Published in the July edition of the gay UK magazine Attitude, is this quote from Boy George on Morrissey, taken from the magazine's main interview.

Q: What were the Human League like when you toured America with them recently?
A: As miserable as hell!! They went on TV and said they didn't get on with us and I have to tell you, we tried everything. I think they thought they should have been headlining, so that put their noses out of joint. Half way through the US tour, the blonde one came into my dressing room and said (adopts dodgy Yorkshire accent) 'we've got a mutual friend and he said we should be friends', and I was like, 'well, we've only got two dates to go, it's a bit late for that, love'.

I really did make an effort with Phil Oakey, but he was just miserable, unfriendly and frosty. I still love their music, though. I mean, I don't like Morrissey as a person, but I still think he's a genius and he's written some of the best lyrics of the past twenty years. I had tea with him in Paris once, and it was the most hideous experience of my life. Why? Because he just didn't speak! Afterwards he told someone in his record company that I was 'overbearing'. He's just a stupid old closet, really!

It looks as if someone is actually going to appear as Morrissey on 'Stars In Their Eyes' afterall. In the June 29th edition of The Mirror, showbiz columnist Matthew Wright reported that British comic Harry Hill appears as Morrissey on a special Celebrity edition of the highly rated ITV show, recorded in Manchester last week.

The relevant text from the article:

...The biggest laugh in the show, recorded in secret in Manchester on Sunday night, came when madcap comic Harry Hill changed himself into ex-Smiths star Morrissey.

Clutching a big bunch of gladioli, Harry, 35, strutted and preened to This Charming Man...

One that I've been looking out for for a long time - The Greatest Hits of ... The Smiths - on VH1 at 6pm BST, Tuesday 13th July.

Additionally, this is a half hour program, according to Tamsyn Rowe.

Comments / Notes (10)

The following comes from the liner notes to the Delia's catalog CD (the song on the compilation is "You Don't Know Anything"):

"The New York-based Ivy is comprised of French-born singer Dominque Durand (vocals), Andy Chase, and Adam Schlesinger (an Academy Award nominee for his title song for the tom Hanks film, That Thing You Do). The group counts Burt Bacharach, the Smiths, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the Velvet Underground among its diverse influences. Ivy made its recording debut in 1994 with the single "Get Enough" which was named "Song of the Week" by Melody maker..."

Ivy, for those who haven't heard them yet, is the best American band in a very long time.

I went to see the new Star Wars movie and a commercial for the new Nissan came on the screen with "How Soon Is Now" playing over the top. The commercial was shots of the car racing through the desert making erratic turns and speeding around. All that plays is the opening of the song, no singing I'm afraid.

Morrissey is mentioned on the new Momus album Stars Forever, a collection of pop songs written on commission by "patrons" who paid Momus $1000 for the privilege. One song is about a Morrissey fan named Maf, "the alter ego of a Leeds Morrissey fan called Matthew."

Maf

Read all about it! Murder in Whitechapel
Down the Grave Maurice
Maf, a star of Music Hall
Gunned down mid-song
By unknown assailants
So I confess I couldn't bear being less famous
Oh what misfortunes in this day and age
Befall the Whitechapel music hall stage!
A variety PacMan, I swallowed his fame
There and then, when I gunned poor Matthew down

(Murder most 'orrible)

Maf had it all, the love of the public
The wit of Lennie Bruce, Bill Hicks, and Peter Cook
Beautiful women, a daughter called Ushka
A career in music hall, Bathshebas and babushkas
Oh what misfortunes occur in this age
You can never be sure you'll leave the stage
As you came on it
A fat Space Invader, I flattened his fame
That day I gunned poor Matthew down

(I 'ope you're ashamed of yourself)

Singer, philanderer, drinker and coprophile
Born in Batley, Leeds, adorned in orange rosary beads
'I am nobody' engraved on the bracelet
He wore around his wrist in Dickensian copperplate
I made my confession to Didsbury police
I'd hoped to kill Morrissey, but neither of us could get arrested
Oh what misfortunes, what sufferings and pain
I have brought upon the halls of old Brick Lane!

(Or could he be sane?)
(To my eternal shame)

Read all about it! Murder in Whitechapel
Down the Grave Maurice
Momus, star of Music Hall
Gunned down mid-song --