anything post-punk, you've got two titans. On that basis, the plan is no more unlikely than Morrissey's work with Sandie Shaw or his eulogy for Kenneth Williams.

Perhaps slightly less generously, if you then take the piece of paper off the cvs, you have careers which start out astonishingly edgy - Tom doing first-person songs about murder and incarcerated criminals; Cliff being inspected by authorities to see if that nasty Elvis had somehow infected England - which somehow mutated into a conservative, mundane slop of game shows, Christmas songs and shirtless calendars and tours to a fanbase slowly moving from 'pickled in aspic' to 'preserved with embalming fluid'. Morrissey might recognise something there.

More interesting is whats in it for the two older singers. Jones, clearly, is eyeing up the next series of The Voice, given that this year it's proving an opportunity for him to have a quiet nap in a comfy seat; a date with Morrissey will top-up his list of names to drop.

Cliff, for his part, cheerfully announced that he was doing it because it's a larger audience than he could usually manage in the US:

Richard also said the chances of him playing to 15,000 people in New York were “pretty well nil” without the support of Morrissey, but stated he was determined to make his one-hour set the best he possibly could: “I’m just going to make it really difficult for Morrissey to follow me.”

The dates take place in June, which means we're expecting Morrissey to contract lassa fever sometime around the end of May.

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: