Simon Cowell's Sweet Revenge: 'Unauthorised' - in a sense

'This book is not written by me. It is unauthorised. The writer is Tom Bower,' tweets Simon Cowell. 

Yes, but it is apparent from the text published in the newly socialist Sun - which is milking Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell quite brilliantly - that Simon (aka Jubilee's Borgia Ginz) granted generous access to his thoughts and experiences that include intimate episodes only he and AN Other (usually one of his paid-off and presumably 'gagged' exes) could have furnished. 

Simon is even thanked in the text for his cooperation - this does not make the book authorised. But then again I notice that the word 'unauthorised' is not to be found on Bower's cover.

In an interview with the Camden New Journal of Jan 5, 2011, the reporter noted: 'The biography, due out in May [2012], is the result of hundreds of hours of unprecedented access to Cowell, plus direct contributions from his many supporters and rivals.'

Bower sat in on Cowell's various TV talent shows and doubtless shared mugs of tea with his subject.

On the other hand, Bower says: 'Cowell will not read the manuscript before publication - it is in that sense an unauthorised biog. He has no copy approval.'

I love the finessing 'in that sense...'. Tells us everything really about this 'unauthorised' must-read.

Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street: The song with a high suicide quotient

63 is still a bit too young to die but not young enough to elicit self-worried scorn (as in: "That's no age!"). Had Gerry Rafferty died at 61 or perhaps 59, reports would have used the word "untimely" or "premature". But 63 is just inside the Anytime Now zone. And considering his prodigious boozing, 63 was not a bad age at all to pass away. That's what we think without saying.

Another thought that goes unsaid is that Rafferty's Baker Street helped kill off the Smashie and Nicey-type DJs that infected Radio One years ago. Once upon a time any random switch-on to the station risked yet more exposure to Baker Street's "unforgettable sax line" whine.

It was probably the last melodic thing a whole generation of young female suicides heard before the one-way ticket ride to Beachy Head. Baker Street is a hymn to self-pity, ambient moooozak to sultry afternoon cider-cide. Smashie and Nicey always played it after the telling of some  listener's sob story - I can hear simpering Simon cunting Bates even now - to turn a sentimental tear into a lemming tsunami. Such monstrous behaviour could not continue forever. Satire came to the rescue and Radio One got down with the kids.

Baker Street was Smashie and Nicey's, their song. Heartburn's extended jingle, long enough and loud enough to disguise a long studio fart or the screams of a Baker Street fan facing death by garrote at the hands of her tone-sensitive lover. Baker Street summoned up middle-aged scrotes and their alimony problems, greying nose tufts and unwashed Y-fronts. Then came... Chris Moyles.

Mr Rafferty has much to answer for.

The Savoy: Gleam, luxe, a billionaire prince... and then Stephen Fry

ITV1's curious 2-part doc on the re-opened Savoy introduced us to its current owner Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. In the show he was described as the fourth richest man in the world whereas Forbes rates him only at 19th with a net fortune (as of March this year) of nearly US$20 billion. Perhaps he slipped in the chart because the Savoy's total refurbishment went £120m over budget during its mad near-three year closure.

The prince, a member of the Saudi royal family, arrived with a huge entourage. In a coach. We learned from his Savoy-assigned butler in the royal suite (price: £10k a night) that he had demanded white slippers in place of the black (or vice versa), liked Melba toast (or was that someone else?) and didn't wish to be disturbed before his rather late rising at 2pm every day. If he wished to eat out, every table of the establishment was booked in his name. He might however change his mind at the last minute and go elsewhere. He likes curry.

The prince didn't say much. He and Prince Charles kissed cheeks at the relaunch ceremony. I'm afraid any good feeling I might have had about the Savoy refit was blown away by the arrival of Stephen Fry, appointed the hotel's blogger in residence: cue free suite. A man with long unkempt hair, creased jacket and trousers, and the mouldy aura of a panto professor, stepped into a world of gleam and luxe: hello Mr Fry. He oozed a pus-like unctuous awe as he was ushered into a blue lift. Not once did he desist in his obsequious wittering, sadly confused with charm. What won't he do to annoy me?

One evening in the Savoy's American Bar, a few years back, I was astonished to see virtually every Fleet St newspaper editor knocking back drinks at one of their regular get-togethers. That was the first time I went off the Savoy.

Sandy Lane Hotel: Not everyone loves Simon Cowell's fave getaway

Sandy Lane Hotel

Madame Arcati is most concerned for Simon Cowell. He's presently recuperating at Barbados' luxury Sandy Lane hotel, as he does every year after his X Factor exertions, knocking back crates of yeast-free Japanese beer. But I see not everyone is impressed with the 5* accommodation where some suites cost £10,000 a night (or so the tabloids tell us: Michael Winner has related to me that he only spends £2,500- 3,000 a night. What a cheapskate).

At the Tripadvisor site, former guests tell of their time at the hotel - here's an unedited selection.. A Mr Trig of Toronto, Canada, who stayed at the Sandy Lane in November of this year, moans: "Unfortunately we found a soiled female undergarment in our room and it was dealt with very poorly." Well, perhaps it was just a rare slip...

Then again, Andrew Berry of Scotland, reports: "It’s the little things like the TV remote falling to bits, problems with the internal wifi connection, the problems with sunbeds and restaurant reservations." As Simon would say, these are high-class problems.

L Gallagher of Portugal is incandescent: "The service at breakfast was horrendous, when you were seated they would take your tea and coffee order and you would be lucky if this turned up before the end of your breakfast, on most occasions we had to chase the waitress for our tea, housekeeping left us fluffy bath towels when we arrived in our room, but as the week progressed the quality of the towels deteriorated, this was not a massive issue, but for the price that you pay to stay at this hotel I think the towels should be good quality not the quality you expect to find in a 3 star hotel."

In between the several rapturous encomia ("Fantastic!"; "The most wonderful place ever") a surprising number of complaints whinny up. Tennis Rose of Alabama plainly did not realise that the Sandy Lane is not so-called for nothing: "After you land its at least a 90 minute ride on bumpy dusty curvy roads....maybe we took a short cut but I will not be going back to Barbados.... "

In a fine piece of reportage, Ho-Hum of Surrey says the hotel owner likes to hog the swimming pool all to himself when he's in residence and claims the proprietor kicked her partner out of the pool on three occasions. She concludes, "So, have a great holiday if you can bear that the staff are terrified of the selfish, rude owner (Irishman in his late 60's); we couldnt and yes it really spolied our stay, well it would, would'nt it ?"

Merry Christmas, Simon!

Simon Cowell: 'Undoubtably' this man needs a scriptwriter

Would someone tell Simon Cowell that his use of the adverb 'undoubtably' on The X Factor is a boo-boo for indubitably or undoubtedly; up there with Sarah Palin's 'refudiate' or Bush's 'misunderestimate'. Every week, in his tired homilies to contestants, he gets in an 'undoubtably' between his usual formulations 'I've got to tell you something' or 'Can I be honest?' Undoubtedly, a generation of debt-laden students is going around smashing up guilty buildings screaming undoubtably. And it's all Cowell's fault.

Not that online dictionaries can quite make up their minds on the matter. The Free Dictionary lists  'undoubtably' for indubitably even if Nanny Google offers the alternative 'undoubtedly' should you key in Cowell's word. Even my own spellchecker only accepts undoubtably if in quote marks.

A friend of mine once fell for a girl who used the word 'indubitably' - he was dead impressed by her articulacy. Please, Simon, try to keep up.

Media Monkey showers Madame Arcati with (uncredited) sincere flattery

A very senior and smart editor on a certain magazine draws my attention to the Guardian's Media Monkey - it has followed-up my story on The Times and Simon Cowell, but with no credit, natch. Like Private Eye, the Guardian does not acknowledge the contribution of lowly bloggers - not even ones that have edited magazines and got affianced to Molly Parkin. Whatever next!

The Guardian uses the story-lift to praise the author of The Times piece on Cowell, one Alexi Mostrous - this hip young gunslinger happens to be a pal of the Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger. That particular info I obtained from the Eye: you see how easy it is to give credit? Lifters always get shopped. The paper also misses the point about Mostrous' piece: it is anti-Sir Philip Green in essence, whereas Mostrous' predecessor Dan Sabbagh depicted Green as Cowell's equal partner if not saviour. Wrong!

The Guardian story-lift.

The Times and Simon Cowell: Will this do, sir?

The case of The Times' missing Simon Cowell article is not solved. But today the paper publishes another report on Cowell, his "business partner" Sir Philip Green and their TV ambitions. Let us just say it stands as a corrective to Dan Sabbagh's original Times piece which has been deleted not just from the paper's archives but from Google itself!

In the report Cowell makes it known that he may be exiting Fox's American Idol in 2011 to front the first US The X Factor later that year. Gound tremblingly, it's more than hinted that Cowell may only appear on the UK X Factor for one more season (2010): a warning shot at ITV, a company he's known to want to run?

The new gospel according to The Times is that Sir P [Sirpee] is not quite at the centre of things as first claimed. Sony - which has the rights to The X Factor - took against Sirpee as Cowell's rep: certainly they were not about to roll over just because Sirpee and Cowell were reportedly hoping to buy them out and expand the brand under their proposed Greenwell Entertainment. This probably coshes the idea of a Las Vegas web-based pay-per-view US X Factor, as fantastically described by Sirpee in the current GQ which carries a Cowell interview.

Since Fox (owned like The Times by Murdoch) will be broadcasting the American X Factor, one can understand a need not to upset Cowell at this sensitive time, such as with suggestions that his fate is not entirely in his mighty, hairy, hands.

What this new story tells me is that Cowell is The Man, he is in total control. No one is his intermediary. It also tells me that The Times is not independent when the interests of its controlling company are involved: why delete a report without explanation or correction otherwise? One imagines this new article will not suddenly be disappeared. Here's the report. Meantime, GQ (with its Simon Cowell cover and dreamy claims) is made to look a right arse.

What's this about a Rupert Murdoch marriage split?

I've read nothing about it in the Murdoch papers, can't imagine why. Personally I think the pair should go their separate ways to please Rupes' mother Dame Elisabeth, aged 101 shortly. She never liked his third missus Wendi Deng. The story first broke in Australia - here. And still no news on the missing Simon Cowell Times article: I do hope no one imagines Murdoch rules the world. Vote for the Tories and you vote for the foreigner Murdoch's continued undemocratic hold on Westminster.

If you find yourself in Australia, do visit Dame Elisabeth's delightful open gardens at her Cruden Farm in Victoria: unfortunately she cancelled a load of promo interviews lately, perhaps because of her son's obvious marital difficulties.

Curious Case of The Times' Missing Simon Cowell Report: Author is binned!

Private Eye moves on my Nov 5 exclusive story on the Curious Case of the Missing Simon Cowell Times article. Readers will recall that the Murdoch paper's media editor Dan Sabbagh wrote an unusually frank report on Sir Philip Green's plans for Cowell, the proposed US The X Factor and Murdoch Fox's part in all this. He even disclosed in his Sept 2 article that Fox had failed to return his call and that Cowell was envious of another show format. I revealed that the piece has since mysteriously disappeared from the paper's archive and from Google. Sabbagh's hubris could not go unpunished, apparently: he has now been shifted and replaced by a safer pair of hands. That's journalism for you - only the Eye followed up this story.

Leona Lewis: The 'missing' album ...

What’s this I hear of Leona Lewis recording an album before she won The X Factor, and Simon Cowell trying to buy it up from its producer for about a £1m? If Simon's not careful this album could find its public sooner than anyone thinks ...

PS: Further to the above, a well-informed person called Chris B writes (apropos a rumour that a newspaper wishes to give away a Leona Lewis album recorded before she won The X Factor. Chris has also left an explanatory comment) ...

"The story which did the rounds about a year and a half back on music industry forums/blogs etc is Spiral came to an agreement with Syco/Sony and received compensation in exchange for ceding the rights to Twilight (the tracks were all credited as having been co-written by Leona and Spiral on her website/myspace). This is a pretty standard deal in the industry in such cases regarding promo material.

"Where this gets slightly complicated is there's another "album" doing the rounds called "Best Kept Secrets" by UEG Music. This is more of a mismatched affair and has six tracks featuring Leona's vocals and four other remixes of those songs. UEG have run a long 'guerilla' campaign to have this released and two of the songs appeared as giveaways in the Mirror in March:

The Mirror/Leona, click here.

"The full slab of ten tracks is available on major music streaming sites such as last.fm and rhapsody: Click here.

"But the likes of iTunes have refused to sell it, no doubt under pressure from SonyBMG.

"In my opinion the quality of music and production on this isn't up to much and does a disservice to the vocals. It just comes across as amateurish half-finished demos and nowhere near ready for release.

"Now this may be the 'album' that a newspaper wants to give away so I can understand why Cowell/SonyBMG would want to stop a newspaper giving this away as the quality is poor.

"There are far better quality pre-X Factor songs with Leona vocals doing the rounds on the internet - she had clearly worked with a number of producers in an attempt to get a break in the industry, as is the case with many artists in the urban/RnB genre, the use of guest vocalists being a prevalent feature of many songs."

Many thanks Chris.

Sharon Osbourne is flushed away

My prediction on Sunday that the latest X Factor will be Sharon Osbourne's swansong series may prove correct - I see that the woman who likes to share her shit with her nearest and dearest has leaked (so to speak) to The Sun her intention to quit the show. Apparently, she's tired of being pitted against Dannii Minogue by Simon Cowell and "being out of the loop". The reality is she was told to shove it after the producers read last weekend's News of the World - her brother David Arden's most serious allegation was that she tried to persuade her protege Ben Mills to quit the third series when it became obvious Simon's Leona Lewis would triumph. She's never won a series. As for Cowell, Minogue's appointment was a masterstroke to remove the demented and bullying Osbourne - a woman who should redirect her finances from cosmetic surgery to psychiatry.