Only Those Without Sin Shall Criticize Joss Stone, Says The Guardian

The Guardian‘s Alice Wignall talks about the huge media overreaction to Joss Stone‘s appearance on the Brit Awards and how tabloids attack her, Lily Allen, and Amy Winehouse for doing what many girls do – have fun, snog a cute boy, get trashed. “What makes people most anxious about these “bad” girls of pop is the deep-down knowledge that Winehouse, Allen, Stone et al are not transgressive but actually hugely representative. That women, just like anyone, can be obnoxious and messy and embarrassing and loud and confrontational.”

Also in The Guardian: Paul MacInnes links to a page Joss Stone has posted on her website to thank the artists who’ve inspired her. Notably, she comes to the defense of a similarly maligned (if infinitely more talented) artist, Lauryn Hill. FYI: the lower-cased letters are Joss’, not mine: “[F]act: lauryn hill is not crazy or racist. i have the proof. so whoever it is who started that rumour, i believe should put a call in to miss hill and apologise for the heartache and stress and unnecessary frustration that has been put on her family for that remark.” I think that’s honorable of Joss to speak up for Lauryn like that.

OK, here’s where she loses me: Joss will appear in a PETA ad, The Mirror reports. “A wise man once said, ‘Animals are my friends and I’m not in the habit of eating my friends.’ That is exactly how I feel.” Speak for yourself, Joss. Some of my friends are damn tasty with a dash of wasabi.

Also:The Sun‘s Vicky Newton dubs Amy Winehouse both “Amy Alehouse,” for her drink of choice, and “Lady Sings the Booze.”

Vicky is envious of Sienna Miller’s ability to party and still look glamorous.

A totally brill interview in EW with Lily Allen. Thanks, Tanya!

In other news:

• What’s Bryan Ferry looking at in this ad for swanky British department store, Marks & Spencer?(Guardian)

  Daniel Craig has signed on to Fernando Meirelles’s adaptation of Jose Saramago‘s novel, Blindness, about a fictional epidemic on blindess in a European city. Julianne Moore will play his wife.Also: An advertising watchdog agency has slapped down Ford’s new ads implying that a Ford Focus was featured in Casino Royale. The car driven by Daniel Craig was a Ford Mondeo.

• Take notes, McCartney: how multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich, Britain’s richest man, kept his mega-divorce relatively quiet.(Telegraph)
• Billie Piper and her former Doctor, David Tennant, enjoy a cocktail after Piper’s latest stage performance.(Daily Mail)
• Harry Potter and the gang will have their own set of postage stamps in France.(Daily Mail)
• Take That tried to stop that musical being made about them and may still take action to halt its production.(The Sun)
• The Fall will play the last show at Hammersmith Palais. Andrew Perry talks to Mark E. Smith in The Daily Telegraph.
• UK politicians are enraged that the 2012 London Olympics is now overbudget by a factor of three. (The cost is now about $18 billion. The initial estimate was less than $6 million.)(Telegraph)
• Cadbury is splitting into two companies, one for its candies, the other for its soft drinks (Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Snapple).(Telegraph)