Gordon in the morning: Slim majority

Tomorrow, Fatboy Slim is, for the Last Night A DJ Saved My Life charity, playing a DJ set in the Houses Of Parliament. Gordon has scratched his head to think of something to say about this:

It’s just as well Fatboy – real name NORMAN COOK – is off the sauce these days. He’d have do ne some serious damage to the Government’s booze supplies back in the day.

What? "Yeah, if it had been a few years back he'd have drunk some of the alcohol". Righto.

"It's fortunate he doesn't have an insatiable desire to consume potato products, which would mean he'd have depleted the government supply of crisps."

"It's lucky he's not made entirely out of blood plasma, as he'd have made a terrible stain on the government carpet if he'd leaked."

The really frustrating thing is that Parliament isn't the government, and Cook is playing at the former, not the latter. So even if he had been unable to control a desire to smash plates, it would be Parliament's crockery that took a hit. Not the government's.

Woot-ton: Dan actually has a story

Yes, Dan has some news. Proper news: There isn't going to be a Brighton beach gig for Fatboy Slim this year.

The trouble is, that's all there is to the story, really, so Dan is left trying to come up with some sort of joke to make it stretch:

Brighton would have been the biggest gig of the year for the DJ, real name Norman Cook.

So I doubt the 20,000 Big Beach Boutique fans are praising him.

Well, Dan was halfway there - he did manage to stretch the peice to a couple of extra lines, even if he couldn't really think of a joke.

Norman gives first refusal to New Years' fans

It's an excellent move by Norman Cook to reward those who made it through the grim, rain-lashed New Years Eve Brighton Beach Party first refusal for this year's late summer beach show:

"I want to say thank you to everyone who made it such a success in spite of everything the weather threw against us."

He suffered a series of electric shocks as strong winds drove the rain onto his record decks.

He said: "It was chaos but I had a lovely warm feeling from the crowd. It was like a Dunkirk spirit - "we will brave the elements and we will have fun."

Perhaps the comparison of a windswept beach party with the conditions during the evacuation of Dunkirk might be a little tactless while the event is still comfortably within living memory, mind, but it's encouraging that the Fatboy Slim beach parties seem to have now become a regular event in the Brighton calendar, given its difficult start.

Darkness at 3AM: Facing up to Norman Cook

They really do have trouble making 3AM work online, don't they? They've had a bit of a shuffle around again this morning, but it still doesn't quite work - some of the stories now have teasers, but others are still just a linked headline - Linds Lured, anyone?

The column marks the 25th anniversary of Mixmag with, erm, an anecdote:

Fatboy Slim certainly won't forget the day his head was on the front cover - superimposed on another man's buff body. An insider said: "His missus Zoe's gay mates all thought he was gay... He looked so fit!"

What sort of quote is that? It implies that Zoe Ball has gay friends but Norman Cook doesn't, for a start. Or perhaps it just means that only Zoe's gay friends are incapable of spotting a playful bit of photoshopping. And why would a gay man assume a person is gay because he's had his face photoshopped onto someone else's body? Do the 3AM Girls really think there are gay men who are that dim?

Fatboy goes down to the sea again

Norman Cook is going to have another one of his Brighton Beach parties. Two, in fact, on September 26th and 27th; like the New Years Eve event, it's going to be all ticket.

Le Freak, c'est retro chic

Freakpower, Norman Cook's short-lived Levi-adv-theming combo, are reuniting for a small number of gigs.

Except, erm, without Norman Cook, who hasn't come by rehearsals (although they're still willing to let him on stage if he wants), but the rest of the line-up will be there (Ashley Slater; James Carmichael Jr the 3rd; Jesse ‘Bass Cadet’ Graham; Paul Tweddle; The Freakettes and Lord Large.

Memorably, a judge in Ireland once asked them if they did drugs to avoid having to listen to their own music. Not, of course, that we'd suggest you take drugs if you go to see them on February 20th at Brighton Concorde 2, or the 21st at the Jazz Cafe in London.

Fatboy whim: Norman Cook to tweak the music industry's tail

Emboldened by Radiohead, Norman Cook is drawing inspiration for his next record. He doesn't, however, quite say what he intends to do:

"Artists are beginning to realise they don't need record companies any more, before we were their bitches and they got the lion's share of the money.

“It might be the death toll for traditional record companies as we know them, but I'm not shedding a tear."

Cook knows a thing or two about shabby treatment from record labels - not least the shabby and pointless welding together of the Housemartins back catalogue with stuff from the Beautiful South to create a tenuously connected best-of.

Norman Cook's skate friends make a movie

The skaters who use the Hove Lagoon park which giving, and then withdrawing, money to and from got Norman Cook all flustered back at the start of summer have decided to reach out to the local community.

By, erm, making a film about themselves and putting it on the internet.

That'll work. If there are elderly people alarmed by the noise and - quite unintentionally unsettling - presence of young people on their doorstep, we're sure they'll Google 'hove lagoon skaters AND video' to reassure themselves, rather than just pulling the sofa in front of the door.

The skaters might find that helping with shopping and gardening might be a bit more effective than vanity videos.

Macca on the One

In a slightly bemusing move, Paul McCartney, Debbie Harry and Noel Gallagher are being invited to hosts shows on Radio One to celebrate its 40th birthday. There are going to be a few younger guest presenters: The Arctic Monkeys and, erm, Gwen Stefani, for example, but it does throw up the problems involved in a station resolutely aimed at young people trying to mark four decades - as the everyday business of the station focuses on the music of today, getting a sexagenarian to play songs by Jerry Lee Lewis is, at best, a reminder of what the network has turned its back on to survive. Let's hope the tension between Radio One of the Always Now and this sudden affection for heritage radio doesn't cause a snapping.

We're also puzzled by this:

Radio 1 marks its 40th birthday from 17-28 September.

As part of the anniversary, current DJs from the Radio 1 roster will co-host shows with DJs from yesteryear.

On 30 September, the date of the station's first broadcast in 1967, breakfast show DJ Chris Moyles will host a show with Tony Blackburn - the first DJ to appear on the network.

If it's marking it's birthday between the 17th & 28th, then what is the programme on the 30th?

[Thanks to Jim McCabe]

Penate better Layton than never?

Jack Penate is apparently recording a version of Beats International's Dub Be Good To Me to use as a b-side. NME.com somewhat generously describe the track as a "classic British number one single" - using "classic" in its not-entirely-dictionary sense of "somewhat dated sounding", of course.

Norman Cook welcomes Falmer decision

The long-awaited (second) official go-ahead for Brighton and Hove Albion to build a new stadium next to a University campus and a main road (after someone realised that it wasn't actually download) has been given a cheer by Norman Cook:

What a relief. I am glad common sense has prevailed.

"The team have a real chance of success and it is a real plus for the city."

That's probably over stating the case, the success bit, but at least watching the team crash and burn will be slightly more comfortable.

Slim skates sideways

It makes you wonder why anybody would bother trying to help out their fellow man, doesn't it? Fatboy Slim made a generous payment to try and help bring a skateboard park to Hove Lagoon.

The residents got worried. Skateboards? Aren't they full of drug addicts on drugs, drugs bought by the proceeds of stealing old ladies' handbags?

Norman tried to persuade the company managing the project, Skate Expectations (a company name that sounds like the sort the lost-in-suits of The Apprentice might come up with) to meet up and talk through the resident's concerns. But they wouldn't.

So Slim asked that the money go to a different good cause instead. Great Expecskateions just sent the money back, and now skateboarders are turning their ire, in turn, on the dj.

Norman Cook sighs:

I tried to get Skate Expectations to meet up with the residents and they refused.

"They didn't seem to be listening to the local community.

"I was going down there with my son and people were saying things like 'you're not really welcome here'. I just didn't want to be associated with something people didn't want."

The skateboard lobby is being represented by Outreach worker Graeme Reece, who isn't exactly reaching out to Fatboy:

The 34-year-old said Mr Cook was 'two-faced' because his own events have encouraged hedonistic behaviour.

He said: "I attended his party on the beach where there were lots of people drinking and taking drugs. In fact at most of his gigs you would expect to find people doing all kinds of illicit drugs."

So... people take drugs at music events, so, erm, musicians shouldn't worry if they're funding an organisation incapable of communicating with its neighbours? And isn't his role more to point out that it's a bit of a lazy stereotype to suggest that skateboarders are going to be eating heroin and mugging, rather than nodding and saying "yeah, but what about people who take drugs in nightclubs>, eh?"

Reece then starts to rave about the Man:

He said residents might feel threatened by a sudden influx of young people to the skate park, but their fears did not necessarily reflect reality, and said hiring security guards to police the area was not a good idea.

He said: "Any young person who skates is likely to be a bit rebellious and they will not react well to a man in a uniform telling them what to do. It would be more effective to employ an adult skateboarder - someone straight-talking who they'd respect and listen to."

But surely the point of having a bloke in a cap is more to reassure residents that the Hove Lagoon hasn't suddenly turned into a hellmouth; and, if we were fifteen, we'd have had more respect for a security guard, however cheap his nylon uniform might have been, than some middle-aged bozo who thought they spoke our language because "I'm a skatie too, check?"

Kylie tries to move in; house prices rocket; whole area could blow sky-high

Kylie Minogue is, apparently, thinking of following in Julie Burchill's shoes. No, no, not Tony Parsons. Moving to Brighton, along the seafront. Shoreham, actually. Quite near Zoe Ball and Norman Cook, in fact, and the recently vacated home of Heather Mills.

Sadly, it's also near a proposed store for chemical fertilizers, like the ones they were going to use to blow all symbols of the louche Western sin-society up with the other year.

Kirstie and Phil would suggest this an excellent bargaining chip to get some movement on the price. If you don't mind the risk of dock worker body parts raining down on your exclusive sun terrace at some point in the future.

Having been born in Brighton, I still can't quite get used to the idea of Shoreham being talked about as a cool, groovy, property hotspot. Good for second hand car parts and chips, yes, but home to genuine pop royalty? Isn't that Kemp Town's job?

Our faith in love is diminished. Slightly

We're sad to hear that Zoe and Norman are on a break - presumably the dressing up as an elephant for Reeves and Mortimer was the final straw - and we wouldn't normally mention it (unless it was a really slow news day) except for the curious grasp of fact Ananova are showing here, reporting that the couple are apart, but both apparently in the same house. Except Zoe, who's living simultaneously in Brighton AND London. That really is the sort of complication that can cause trouble in a marriage.

We hope you guys can sort it out.