No, I don't suppose Louis Tomlinson
and Zayn Malik smoking a joint is the end of civilisation as we know it.
The walls of Jericho will not come tumbling down.
Life will go on for One Direction and their millions and millions of teeny supporters — but it will never be quite the same. In the fevered relationship between band and fan, something fundamental has been broken. Trust.
This week, footage emerged of Louis and Zayn smoking marijuana in a van en route to a concert in Peru. They appeared to be filming each other while indulging in some excruciating rapper talk, boasting about the drugs they were consuming, looking forward to consuming more drugs in the future.
Hemmed inside the van by police outriders, speeding between hotel and concert, the film seemed to sum up the claustrophobia of their existence rather than suggest joyous debauchery. But it still made for grim viewing.
Between them, the two young men dropped an abbreviated version of the N-word; referred to the police as ‘the po-po’; and homophobically referred to some of their own One Direction merchandise as ‘gay’ because they thought it was inferior.
God, it’s almost too embarrassing for words, but who wasn’t embarrassing at the age of 20, even when not breaking the law? And from The Beatles to The Bay City Rollers, has there ever been a teeny-bop band as clean-cut as their wholesome images suggested?
Yet One Direction are in a cynical class of their own. That’s why I feel they simply cannot brush off this incident as an irrelevance, a fuss about nothing, a ‘what’s the big deal’?
Especially as they are a pop group who have keenly cultivated a global fan-base predicated on the — we now understand — falsehood that they are kind, clean-cut, sweet, polite and good-living.
Even worse, they were the first boy band to become hugely successful by directly engaging with the Directioners (as their most devoted fans call themselves) on social media.
Harry, Niall, Zayn, Liam and Louis tweeted, flirted and made direct appeals to the little girls who worshipped them. Love us, adore us, download our new songs on iTunes, they would beseech.
They fostered the notion that they and the Directioners are all friends together in this big, crazy adventure; that their special fan/band dynamic is one built on mutual love, respect and affection. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. It is a relationship built on cold, hard cash in an aggressive and hugely successful commercial enterprise.
One Direction are the biggest-selling group in the world. And their rise to the top has been cynical and exploitative, even by grasping music industry standards.
So they can’t have it both ways. They cannot shake down millions of little girls, emptying their piggy-banks and pink plastic purses of all their pocket money without feeling even a whisker of responsibility.
They cannot encourage the wide-eyed teenies to love and adore them, then snicker and mock the books and products they encourage their fans to buy. They just can’t — but they just did. No wonder parents are annoyed.
All that mums and dads ask of groups such as One Direction is that they repay their faith and financial investment by staying squeaky clean until their 15 minutes of fame are over or their daughters grow up — whichever happens first. What they do after that is entirely their own business.
Yet One Direction have failed to keep their part of the bargain.
Is this the beginning of the end?
In the tuck shop of pop, bands don’t come any more manufactured. They were put together in 2010 by Simon Cowell from a bunch of X Factor rejects, and from then till now the members have done very little to improve their musicianship, to learn a musical instrument or even write a song.
Like so many before them, they take fame for granted, raking in the cash and feeling it will never end.
Some people sneer and say ‘pop star takes drugs’ — what is the big deal? Actually, in this instance, it is a big deal. Surely Louis and Zayn should be more responsible towards their impressionable fan-base.
Charismatic Harry Styles has already distanced himself from their antics, so I suspect a solo career for him cannot be far off and that One Direction will be heading in different directions before long.
‘No more media attention, please,’ said sanctimonious band member Liam Payne this week, as the group launched the first of their stadium shows in Britain.
If they carry on like this, without a word of apology or explanation, then they won’t have to wait too long to be ignored.
Depressing news from a survey that reveals a lack of knowledge about nature. Some British schoolchildren had no idea where potatoes come from, thought that chocolate bars grew in the ground and had no idea what a spade or a conker was for. Next thing you know, they will believe that hamburgers come from horses. Oh, wait a minute...
I was reminded of this when TV presenter Susanna Reid took a selfie of herself and Tom Cruise on the red carpet this week.
She seemed as pleased as someone who had just painted a masterpiece and heard it was going to be hung in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. Even dopey elephants with no fingers and thumbs can do it, Susanna! It’s just not that clever.
I believe Tom Cruise should never be forgiven for that Irish accent and thatched hairstyle in the film Far And Away, but what did he do to deserve this?
Susanna was hanging off his arm like someone who had just escaped from a high-security unit after developing a resistance to Tasers and tranquilisers. Never a good look.
Last week, I wrote how brave it was of golfer Rory McIlroy to call off his engagement to Caroline Wozniacki after having doubts about getting married. Now we hear he broke up with her over the phone. I take it all back! How could he? The brute.
Following the decision of British newspapers to politely pixilate her derriere, the Sydney Daily Telegraph brashly ran the pictures under the headline: ‘My bare lady: Derri-heir to the throne is fair game.’
I don’t know which is worse; all bottom or a pixelated bottom. Either way, it looked like an incredibly guilty bottom. Kate is such a smashing duchess in so many other ways, but she has got to get these wardrobe malfunctions sorted out.
If needs must, I will head over to Kensington Palace with my sewing kit and stitch the sixpences into her hems myself.
Of course, it had to happen on a day when she appeared to be wearing no nicks at all — or a thong at the very most (least).
The thing is, who still wears a thong?
My fashion friends tell me that ‘thongs are so Nineties’.
Certainly, thong sales peaked in 2003, but it seems that the Duchess is clinging onto hers —though on this delicate matter, no one is expecting a statement or clarification from Clarence House any time soon.
Poor Kate! It is a blush- making postscript to her roaringly successful royal tour Down Under.
Will she be comforted by the fact that the member of the public who took the embarrassing snap has promised to donate her photo fees to a local fund to help fight bushfires?
I’m saying nothing.
Heartbroken Shirley Valentines have set up the website tunisianloverats.com in a bid to name and shame the men who chase after older women on holiday and pretend to fall in love with them — in the hope of getting the right to live in Britain.
It would almost be funny if it were not so sad.
Before women fall for some plausible Adonis, shouldn’t they ask themselves if they are not being hotly pursued by lovely young men at home, why are they suddenly so irresistible abroad?
Yet part of me sympathises.
Single women in their 40s are often very vulnerable, only too ready to listen to the romantic entreaties of young men.
They can be very silly, too. Not to mention sex-mad. Do they really think it is love?
Worst of all, won’t those scoundrels be thrilled to find themselves on such a website?
For them, it is a Love Asbo. Ladies, you have been warned.
The 79-year-old has had to hang up her fishnets after doing herself a mischief in rehearsals this week.
This is another blow for BGT, which has lost more than a million viewers in an oddly lacklustre series.
And I can’t quite join in the chorus of appreciation for classical singer Lucy Kay, who’s triumphed over her past — she was bullied, apparently — to reach the BGT final.
After her winning rendition of Nella Fantasia on Wednesday night, she was asked who wrote the song, composed by Ennio Morricone.
‘Christ knows!’ she replied.
Simon Cowell thought it was Lloyd Webber and David Walliams hadn’t a clue.
Oh dear. It almost makes me long for popera-lite singer Katherine Jenkins.
Life will go on for One Direction and their millions and millions of teeny supporters — but it will never be quite the same. In the fevered relationship between band and fan, something fundamental has been broken. Trust.
This week, footage emerged of Louis and Zayn smoking marijuana in a van en route to a concert in Peru. They appeared to be filming each other while indulging in some excruciating rapper talk, boasting about the drugs they were consuming, looking forward to consuming more drugs in the future.
Hemmed inside the van by police outriders, speeding between hotel and concert, the film seemed to sum up the claustrophobia of their existence rather than suggest joyous debauchery. But it still made for grim viewing.
Between them, the two young men dropped an abbreviated version of the N-word; referred to the police as ‘the po-po’; and homophobically referred to some of their own One Direction merchandise as ‘gay’ because they thought it was inferior.
God, it’s almost too embarrassing for words, but who wasn’t embarrassing at the age of 20, even when not breaking the law? And from The Beatles to The Bay City Rollers, has there ever been a teeny-bop band as clean-cut as their wholesome images suggested?
Yet One Direction are in a cynical class of their own. That’s why I feel they simply cannot brush off this incident as an irrelevance, a fuss about nothing, a ‘what’s the big deal’?
Especially as they are a pop group who have keenly cultivated a global fan-base predicated on the — we now understand — falsehood that they are kind, clean-cut, sweet, polite and good-living.
Connection: They are the first boy band to become hugely successful by directly engaging with the Directioners
Even worse, they were the first boy band to become hugely successful by directly engaging with the Directioners (as their most devoted fans call themselves) on social media.
Harry, Niall, Zayn, Liam and Louis tweeted, flirted and made direct appeals to the little girls who worshipped them. Love us, adore us, download our new songs on iTunes, they would beseech.
They fostered the notion that they and the Directioners are all friends together in this big, crazy adventure; that their special fan/band dynamic is one built on mutual love, respect and affection. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. It is a relationship built on cold, hard cash in an aggressive and hugely successful commercial enterprise.
One Direction are the biggest-selling group in the world. And their rise to the top has been cynical and exploitative, even by grasping music industry standards.
So they can’t have it both ways. They cannot shake down millions of little girls, emptying their piggy-banks and pink plastic purses of all their pocket money without feeling even a whisker of responsibility.
Back to work: Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik at Sunderland's Stadium of Light after the video emerged
They cannot encourage the wide-eyed teenies to love and adore them, then snicker and mock the books and products they encourage their fans to buy. They just can’t — but they just did. No wonder parents are annoyed.
All that mums and dads ask of groups such as One Direction is that they repay their faith and financial investment by staying squeaky clean until their 15 minutes of fame are over or their daughters grow up — whichever happens first. What they do after that is entirely their own business.
Yet One Direction have failed to keep their part of the bargain.
Is this the beginning of the end?
In the tuck shop of pop, bands don’t come any more manufactured. They were put together in 2010 by Simon Cowell from a bunch of X Factor rejects, and from then till now the members have done very little to improve their musicianship, to learn a musical instrument or even write a song.
Like so many before them, they take fame for granted, raking in the cash and feeling it will never end.
Some people sneer and say ‘pop star takes drugs’ — what is the big deal? Actually, in this instance, it is a big deal. Surely Louis and Zayn should be more responsible towards their impressionable fan-base.
Charismatic Harry Styles has already distanced himself from their antics, so I suspect a solo career for him cannot be far off and that One Direction will be heading in different directions before long.
‘No more media attention, please,’ said sanctimonious band member Liam Payne this week, as the group launched the first of their stadium shows in Britain.
If they carry on like this, without a word of apology or explanation, then they won’t have to wait too long to be ignored.
Depressing news from a survey that reveals a lack of knowledge about nature. Some British schoolchildren had no idea where potatoes come from, thought that chocolate bars grew in the ground and had no idea what a spade or a conker was for. Next thing you know, they will believe that hamburgers come from horses. Oh, wait a minute...
What did Tom do to deserve this?
In a safari park, an elephant took a photograph of itself after a tourist dropped a camera — the first ever ‘elfie’.I was reminded of this when TV presenter Susanna Reid took a selfie of herself and Tom Cruise on the red carpet this week.
Selfie joy: TV presenter Susanna Reid looked over the moon when she snapped herself with Tom Cruise
She seemed as pleased as someone who had just painted a masterpiece and heard it was going to be hung in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. Even dopey elephants with no fingers and thumbs can do it, Susanna! It’s just not that clever.
I believe Tom Cruise should never be forgiven for that Irish accent and thatched hairstyle in the film Far And Away, but what did he do to deserve this?
Susanna was hanging off his arm like someone who had just escaped from a high-security unit after developing a resistance to Tasers and tranquilisers. Never a good look.
Last week, I wrote how brave it was of golfer Rory McIlroy to call off his engagement to Caroline Wozniacki after having doubts about getting married. Now we hear he broke up with her over the phone. I take it all back! How could he? The brute.
I'll fetch my sewing kit, Kate
Following bare-cheeked revelations in a German tabloid, an Australian newspaper has also printed photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge’s bare bottom. Oh, no!Following the decision of British newspapers to politely pixilate her derriere, the Sydney Daily Telegraph brashly ran the pictures under the headline: ‘My bare lady: Derri-heir to the throne is fair game.’
I don’t know which is worse; all bottom or a pixelated bottom. Either way, it looked like an incredibly guilty bottom. Kate is such a smashing duchess in so many other ways, but she has got to get these wardrobe malfunctions sorted out.
Battling the wind: I'll happily head over to Kensington Palace with my sewing kit in hand
If needs must, I will head over to Kensington Palace with my sewing kit and stitch the sixpences into her hems myself.
Of course, it had to happen on a day when she appeared to be wearing no nicks at all — or a thong at the very most (least).
The thing is, who still wears a thong?
My fashion friends tell me that ‘thongs are so Nineties’.
Certainly, thong sales peaked in 2003, but it seems that the Duchess is clinging onto hers —though on this delicate matter, no one is expecting a statement or clarification from Clarence House any time soon.
Poor Kate! It is a blush- making postscript to her roaringly successful royal tour Down Under.
Will she be comforted by the fact that the member of the public who took the embarrassing snap has promised to donate her photo fees to a local fund to help fight bushfires?
I’m saying nothing.
Shirley Valentines all: A still from the 1989 film
Heartbroken Shirley Valentines have set up the website tunisianloverats.com in a bid to name and shame the men who chase after older women on holiday and pretend to fall in love with them — in the hope of getting the right to live in Britain.
It would almost be funny if it were not so sad.
Before women fall for some plausible Adonis, shouldn’t they ask themselves if they are not being hotly pursued by lovely young men at home, why are they suddenly so irresistible abroad?
Yet part of me sympathises.
Single women in their 40s are often very vulnerable, only too ready to listen to the romantic entreaties of young men.
They can be very silly, too. Not to mention sex-mad. Do they really think it is love?
Worst of all, won’t those scoundrels be thrilled to find themselves on such a website?
For them, it is a Love Asbo. Ladies, you have been warned.
Exit the dancing gran - and BGT's last hope
Dancing grandmother Paddy Jones and her dance partner Nico (pictured) have had to withdraw from this year’s Britain’s Got Talent series on ITV due to injury.The 79-year-old has had to hang up her fishnets after doing herself a mischief in rehearsals this week.
This is another blow for BGT, which has lost more than a million viewers in an oddly lacklustre series.
Paddy Jones, 79, has had to hang up her fishnets after doing herself a mischief in rehearsals this week
And I can’t quite join in the chorus of appreciation for classical singer Lucy Kay, who’s triumphed over her past — she was bullied, apparently — to reach the BGT final.
After her winning rendition of Nella Fantasia on Wednesday night, she was asked who wrote the song, composed by Ennio Morricone.
‘Christ knows!’ she replied.
Simon Cowell thought it was Lloyd Webber and David Walliams hadn’t a clue.
Oh dear. It almost makes me long for popera-lite singer Katherine Jenkins.
Almost.
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