A Brief History of the Sugababes

Falling out of the girlband-matic in 2000, the Sugababes were Keisha Buchanan (the black one), Siobhan Donaghey (the ginger one) and Mutya Buena (the dog rough one who'd probably ride you down an alley after the nightclub closed and then rob your wallet after you'd cum). Lauded for an album that easily fulfilled the promise of well-crafted pop evident from debut single Overload and the dark and moody Run for Cover, a tale of an abusive relationship, the girls' album One Touch sold exactly one hundred and thirteen copies, which was several hundred thousand less than their record label was hoping for. During a promotional tour in Japan, it emerged that the abusive relationship described in Run for Cover was actually that Donaghey suffered from her bandmates. Buchanan and Buena, beyond annoyed at the revelation that they had spent months singing and promoting a song about how they were being cunts, abandoned Donaghey dramatically in torrential rain at a train station while staring defiantly at her outside on the platform, as she desperately ran after the departing train, soaked to the skin and no doubt resembling some sort of drowned Irish setter. Donaghey then found that before departing the country without her, Buena had stolen her mobile phone and several thousand Yen, leaving behind only a partially opened condom in her purse.

Arriving back in Britain, Mutya and Keisha met with record label executives to chart the band's new direction. The label balked at the idea that the girls would no longer sing songs about being bitches, and were further appalled by Buchanan's desire to smile in their music videos. They were quickly released from their record deal and found themselves in a boarding house for wayward girls. Sugababes v.1 were officially dead.

But salvation came in the form of a leggy blonde named Heidi Range, with whom the two shared a room at St. Sebastian's School for Morally Bankrupt Young Ladies. A Liverpudlian, Heidi was a capable singer but more importantly, and unlike any of the members of Sugababes v1, she was kinda hot. She was also passionate and had a burning desire for success, driven as she was by the notion of musically annihilating Atomic Kitten, a trio of vapid, talent free young women from the same council estate as Heidi. Range had held a grudge against them ever since they had thrown piss-filled balloons at her younger brother. “That wasn't on, what they did.”, Heidi recalled in a recent interview, “He's a bit slow. A bit of a spaz, is our kid. It just wasn't on. And they stole our telly.” Making the most of the new addition's comparable attractiveness, the girls were able to escape St. Sebastian's when Heidi distracted the security guard while Mutya “twatted him one”. The girls intended to confront their former label with a mixture of threats and suggestive double entendres in the hopes of securing a new record deal. However, London Records had moved premises, and when the girls arrived at the offices of newly formed Island Records, label bosses were charmed by their precocious mix of juvenile sexuality and insinuations of bodily harm both actual and grievous. Also, one of the executives had contracted genital warts from Atomic Kitten's Kerry Katona, and was enthusiastic about Heidi Range's ideas for revenge on the Scouse STI magnet.

The Sugababes lived again! Version 2.0 scored their first number one with their comeback single, Freak Like Me, which crested the wave of the early noughties enthusiasm for mash-ups, combining the music of Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric? with.... someone else's lyrics. So very 2002. They followed this up with Round Round, another number one, and went on to release the album Angels With Dirty Faces, which actually made it into the top five, a good seventy places higher than their debut. The early promise of Sugababes v2 blossomed into consistent success. Follow-up album Three spawned another number-one hit and was certified twice-platinum. Which is probably impressive and means it sold bucketloads. They had songs on film soundtracks and Heidi Range fulfilled a personal ambition and pleased their label immeasureably when she introduced Kerry Katona to the two vices that would destroy her; cocaine and Brian McFadden.

Despite all this, label bosses were not completely happy. It was proving impossible to crack America, widely regarded as A Big Market important for the making of money. A team of music scientists were tasked with uncovering the reason why the 'Babes were failing to set the Billboard charts alight. After 8 months of intensive research, they concluded that the girls were producing lacklustre music videos, which in turn was making it impossible for them to get playlisted on MTV; a prerequisite for success in the days when YouTube was just a squiggle of half-formed code in a programmer's cerebellum. Attempts to secure the services of creative music directors proved fruitless, for, as one visionary director put it “Autotune can make anyone sing good, but no amount of special effects can turn a pig's ear into a silk purse”. That pig's ear was Mutya Buena.

The record label were stumped. They couldn't simply fire Buena, as she would undoubtedly retaliate by bottling their faces or having her drug dealer friends jack up the price of the cocaine they dealt. The Execs sat on their hands as production on the fourth album, Taller In More Ways, continued. An attempt to subconsciously communicate their desire to get rid of Mutya by having her sing lead vocals on a song called Ugly failed to bear fruit. But a stroke of inspiration gave the suits the opportunity they needed to get rid of the girl cruelly described as “a cross between a shitzu and an obstructed bowel”. They slipped some sleeping pills into a bottle of Buckfast, and while Mutya was unconscious, replaced her contraceptives with tic-tacs. A week later, Mutya was pregnant.



As they had predicted, the pressure of being a new mother in a popular girlband, combined with the need to tour regularly and the dangers inherent in running the various gangs in the flats she grew up in, proved too much for Mutya, and she was forced to bow out of the group not long after the release of the fourth album. Eager not to mess with a winning formula, executives replaced Mutya, the rough-as-fuck bitch with the seven inch nails with Amelle Berrabah, a prettier rough-as-fuck bitch with five inch nails. Sugababes v3 was born, and a new era begun with the re-release of Taller in More Ways, still with Mutya's vocals, except for the three singles, which had been re-recorded with Amelle. Who was also badly photoshopped onto the cover. This commitment to quality would surely see the girls break America.

After touring for most of 2007, the group returned to the studio to work with a number of US-based producers for the album Change. The lead single About You Now was a huge success and seemed to bode well for the group's aspirations to take on America. Unfortunately, the producers they chose for the album were the ones everyone else had grown sick of throughout 2007, and when the album was released in December, it already sounded quite dated and failed to make the impact the label were hoping for. The girls had settled into a lazy routine of releasing catchy single every year in the Autumn, a ballad in November and stocking-filler album for Xmas. They stuck to this pattern for 2008, with the release of Catfights and Spotlights. However, the lazy stupor that the band had fallen into was reflected by decreasing public interest. This was only heightened in 2008's market when Cheryl Cole, of rival girlband Girls Aloud, ascended the throne and became Queen of England following a successful campaign for the role of Nation's Sweetheart. Cole's increased media presence benefitted her own group but at the expense of the Sugababes. Catfights and Spotlights was considered an embarrassing flop, performing so poorly that a tour to promote it could not be justified. The girls decided to spend 2009 hard at work on their 7th album, keen to make up for the failings of 2008.



But the girls weren't the only ones hard at work. Original Sugababe Siobhán Donaghey had came a long way since being abandoned in Japan. Her fiery red hair led the Japanese to worship her as a goddess. She had been given the honorific “Amaterasu omikami” meaning “that which illuminates all-Heaven” and sent a group of ninja assassins to disrupt the recording of Sweet 7, the Sugababes make-or-break 2009 album. Wave after wave of ninja foes attempted to distract the group from their hard work, but they were fortunate enough to be able to call on Amelle's East End gangster friends to buy them enough time to finish recording. A particularly bloody encounter on the night of July 20th whle recording the first song from the album has now become popularly known as “The Battle of Get Sexy”. The 28 lives lost that night are remembered in lyrics such as “Cause I'm too sexy in this club, too sexy in this club, so sexy it hurts” and “In a two piece at the beach they say hey, sexy”. Donaghey was not to be deterred however. Mobilising Japan's ultimate weapon; besuited businessmen, she negotiated a takeover of Island Records and prepared to terminate the Sugababes once and for all. The jig looked to be up. All the hard work was for nothing and Sweet 7 would never be released. A song from a Boots advert would be the Sugababes epitaph. But Keisha Buchanan was not prepared to let it end like that. She had learned one thing through the various incarnations of her band, and that was the importance of fighting. Buchanan researched her strange and unfamiliar foes. She immersed herself in every Wikipedia article about Japan she could find, and eventually went to the most authoritative source on all-things Japanese available to the West: fan-translated anime on the internet. She came to understand her enemy. She knew how much they valued honour. If she did the honourable thing, she reasoned, the Sugababes might be saved. Sweet 7 could be released. The Japanese wanted Keisha, and only Keisha. It was she who had, along with Mutya, enraged their Empress all those years before. It was she who should pay the price.


On the 21st of September 2009, Keisha Buchanan turned herself over to the Imperial Forces of Her August Majesty Siobhán Donaghey of Japan, resigning from the Sugababes. On the 22nd of September 2009, Empress Donaghey announced that diplomatic relations between Britain and Japan would be restored following the execution of Buchanan some time in October. As is the way of things, Keisha was replaced with the next most talented black person on the record label's books, Jade Ewen, former United Kingdom Eurovision hopeful. On the 23rd of November, Sugababes v4, the first without any of the original three members, will release their first album. They will honour the sacrifice that Keisha Buchanan made with their next single, About a Girl. “Girls bring the fun of life, sugar like apple pie, take a trip to paradise, let's have a party – oh!”

Ryan Tubridy's First Late Late Show: A Live Reaction Blog

They've gone for an easy-listening/jazzy theme tune. Good to see Ryan Tubridy isn't going to be complacent and just rest on his laurels in the niche he's built that has proven so inexplicably popular, then. The much-photographed new set has many wooden elements, as though to tell us that Pat might be gone, but he cannot be forgotten.

Our new host, the personification of Celtic Tiger smug consumerist aspirationalism, slides on-screen, greased up by his own sense of self satisfaction. I think he fluffed his first line. Woo. Oh, he stumbles twice! Bwahaha, impale yourself on your sword of nerves, you six foot streak of anorexic anxiety.

House-band. Meh.

Tubridy attempts to do politics with the Taoiseach as his first guest. The house band play him on with the same horrendous remix of the Late Late theme they have now played 3 times in the first 4 minutes.

Now that we've seen it from a few angles and had time to digest the surroundings, it's pretty clear that the set is horrible. Really, horrible. You know it must be pretty bad when Brian Cowen is on screen and for once he isn't the ugliest thing there. It looks slightly like the interior of a beehive being maintained by magical giant bees who have constructed their home out of pinkish-blue honeycombs stuck to the slatted wooden remnants of Pat Kenny. Possibly the same magical honey bees who inflated Cowen's lips to such a ridiculous degree.

Tubbers is trying far too hard to be confrontational with An Taoiseach. I get the feeling each guest tonight will come from a different background, to show us just how capable our new host is. “Look Daddy, I can do Political as well as fluffy banter with figures from the world of light entertainment! Aren't you glad you got me this job now?”

I see the widsom of choosing Cowen as the first guest now. It's easy for Tubridy to endear himself to an audience who might be sceptical by scoring points making smarmy comments and needling one of the most disliked men in the country. But I won't fall for it. No amount of Taoiseach trouncing can make me set aside my disdain for this smug git.

He SHOUTILY introduces this evening's competition, which is a fairly impressive stash of prizes to keep all eyes on the box so RTE can bleat about how this was one of the most watched things in years. Then he SHOUTILY introduces Sharon Corr with her first solo single. Er.... it's easy to see why Andrea was the lead singer of The Corrs, lets put it that way....

Jim Corr runs on stage wearing a paper bag over his head, drops his trousers and helicopters his cock anti-clockwise. “I exist!” he screams, as we take to the adverts, “I FUCKING EXIST!”.

Brian McFadden. We start with some arse licking from The Lanky One, building ever so slowly to the question everyone wants to ask. How do you solve a problem like Kerry Katona? (By not being in Australia when your children need you?) This is slightly cringey. You know the way Pat would never cut too close to the bone or ask anything too enquiring? Tubridy is the opposite. He's being just a little bit too familiar; there's nothing wrong with the questions he's asking per se, but the way he's asking them is a bit... intrusive. It doesn't seem like he has the knack of being subtle in asking personal questions. It would probably be rude, if the person he was talking to wasn't dirty greasy sleaze-ball Brian McFadden.

And now we're interviewing Brian's mammy in the audience about how awful Kerry Katona is. Remember when everyone loved her? God bless the mercurial nature of tabloid culture.

Kerry breaks onto the set, pushing a trolley full of Stella Artois through the pinkurple honeycomb walls, extinguishes the half-smoked cigarette she is carrying on Tubridy's desk. The over-stuffed Lidl bag-for-life she is carrying explodes and litters the floor with tins of beans, Weetabix and a giant pack of fanny pads. She blinks, seemingly confused and tired, but manages to pull it together long enough to offers a concise and witty riposte to McFadden's criticisms of her ability as a mother: “You've got a tiny willy.” She then spits up a tiny bit of vomit that lands wetly on the zipper of her velour tracksuits, before falling over.

Moving the audience participation lens from Mamamcfadden to the rest of the plebs. Wow, I can see why so many people like him, what with his down to earth throwing out of snide insults about the way everyone is dressed. But it's okay, cos Quinn Direct are giving everyone in the audience a weekend break! Woo, you could call my mam a flea-riddled whore and I wouldn't give a fuck as long as there's lots of free crap!

Joan Collins. So very boring. The insightful interview basically amounts to lots of name-dropping about Joan's luvvie friends and how every woman from the golden age of Hollywood was a bitch. And then there's a clip of her fucking some guy to death. Next!

Cherie Blair! Wife of the guy who turned Labour into the Tories, which in turn forced the Tories to try and turn themselves into Labour. For some reason the house band play what sounds like the QI theme tune. Oh great work, Cherie, as she manages to plug her book within 90 seconds of appearing. And then starts talking about her father's sex life. She does her usual thing of saying something mortifying about Tony; this time concerning his pride at being a former Heat magazine Torso of the Week but eventually wins the audience around with her down to earth charm and complaints about Ryanair's service. The lizardpeople will be pleased that their Empress has performed so well.

Musical interlude with David Grey. Never was a man so aptly surnamed. Well, maybe if he'd been called David Boring.

When we wake up from our nap, we find that Tubridy has been joined by ten year old actress Saoirse Ronan, in an attempt to show off his diversity. From political insight to bonding with pubescent Oscar nominees about her favourite Tweenie or High School Musical character, is there nothing this man cannot do?

Oh dear. She's nice, but she's no Cherie Blair. The audience aren't exactly enthralled. The interview concludes with her excitedly eating a jelly while everyone watching wishes they had continued napping following that earlier song from David Beige.

Niall Quinn and wife. In a final display of his immense interviewtory range, Tubridy shows us he can do girlie by basically imploring Wife Quinn to do a twirl for us to show off her new hairdo. Woo love. That Sarah Jessica Parker interview is surely in the bag now.

We end shambolically, as the camera pulls away from the house band (who, mercifully, don't yet have an “Oh, I'm so ironic and self-depricating, me” imposed name, yet) who are about to put instruments to lips, then pause, then ready instruments again, waiting for some cue that still won't come, then just as we see them puff up their cheeks to begin playing... we fade to black.

You know what would've made it much better? If Pat and Gay were sitting in a balcony overlooking Tubbers, making bitchy remarks about how much of an irritating little slab of watery shit he is.

The Diary of Doctor Beverly Crusher

Chief Medical Officer's Log

Stardate 9814872

If I wasn't still slightly tipsy from the previous evening's drinkies, and could actually walk in a straight line without one leg deciding to go in the opposite direction to the other, I think I'd simply saunter down to Engineering and piss into the warp core, my liqour-infused urine leading to a catastrophic systems failure that incinerates everyone on board.

So Arseface and I go through the cleansing ritual to absolve him of his shameful conduct with my hot naked ass a few years back. It takes 3 hours, its all in Klingon and its done in this dreary little sparsely lit room those hemorrhoid-headed pseudo-sentients are so damn fond of. Afterwards, Worf and I go our seperate ways and naturally enough, I'm pretty keen on letting my hair down, especially as I'd spent the previous few days trying to learn the Klingon chants I needed to say for my part and wearing a PVC red corset that cut off the blood supply to my tits.

So I hit a nearby human bar and start enjoying myself. I loosen the corset to let the girls breathe a bit and this cute guy from Betazed suddenly notices me. My breasts ARE pretty magnificent. We start talking and I ask him if he knows a bitch called Deanna, but he doesn't. We had a nice little chat, mostly about how Deanna is a bitch, and I suggest he tries the Klingon Raddish Vodka, so I order five. Unfortunately, he mustn't have been very thirsty, so I ended up finishing my three drinks before he's even halfway through his first. I'm a little unsure of things after that, but I do remember possibly loosening the corset more than I should've and possibly placing his hand somewhere I shouldn't. I vaguely remember him saying "I'm sensing extreme lustfulness" not long before he making a hasty exit. Y'think, smarty? God, the Betazed are fucking useless as a race.

Things get pretty crazy after that. Its a mash of memories of falling over several times, pissing in a fountain to some war dead, running down a street shouting "I am the Flame-Haired Witch-Queen of Africa!" and eventually managing to contact Arseface. And waking up next to him the following morning.

It was a horrible retread of the past that made my blood run cold. He had that doe-eyed look on his face again. I was hoarse and hungover and didn't want to break his little kitten heart at that point, so I slinked off to catch my scheduled trip back to the Enterprise, thankful that he already had plans to visit and stay with Alexander and his "good friend" at their apartment for a few days.

Not long before reaching the Enterprise, I get a subspace transmission from Arseface and decide to completely ignore it because at that point I'm vomiting up my lungs on account of the Raddish Vodka not having mixed very well with the Blood Wine, Blue Mist Malt Hot Whiskies or Ferengi Ales I'd also had the night before.


So I arrive back, and go to see my No.1 girlfriend and BFFL Guinan to find out if Picard missed me and let her know the hip-grinding horrors of my trip. Her face kinda falls halfway through our conversation and I know she knows something I don't. And then she explains. Apparently, for obscure stupid fucking hemorrhoid-head cultural reasons stretching back centuries, the Klingon ritual of absolution is identical to the Klingon marriage ritual, the only difference being the behaviour of the parties in the hours immediately afterwards. Going their seperate ways absolves them their shame. Wild inter-species Tribble-fucking counts as sealing the marriage contract.


Worf and I are married.

The Diary of Doctor Beverly Crusher

Chief Medical Officer's Log

Stardate 98004598

Well the kerfuffle about that whole Janeway thing has died down, but it had some wearying and troublesome consequences. Firstly, one or two gossip blogs were all over the whole thing, getting all blah blah blah Admiral embarrassed and raking over the past essentially. Then some of the self-appointed investigative journalists-cum-stalkers-slash-saddos who make up the blogosphere started looking into the whole thing, i.e. at yours truly, which led them to even more muck-raking about how it wasn't the first time I'd created headaches for a high ranking individual. End result: lots of blogging about Arseface Worf and that video the two of us made that lost him the vice-Chancellorship of the Klingon Empire.

Stupid video. My ass looks huge.

Anyhow, with all this going on, a very annoyed Arseface comes a-knocking at my door being all wah wah loss of honour and annoyed and bitching about how its MY FAULT because my Janeway remarks caused all hoo-hah and how way back when it was my idea to grab the holo-recorder and upload it and whatever, fuck you Worf, I was inebriated anyhow. If he'd had any balls he would've said “No doctor, it is a bad idea to do that, as it is easy to forget to click the option that makes a recording private, and may I say that you look radiant when you sit there with your fiery hair and a pearlescent sheen to your skin, sipping whisky in responsible quantities.” and stopped me, instead of just lying there beaming about how it was the best night of his life. Ass.

I just wanted to get rid of him because I had a throbbing headache, so I said if there was anything I could do to change the past or make it easier for him, I would, because I'm nice like that. Unfortunately, he took me up on the offer and we're now booked for a 6-day trip to Qu'onos to partake in some sort of ritual that'll absolve us of our sins and lift the dishonour that has been cast upon him. Whatever. Anything to get him off my back, even though I hate all that Klingon shit. Goes on FOREVER and I can't understand a word of it. I have to wear some ridiculous bright red outfit that just looks awful with my hair, with some dumbass corset so my tits are basically hoisted up beneath my chin. I don't know why he didn't just do this years ago after the initial scandal anyhow. He's such a retard. I've met smarter microbial lifeforms.

And speaking of things microbial, Riker popped in the other day for his erection meds. I lied and told him they were still being reviewed by Starfleet medical for possible long-term side effects. He enquired about alternate prescriptions but I told them all the other ones available would clash with his hair-restoration pills. He left feeling very dejected. Second month with no stiffies. Ha ha, fuck you Deanna, you horny bitch.

Live Nude Jacko-blog

-Kay Burley sets the tone for the evening by introducing Pastor Lucius Smith as Father Luscious Smith. Repeatedly.

-Mariah and her melons waddle on to oversing I'll Be There with someone I don't recognise. Perhaps feeling overcome by the emotion of the occasion, as well as struggling to stay upright with those chesticles about to tumble out of her not terribly discreet dress, she looks skyward mournfully on numerous occasions. She has also really overdone it with the blusher, making her cheeks less of a healthy glow and more of a measles red.

-Can I have a glory note? Hell Yeah. Can I have staccato warbling that'd put a canary with palpitations to shame? Hell Yeah. Can I have a Thank You, Jesus? Hells Yeah!

-Queen Latifah, alas, not performing tonight in the guise of Mama Morton from Chicago, introduces the crowd to the concept of poetry with the help of Maya Angelou. Maya also gives us the first instance of a song title being a part of the speechifying. I predict it won't be the last.

-Ladies and gentlemen, Lionel Richie.

-A lot of Jesusing going on here.

-Macauley Culkin makes his way to the podium, and fiendishly informs the attendees that at last, the spotlight is his now, and he has set up a series of devilish traps using everyday items to prevent anyone removing him until he has had his say about a number of issues. A sniper quickly dispatches him so we can continue.

-Old black guy who invented Motown. He really enunciates his T sounds. He has a style of narration that makes me wish Morgan Freeman was talking us through this.

-Michael Jackson sure had a lot of black friends for a white guy.

-”Michael Jackson went into orbit and never came down”.... You said it, Berry.

-Everybody loves a montage!

-Random images include Jacko putting the world back together, Jacko with a giant cheque, Zombie!Jacko, Blackjack, Whitejack and everything-in-between-Jack and ewwww, shirtless Jacko.

-Stevie Wonder! Obvious blindness joke here. “Michael, why didn't you stay????” he laments while tinkling the ivories of sadness.

-Athletes take to the stage. Sky's captions assure us that they are basketball legends. I understand Kobe Bryant has been accused of rape in the past. It's nice that he and Michael had something in common. Magic Johnson shares a story about eating fried chicken with MJ. What, no watermelon?

-Jesus H. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson is MASSIVE. She apes Mariah Carey in repeatedly looking skywards to show she's thinking fondly of Michael. The coffin is in front of you, not stuck to the ceiling. Its almost like she has some nonsensical belief that dead people are found in the clouds. MJ voiceover plays during Jen's performance.

-Al Sharpton. This will surely be a speech of dignity and restraint, free from hyperbole.

-Al tells us that Michael Jackson taught the world to love. And brought Blacks and Whites and Asians and Latinos together. He fed the world. And in a quantum leap of logic, Michael is apparently responsible for Barack Obama being president of the USA by making people comfortable with black people. Michael never stopped! Michael never stopped! Michael never stopped! Thank ya Michael! Thank ya Michael! Thank ya Michael! If Rev Sharpton were stationery, he'd definitely be triplicate paper.

-The crowd chant for Michael. I fear it may be in vain.

-John Meyer takes to the stage for some guitar-work as an image of a levitating Jackson firing out a rainbow of colour is projected on-stage. Meyer appears to be deriving sexual pleasure from his string-plucking.

-Brooke Shields! For those of you waiting for the first showing of tears to drink, now is the time to down the vodka.

-Sky News really wants us to watch this in SkyHD, which is so crystal clear that you can actually see the front row reflected in the tears of Brooke Shields.

-Oh, poor choice of words. “His heart would just burst out of his chest when he laughed!”

-Jermaine Jackson performs “Smile” in The Moment Designed To Draw Tears From Stones™. He is one-gloved. He is being drowned out by the music. This is not how to draw tears, AEG.

-Luther Kings. They don't have the same rhythmically dolourous tones as Berry Gordy, and I am bored by them. Clearly that speechifying power has been diluted across the generations.

-Kay Burley interrupts proceedings to tell us that Sky will have a medium in-studio afterwards attempting to contact the spirit of Michael Jackson to discuss the MP's expenses row, in addition to asking for his thoughts on tomorrow's newspapers.

-Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee! Woo! She is here to laud the American Story that is Michael Jackson. She namechecks the children. Well, two of them. Whoops. Poor Blanket.

-The US Congress has agreed to declare Michael Jackson the King of Pop forever and ever and to imprison anyone who would question that. Or something.

-Usher looking like a fucking tit and hamming it up even more than Mariah Carey was. “We love you Michael” * deep sigh * He whimpers. He whines. He looks pained. Can we just get him an Oscar so he'll leave the stage?

-Smokey Robinson! Kinda boring. Next!

-Hundreds of Uighurs could be dead or dying in China at the moment. But this has been on Sky, without adverts, for 4 hours now.

-Fat kid with weird name from Britain's Got Talent. I bet Susan Boyle is fit to kill at the prospect of being upstaged by one of her cohorts.

-Kenny Ortega tells us that “we were here, with Michael, less than a week ago”. He died 12 days ago. Something you want to tell us, Kenny?

-I don't know who any of these people singing We Are The World, perhaps the first of MJ's many mawkish songs about coming together as one and feeling the power of our hearts and being childlike and peaceful and save the world and end war and animals are lovely and cloudbeams of rainbowfart.

-Here's Heal The World, another of MJ's many mawkish songs about coming together as one and feeling the power of our hearts and being childlike and peaceful and save the world and end war and animals are lovely and cloudbeams of rainbowfart.

-Al Sharpton only joins in the group arm-waving when he realises he's on camera.

-Jackson 1 of 4 tells us he was Michael's backbone. Jackson 2 of 4 laments Jackson leaving after such a short visit to Earth.

-The Jackson children are onstage. They are mysteriously not blonde any more. I bet he wasn't happy with their look and had them recast.

-New! Paris speaks up. Old Paris never would have been given a speaking role. She really sells it emotionally.

-The Jackson coffin, or Jackophagus, is taken away to be cryogenically frozen, as Pastor Luscious returns.

-The memorial ends as the zombified corpse of Jackson rises from his cryselephantine housing to lead a group of the undead in a bloody rampage through the mourners. Joe Jackson is viciously torn limb from limb as a desperate Janet hacks at her brother with a machete. Clearly she knew this turn of events was a possibility and came prepared. Alas, her efforts are futile as she is overcome by a horde of nightstalkers hungry for warm blood. When all seems lost, and the floor of the stadium is awash with blood, entrails, and the twitching limbs of the soon to be reanimated bodies of the recently eaten, hope manifests itself, as a determined looking Elizabeth Taylor appears. She bears a flamethrower in one hand, and stands assertively with an expensive though not gaudy handbag over her shoulder, filled with ancient tomes on voodoo and curses; the only chance the City of Angels has in the face of this marauding darkness.

The Diary of Doctor Beverly Crusher

Chief Medical Officer's Log
Stardate 98006215

Well I'm really all over the place following this talent competition thing.

About two or three days before the competition, all these rumours started flying about saying that Deanna was going to lead a dance troupe of holograms she had programmed and choreographed herself in a stomping electro-synth routine fusing 22nd century neo-ballroom and old school disco, while singing the 21st century classic "Poker Face" across a range of EIGHT FUCKING OCTAVES, ending on a glory note that she'd hold for 46 seconds while making a Rizan Chomping Hound jump through a flaming hoop balanced on her nose. Something that audacious was pure Deanna and I knew I didn't stand a chance. So... an anonymous tipster informed Starfleet Health and Safety that the appropriate form (Clearance Form Eight-Theta) making permissable the participation of a gathering of more than six holograms who have been programmed extensively enough as to be near-sentience, for use in a public spectacle, variety show or any form of entertainment held under a marquee larger than 8 quatrats had not been submitted.

Unfortunately, the anonymous tipster's assumption proved incorrect when she was informed by Starfleet Bureacracy Station Six that Form Eight-Theta had been received SIX CUNTING MONTHS AGO. Meaning bitch-face-trollop-labia had been preparing for the talent contest for over half a year. And leaving anonymous tipster with just 3 days to come up with a routine that'd outshine that empathic cum-stain and win the heart of a certain virile commanding officer. Well not even the heart. I'd make do with an index finger at this point. Jean-Luc has such long, elegant fingers. And he looks after them so well, too. I love a man who looks after his phalanges.

With less than seventy-two hours to go until the big night, I settled upon a ventriloquism act. I've always been good at throwing my voice. Especially when using a short wave transmitter and a miniature holographic mouthpiece that makes it look like my mouth is closed. I hit upon the genius idea of using my routine to poke fun at Deanna's, thus undermining her before the voting. Of course, I couldn't spend the entire routine mocking that fuckwit, so I also decided to make some rather risque jokes at the expense of Admiral Janeway and the recent revelations about her sexual proclivities.

The night came. Alexander was at his high-camp best, and I was actually feeling pretty confident. And then I learned who the guest judge was, whose vote would carry the same weight as the audience. Kathryn fucking Janeway. I had two choices. I could simply concede defeat and not take part, or I could soldier on and maintain my artistic integrity in the face of social awkwardness and career suicide. I chose to soldier on. With half a bottle of vodka in me, I took to the stage and began my routine. It was not my greatest moment. I don't think the masturbatory gestures and orgasm faces I made went down particularly well with Jean-Luc. I heard him apologise to Janeway when I brought up the Borg children thing. So it was probably a mistake to do the routine in that sense, but fuck it, everyone's still talking about it now, several days later, so I guess it was a little victory in that regard. The most galling thing about it all is that Deanna didn't even win, despite her spectacular routine. Instead, it was a bunch of niggers from South London who took the spoils. Never saw that one coming.

The Diary of Dr Beverly Crusher

Chief Medical Officer's Log
Stardate 98002540


Well, the talent contest is next week. I have no idea what Deanna is planning but the thunder cunt has had Holo Deck 2 booked out every afternoon from 12 until 5 for three weeks straight now. And sometimes she even goes back there in the evening for more practice. There's a lot of buzz around the ship; everyone is talking about what Deanna's going to do and blah blah blah. Fucking bitch. I wouldn't be surprised if she was just spending her afternoon getting herself seen to by Orgasm Program 5-Theta. Though if that is the case then its my fault seeing as how I replaced Riker's latest prescription for his erection meds with Oestrogen boosters. But I only did that because the anonymous complaint I made about all the time she was spending in the damn Holo Deck was completely ignored. Its all circular and it all goes back to her!

Its so damn unfair. Other people need to practice too. Like I'd be in Holo Deck 2 all the damn time if I knew what I was going to do. My plan to construct a set of pan-pipes from my empty Chateau Picard bottles went awry when the fucking robot stopped by OUT OF HOURS and AT MY PERSONAL QUARTERS to ask me to take a look at his bloody cat. He knows I hate that thing. I freaked out when it bolted out of his arms and flung a PADD at it. I was slightly tipsy though and ended up hitting my bottles of Picard, which were somewhat unwisely arranged into a precarious pyramid formation following my last 3am caffeine and sugar high. And crash went my dream of impressing Jean-Luc by playng that little flute ditty of his wine bottle style. I turfed the robot out. Fucker only stopped by to unnerve me, I'm convinced of it. He knows I'm not a freakin' vet. Maybe his emotion chip is crapping out again. Hopefully he'll go psycho and strangle Deanna.

I seriously need to come up with something good for this contest though. Arseface Worf's son Alexander is the compere for the evening, albeit in his drag queen persona, Commandant Cocktajino, and he'll probably be as merciless as he was last year. Poor Worf, so deluded. If you get him talking about Alex's alter ego he gets all insistent and shouty; "HE'S JUST AN ENTERTAINER". I'm a pretty caring person, and I'm always looking out for others and trying to do them a favour, so I'd like to sit Arseface down and have a talk with him about coming to terms with being the parent of a homo, but I'd be scared he might take it the wrong way and... well, we don't want to go down that road again. By which I mean we don't want to end up in that bed again. Embarrassed and shame faced and quietly scurrying around the floor drunkenly looking for one's underwear and hoping you don't wake the loudly snoring Klingon mess who ate your bra in the throes of passion and cried after he came.

God, everyone on this ship is so emotionally retarded.

-Bev Crusher, logging off.

The Diary of Dr Beverly Crusher

Chief Medical Officer's Log
Stardate 980022120

Well, it's been several days now since Valentine's Day, and it's safe to assume that my previous hope that a gift or card or saucy negligée had gotten lost in Inter-Ship Delivering is groundless. I'm comforting myself with a bottle of Chateau Picard that I had Wesley send me from when he and Julian visited France and taking the edge off my misery.

The senior crew have gathered on numerous occasions since February 14th and despite my best attempts to subtley provoke discussion of the topic, I've not yet been able to ascertain what Jean-Luc thought of the antique china teapot I left outside his quarters. I thought it'd be the sort of gift he'd appreciate, although perhaps enclosing a 3-dimensional holo-snapshot of my vagina was going a bit far. I could always try and blame Deanna if it gets messy, though I'd have to spread rumours that she was actually ginger for it to succeed....

Speaking of, she's lording it over the rest of us with tales of her own romantic getaway. Hairyface Riker pulled some strings and had the Blue Moon of Perseus VIII booked out so it was just the two of them and the fabulous Sapphire Gildedfly Lagoon Archipelago. I'm going to look that up. Sapphire fucking Gildedfly fucking Lagoon shitting Archipelago? Sounds like she just strung some fancy sounding words together that she found in the dictionary to make it seem like she'd been somewhere exclusive. Slut. If I'd known Riker was going to go to all that trouble I would have sabotaged his erectile dysfunction medication again.

This Chateau Picard is damn good wine. I could say that Picard goes down well, lol. I'm glad I had Wes get me so many bottles. I was thinking I might string a few of the empty bottles together and play them like pan-pipes in the upcoming talent show. Although that might not be impressive enough. I'm determined to beat Deanna this year. And the robot. It's not fair that he's allowed to enter when his reflexes make him so damn good at everything. Pale-ass wannabe carbonform.

-Beverly Crusher, logging off.

Thundercats: Where Are They Now?

Lion-O

Following the first two successful seasons of Thundercats, series-lead Lion-O used his position as the main character to negotiate a contract that gave him a great deal of creative control over the direction of the third season, insisting scripts only progress when he had signed off on them and that he be given the opportunity to write and direct several episodes himself. Eager to secure the lead for their most successful show, the network forced show-runners to capitulate to Lion-O's demands. This led to a great deal of behind the scenes tension on the show as plots were abandoned and scripts rewritten on Lion-O's whims. This chaos manifested on-screen in the sudden departure of fan-favourite Panthro and the hasty addition of three new characters to take his place. Lion-O's abstract, art-house style was at odds with the action-flick tone viewers had come to expect. Though his episodes are hailed by critics as exceptional pieces of experimental cinematography, they did not fare so well with the general public. Ratings imploded, and production on the series was halted midway through the season. Ostensibly "on hiatus", the show would not return in any form until 2005, with an acclaimed dark and gritty reimagining that occasionally features members of the original cast in surprising or humourous cameos. Lion-O has yet to appear, and it is widely believed he views the remake with great disdain. After the original was axed, Lion-O studied at film school, learning to restrain some of his more flamboyant cinematic tendencies and maintain a coherent narrative without undermining his artistic vision. Though he has failed to achieve commercial success, his style is adored by the French and in 2006 he was inducted into L'ordre Luminée Des Artes, the highest honour that can be bestowed by the internationally reknowned Société Pour Les Personnes Prétentious. Endlessly creative, Lion-O chose to film the event and incorporate it into his upcoming film, Flowers for Arbus, in a sequence featuring a meta-narrative on the importance given to awards, titles and other forms of social capital in modern society. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, and garnered a positive response. Famously reclusive, Lion-O rarely gives interviews. He is married to French poet and political activist Mimou, with whom he has has two children, Lysette and Pi.

Panthro

Popular action-man character Panthro, responsible for some of Thundercats most spectacular set-pieces and fight scenes, was killed off early in the third season following a series of rows with Lion-O over the direction of the show. Bitter and disillusioned with the world of television following the executive meddling that created the situation with Lion-O, Panthro turned his back on acting and focused on his first love; food. He opened a chain of vegetarian restaurants which enjoyed initial success, attributable in retrospect to the celebrity status of the owner. Commentators say that opening over a dozen demanding enterprises in such a short period of time was a mistake for Panthro, who lacked experience running his own businesses. The franchise crumbled after just two years, leaving Panthro with a mountain of debts. He turned to drink to cope, and began to gamble heavily in the hopes of making back some of his lost fortune. Things came to a head when Panthro was brutally attacked in 1995 by heavies acting under the orders of a money-lender he had sought out. Spending several weeks in a coma and months being rehabilitated, Panthro turned to religion in his hour of need. He credits celebrity preacher and newspaper columnist Pastor Pat Patterson with turning his life around. The June 1997 edition of Court TV, in which a resolute and recovered Panthro faced down his attackers in court, and forgave them for what they had done to him, was one of highest rated episodes of the daily courtroom digest, second only to the OJ Simpson trial in mass interest. Controversy found Panthro again in recent years, when Pastor Pat's support of the degenerate homosexual lifestyle placed him in the midst of the widely-reported on tensions in the Anglican Church over the ordination of filthy gay bishop, Gene Robinson. Tabloids exposed the Pastor's long-term relationship with Panthro, and a fierce Panthro made a memorable appearance on Fox talk show Good Morning With Inoffensive White Anglo-Saxon Chatter, arguing with vigour against intrusive tabloid reporting. Panthro lives in Albany with Pastor Pat and their Golden Retriever Dixie.

Cheetara

Cheetara, who adorned many a 14 year old boy's wall during the show's heydey, was imprisoned in 1989 after it was revealed she had let an underage youth nail her to his bedroom wall in a more literal manner. Actually I guess it's in a more metaphorical manner, given the posters would be literally nailed to the wall whereas having sex against one is a eupeh... look, SHE BANGED A MINOR, OKAY? Sentenced to 6 years for the statutory rape of well-known Thunderfan Frederick Williams, whom she met at ThunderCon '87, Cheetara was released early on account of good behaviour and over-crowding. It is believed that the fact that her father, a billionaire oil tycoon, plays golf with judges played absolutely no part in her release. A popular urban legend states that Cheetara lost an eye in a 1989 prison riot. This is not entirely correct. While Cheetara was injured in the riot, she actually lost an ovary, not an eye, when she was stabbed in the abdomen with a screwdriver by a crazed inmate. Rumours she maintained contact with Williams during her incarceration were confirmed when the two married in 1993. Cheetara has not returned to television, but she is heavily involved in the theatre scene in Seattle, where she has settled with Williams and their daughters Cessily and Tiara-Ann.

Mumm-Ra

A well-respected Broadway thespian, Mumm-Ra was the only member of the cast to receive an Emmy for his work on Thundercats, for what the New York Times called "his multi-layered portrayal of a centuries-old villain, subtley succumbing to madness as he tries in vain to resurrect the Imperial society of ancient Thundera, using soul-eating sorceries that twist a good man into an horrific bandage-wrapped shadow of himself". Mumm-Ra's tenure as the show's primary threat came to an end in the highly regarded five-episode epic "To Live and Die on Thundera" that closed the second series. Mumm-Ra would return for guest appearances in several episodes of the meandering third season, as an abstract embodiment of Lion-O's uncertainties. Had the show continued, it was expected Mumm-Ra would return proper and join forces with Season 3's other foes, the Robot Philosophers Nietzsche-Nine, Third-Wave-Feminism-Bot and Socratron, who sought to violently restructure Thunderan society to conform to their views of a Utopia. With the unexpected cancellation, Mumm-Ra was free to dedicate himself to working on his NBC talk-show, Muttering with Mumm-Ra. His incisive wit and blunt put-downs proved his aptitude for the format, but scheduling the show opposite ratings-juggernaut Home Alone: The Series proved disastrous, and it was soon axed. However, executives at E! were impressed with the ageing actor's surprisingly up-to-date knowledge of popular culture and enthusiasm for sending up celebrity glitterati, and signed him up as their red-carpet reporter for minor events such as the Country Music Awards and Presidential Election. An acid-tongued encounter with Bob Dole thrust an unrepentant Mumm-Ra into the headlines, and his star grew again. He was offered another talk-show, Mumm-Ra Before Midnight, which was a greater ratings success than his initial foray into the genre. Before Midnight ran nightly for almost a decade until 2002, when declining health forced Mumm-Ra to cut back on his commitments. He announced his retirement from television a year later and went on to take the role of Virgil the Chicken-man in Broadway's Mighty Max: The Musical. He earned a Tony Award for his spirited portrayal of the last Lemurian. Mumm-Ra remained in the role until shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in January 2004.

Excerable Lyrics

1
I love you like a fat kid loves cake - Urban lyricist and general irritation Fifty (50) "Fiddy" Cent declares his affection for an unnamed female companion in the song 21 Questions.

Trivia! Some of the questions posed include "Did I mention I was shot nine times?" and "Would you like to meet my friend Eminem?"

2.
To the left, to the left. Everything you own in the box to the left - Robotic lifeform Beyoncé Knowles produced this song-writing gem in Irreplaceable, from the 2007 album B'Day (pronounced "bidet")

Trivia! During the events that inspired this song, Beyoncé actually did not place all of her gentleman-friend's possessions in a box to her left, and it was only after he threatened legal action that she returned items including an expensive watch, a set of silver cufflinks and a small stuffed toy, said to be "worthless in monetary terms but priceless in sentimental value".

3.
You could be my black Kate Moss tonight - Otherwise tolerable RnB person Kanye West's huh?-worthy line from Stronger

Trivia! In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West famously declared "George Bush don' like him no black peoples, dawg" or something to that effect. Other shocking revelations Kanye let rip with during the same broadcast concerned the intelligence of the aforementioned Mister Bush ("Not that bright, y'all") and the quality of recent seasons of animated comedy The Simpsons - "It just lost some of it's sparkle after Season 10, y'know what I'm sayin?".

4.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump. - The Black Eyed Peas sing about the jelly-moulds adorning Fergie's lady-chest on the modern masterpiece, My Humps.

Trivia! When she's not busy with solo work or The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie likes to immerse herself in dusty tomes concerning 20th century social movements, with a keen interest in Dada and avant-gardism. She is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Nouveau Réalisme.

5.
It's funny how a man only thinks about the [BEEP]
You got a real big heart, but I'm looking at your [BEEP]
You got real big brains, but I'm looking at your [BEEP]
Girl, there ain't no pain in me looking at your [BEEP]
- The Pussycat Dolls create an air of mystery through the subtle obfuscation of words critical to ascertaining just what is distracting the man from their less tangible characteristics, in the song BEEP.

Trivia! At any one time, there are 126 Pussycat Dolls waiting in reserve to replace one of the core six, in accordance with their management team's Nine Lives Policy, designed to ensure the Pussycat Dolls are always ready to perform with a full regiment and to the highest standards. The reservists are trained at the secretive PCD Academy in Luxembourg, which aims to produce 12 fully-trained potential Pussycat Dolls every 6 months.