No Amy Winehouse news this morning. At least, not yet. But, just in case, we'll leave a little space:
There.
On a day like today you do start to wonder whether every single asset in the armoury of gossip journalism has been assigned to stalking out Amy, so scant are the pickings elsewhere. So scant, in fact, that even Peter Stringfellow is getting some column inches.
Those column inches are in 3am, where the girls have returned to the story they first reported last week - namely that Kanye West visited Stringfellows to see girls dance naked for money (remember, Kanye is different from other rappers). The update is necessary, apparently, because Kanye didn't pay for his dances.
"He had six dances which he didn't pay for," naturally blond Pete told 3am while presumably contemplating hiring Dog the Bounty Hunter to reclaim his £25 or whatever it is.
"If the bling 'round his neck had fallen off", he carried on, "it could have paid for holidays for all of my girls." What a caring, paternal figure he is.
On to Ibiza, where the press office at Ibiza Rocks have been working overtime phoning every showbiz desk in Britain (including the Argyll Weekly Advertiser) to tell them there's been crazy things going on in their club. We go back to 3am for more details:
"Kaiser Chiefs' frontman Ricky Wilson did what came naturally after his storming Ibiza Rocks gig.
"When the band went on to party at Pacha, Ricky found the club jam-packed.
"We're told: 'It was almost impossible to get to the VIP area, so Ricky took matters into his own hands, clambered on to a speaker and crowd-surfed to his table'
"Glad he didn't spark a riot..."
Now, that weak joke aside (the girls have obviously received instructions, as their whole Stringfellow tidbit also ends "We Kanye think of an excuse") this seems an interesting development - a return to the habits of classical civilisation. Where once emperors were carried manually by their slaves, now they are carried manually by their corporate slaves. If we take this analogy much further then Wilson will be forced to employ an ex-soldier to walk behind him reminding him of his own mortality.
Finally, Doherty. He's nice and safe in rehab right now, but the story goes - at least in the dominion of Valhalla's Vicky Newton - that he'll be out and about at Christmas playing gigs with Chas'n'Dave. The venue, Vicky reports, is to be the Tap'n'Tin in Chatham, Kent on December 18.
Now, we're sure this gig is legit and will go ahead without complication. But it should give aspiring promoters a thought. The next time you're promoting a gig and having trouble shifting tickets, why not simply pretend you've added Pete to your line-up? It's cheap, it makes commercial sense and when he eventually fails to turn up, no-one will be surprised in the slightest!
