Russell Brand’s playing a show in the Albert Hall on Sunday. Tickets are like gold dust, we’ve heard. People would do anything for tickets.

Which is ace, because we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away.

It’s the last time that Russell Brand will be performing his Scandalous show in London – if you want to see it after that, you’ll have to buy his forthcoming DVD (out next Monday, fact fans) – so it promises to be something of a hoot. If you fancy winning this frankly quite brilliant prize, you’ll need to take a look after the jump…

So, to win a pair of tickets to see Russell Brand at the Albert Hall this Sunday (November 8), plus signed Scandalous DVDs and T-shirts all signed by the man himself, all you need to do is watch the video below and answer a simple question…

QUESTION: How strong is Russell Brand’s sexual charisma?

To stand a chance of winning, email your answer and a contact address to Hello[at]hecklerspray.com with the subject line ‘I think I got pregnant just from watching that’. The competition closes at midnight on Tuesday when the winner will be chosen at random. Prize doesn’t include transport or accommodation. UK readers only please.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

The MTV VMAs always excite – they only reward the best, most exciting, most innovative artists working today.

Or Britney Spears, which is what happened last year. But given that no major pop stars have had terrifying nervous breakdowns and then agreed to make a documentary for MTV that’s basically 90 minutes of them sobbing forlornly this year, hopefully the VMAs will be business as usual.

Except this year’s MTV VMA nominations have just been announced and, along with Beyonce, Lady Gaga has gained the most nods. So by ‘business as usual’ we mean ‘tedious, deliberately controversial, badly dressed and worryingly mannish’.

Last year’s MTV VMA show was, by all accounts, a bit of a failure. Russell Brand, the host, managed to alienate swathes of viewers and some of the winners within seconds of setting foot onstage, and the big winner of the night was Britney Spears, a barely-comprehensible blonde lunatic who’d just released a woeful sort-of electronic pop album and was probably most famous for her gross inability to keep her clothes on in public.

It was rubbish. But at least the MTV VMA organisers know better than to make that same mistake again, which is why this year’s MTV VMAs will be hosted by, um, Russell Brand. And, judging by the VMA nominations, the biggest winner of the night looks set to be, er, Lady Gaga, a barely-comprehensible blonde lunatic who’s just released a woeful sort-of electronic pop album and is probably most famous for her gross inability to keep her clothes on in public.

Great, nice one MTV.

But anyway, although Lady Gaga has somehow managed to pick up nine MTV VMA nominations – including Video Of The Year, Best Female Video, Best Cinematography and Most Conspicuous Adam’s Apple On A Female Pop Star – she’s not the only nominee. Beyonce has also picked up nine VMA nominations, mostly for Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It). And, as UPI reports, she sounds quite pleased about it:

“I’m excited and honored to be tied for most-nominated for the VMAs,” Beyonce said in a statement. “I’ve been blessed this year to have ‘Single Ladies’ become a video people really connected with and responded to. I’ve spent so much time watching all the great versions people created all around the world. It’s beautiful to feel you touch people and bring a song to life with a video.”

‘Connected with’ and ‘responded to’ obviously being pop star code for ‘felt dirty watching’ and ‘ejaculated to’. You can’t fool us, Beyonce.

But anyway, Lady Gaga and Beyonce aren’t guaranteed to win all of the awards they’ve been nominated for – Britney Spears got seven VMA nominations, while Kanye West, Eminem and Coldplay each picked up four. Green Day picked up three nominations – presumably all for Most Dreary, Self-Important And Disappointingly Middle-Aged Album – and Jay-Z picked up two.

We’ll find out who’ll emerge triumphant when the MTV VMAs are broadcast next month. Or to be more specific, since the show will feature performances by Pink, Green Day and Taylor Swift, we’ll find out who emerged triumphant the following day by reading a list of winners on the internet. Seriously, Taylor Swift? We’re not mental.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

9 – Want to see a redneck getting shot in the chest? Oh, alright then - Break

8 - Things we want for Christmas: a 24-foot fire-breathing robot baby. Start saving, readers – Pinktentacle

7 – Apparently some celebrities used Twitter to be unfunny on April Fool’s day – PopEater

6 – This just in: The Queen is a midget – Bestweekever

5 - HAMSTER IN A WOK! – Neatorama

4 – We might be wrong here, but did Russell Brand take bodyguards to the G20 protests this week? Wuss – Popsugar

3 – Sexy Picachu! – Unreality

2 - Proof forevermore that all turtles are wankers – I Am Bored

1 – This is exactly the sort of thing Channel 4 used to show on Sunday afternoons…

Here’s a guest blog by Josh from the mighty Interestment…

Beauty surely is the most fickle of the tick box categories we demand in a partner. After all, every once in a while a gorgeous face will start speaking, and all semblence of attractiveness will find itself hurtling from the nearest window.

Here are ten famous people who would be wise to keep schtum in future.
1. Kimberley Walsh

As a non-red-headed member of Girls Aloud, Kimberley has done a great job of sticking to various diets to keep her attractiveness intact. She has fine ironed hair, a taut, impressive body, but when she opens her mouth it’s as if some lunatic is going berserk on a the lower notes of a Moog keyboard. She needs to keep it zipped.

2. David Beckham

Just when everyone thought Beckham had it all – the great tattoos, all the best haircuts, footie skills, a nice face – he opened his mouth and out came the voice of a confused mouse stuck in a lift. Thank you, Christ.

3. James Blunt

James Blunt divides the nation – one half wants to bludgeon to death with a brick, the other half wants to use lead piping. Either way, his songs really are awful, but eight hours of You’re Beautiful on loop would be preferable to thirty seconds of listening to his horrible plummy speaking voice. He makes the Queen sound like Jordan.

4. Russell Brand

Russell’s act revolves around telling boring stories about his life in the style of a minor character from Oliver Twist. It’s literally as unfunny as it sounds. Needs to put one of them delicious Mrs Miggins pies in ‘is cake’ole. The twat.

5. Esther Rantzen

After years of broadcasting on television, notably on sideways-glancing shows like That’s Life, Rantzen still hasn’t mastered the art of speaking through just her mouth. At least half of her words come from her nose. Unlistenable.

6. Lily Allen

The main problem facing Allen is that once she decides to speak, the pretend voice she uses to sing with becomes worryingly exposed. Why is such a well spoken young thing attempting to sound like a plumber’s wife?

7. Tom Cruise

The main argument for Cruise to put a sock in it comes from hearing his strange talk of how he’s probably the new Jesus, always accompanied by a hollow glare and threats about putting ruthless ethics into people. What the hell does that even mean, you maniac?

8. Michael Jackson

Of course, now that he’s going to perform again, everyone has forgotten that Michael Jackson is the sinister voice of a frightened child trapped in a terrifying clown body. It’s only a matter of time before he looks to the nearest camera whispering “help me” over and over again until we all start crying.

9. Kelly Brook

The story of Kelly is a very sad one. Blessed with outrageous curves, a wonderful face, and impressive flowing locks, she was cursed with the voice of a cretin, and the inability to remember more than one fact at a time. Depressing.

10. Paula Abdul

A random word generator, it’s a mystery how Abdul keeps her job. Perhaps it’s because… we can… erm… feel her… heart… whenever she… gives of herself… the world…

And we’re out of time.

The above was written by Josh Burt of Interestment.co.uk. It is good and he is good and so say all of us.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

This man possesses razor sharp comic timing; somehow he can make any innocuous word comical. One small inflection or miniscule tweak of his expression conveys more than any amount of high pitched puerile drivel from the crosseyed one from Mock the Week or pretty much anyone from BBC Three.

Lee has worked on or been the star of some of the best subversive and irreverent comedy programmes to appear on our screens. Originally the slimmer half of Lee & Herring he produced Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy. The latter shamelessly provided more material and wit in its short run than the equivalent of 16 million series of Two Pints of Lager. We’re being conservative in our estimate, too. After the controversial Jerry Springer: The Opera, Stewart has only briefly kept us afloat by appearing as a panellist or contributor. But now he is back to save television with his Comedy Vehicle.

The opening titles depict Lee looking blissfully moronic in his car, a look he has had years to perfect and uses to great effect. Each week he presents a different topic which is performed via the medium of stand up and sketches. The latter are performed by some of his old stable mates, Kevin Eldon, Simon Munnery, and Paul Putner who are themselves comedians and writers of great esteem.

This week’s edition pits Stewart against the intellectual might of celebrity writers such as Chris Moyles and Russell Brand. He speaks polemically about said writers and the sad state of literature where one of our most well published authors (Dan Brown) can also be terrible. He also provides a useful time saving device by suggesting that we dismiss Brand’s Booky Wook as rubbish without reading it. This also applies to Chris Moyle’s second autobiography, Asher D’s literary vomit, and the entire Harry Potter series. He has (excluding Potter) read these piles of bound paper so that you don’t have to, much in the same way that we watch After You’ve Gone and The Green Green Grass so you don’t have to.

Watch this brilliantly pedantic, mesmerizingly-voiced comedian as often as you can, he offers the rare gift of being both very funny and occasionally incredibly incisive in a similar vein to the late Bill Hicks.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

With the Pirates Of The Caribbean series being stupidly successful for Disney, it would only seem appropriate to squeeze out another film to, um, complete the trilogy. However that’s already been arsed up by Orlando Bloom not bothering to return to the seven seas. But fear not, for serial shagger and poor man’s Fonejacker Russell Brand is being lined up to play the brother of Captain Jack Sparrow.

At the current rate, this film will be worth watching for a level of comedy casting not seen since Billy Connolly’s single wide-eyed expression in the latest X-Files movie.

Supposedly, the happy clappy jumpy boy from High School Musical is going to be the son of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of The Caribbean 4. How the writers will explain a perfectly-groomed and sugarcoated child who has a sex mad uncle in Russell Brand remains to be unseen. Perhaps the DVD extras will show scenes of Brand telling Zac Efron about double penetration and the ATM manoeuvre. Or could he just be a creepy uncle who introduces him to his first can of Kestrel super strength lager.

One of the only reasons we can think of as to why Russell Brand would be suited as a pirate would be down to the fact the movie studios are short of cash for the make-up department and are looking to hire anyone who resembles a scurvy dog. Face it, with long scruffy hair and an ragged beard, he wouldn’t be needing hours of careful wig changes every day, would he.

However, Now magazine seems to have a more rational explanation – apparently it’s all down to the similarities in accent. A source said:

“There’s a lot of Jack Sparrow in his mannerisms and behaviour. Johnny’s accent isn’t a million miles away from Russell’s either.”

The last time we checked, Captain Jack Sparrow didn’t leap around sounding “ooo look at my magic winky” but then again, those moments may be on secret tapes used to blackmail him at future points in time. Whatever mannerisms they may share, we don’t see them. Maybe Captain Jack Sparrow likes to harass aging pirates and leave them offensive scrolls in their ship.

And because we all know and love Russell Brand for making sexual connotations at any event, we predict that he’ll be able to shoehorn something filthy into Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. May we suggest the angry pirate sex act – a process that involves depositing man liquid in to the eye of an lady that acts like a eye patch whilst kicking her in the shin to make her hobble like she has a peg leg.

And just to throw in one more crap pirate-related joke joke – have you heard what the rating for Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 will be? Its going to be AARRRRGGH rated.

A resignation letter is on the editor’s desk for the last gag.

With the help of his strangely attractive assistant Scully, they often found themselves in all sorts of situations where trees ate traffic lights and dolls controlled entire villages.

Once the show ended, the duo failed to appear in any sort of credible TV show. Gillian Anderson even lowered herself to star in a film with cockney bellend Danny Dyer. But David Duchovny literally dropped off the radar altogether. He hadn’t died, though; instead he turned all his attention to having lots of sex. So much that he is now officially addicted to it. Instead of placing a thin line of cement over his spitting cobra, he decided that rehab was a better option to solve his problem. And now it turns out that ‘rehab’ at least partially involves reading Russell Brand’s book.

It’s never quite clear how being addicted to all things sexual affects a person. While most people enjoy the odd hump with a partner now and then, we can only assume that David Duchovny likes to go at it until his winky gets red raw and starts spraying out blood. Still, more power to him for fighting through the pain barrier.

You’d have thought that because David Duchovny is a famous person, he would have turned to either a major religion or Scientology for help. Surely a friendly Catholic nun could have taught him some new ways to stop him blowing his load. Just be glad he didn’t ask any Catholic priests about solving his problem, because they could have only made the situation worse.

Oddly enough Duchovny has turned to Russell Brand’s oddly written and appallingly-titled autobiography My Booky Wook for guidance and solutions on how to stop becoming aroused at the faintest sight of boob. Russell Brand is thankfully in foreign shores at the moment to promote himself and break into the lucrative American market.

Brand is doing a sterling job at it so far, since he recently got to star in an advert with something everyone dreams of interacting with. An elephant and then Britney Spears. It must have been his lucky day. This was all because he presented the MTV Video Awards and spent the whole evening insulting Americans and their choice of political leader. He may look like a fashionable tramp, but we applaud him on that one.

The only thing that really connects David Duchovny and Russell Brand is their love of muff. Spending thousands of dollars on rehab mustn’t have worked for Duchovny, because he’s apparently spent a small amount on Brand’s book detailing his addiction to ladies’ downstairs areas. Digital Spy reports:

“David has been greedily devouring Russell’s pieces on the topic in his autobiography My Booky Wook, his interviews, podcasts and stand-up routines.”

Hopefully David is on the road to recovery. Though God knows how you can be cured of his particular problem. Chopping his willy off would prevent him from ever going like a rabbit at 100mph, but then how would you take a wee wee?

Maybe limiting his shagging to 13 times a night would be a better option. Everyone kind of wins that way. His wife won’t be constantly gasping for air, condom manufacturers will continue to see profits rise and David can keep on doing what he enjoys best. And that’s not making crap spin-off films for an old TV show.

Much of this kerfuffle is down to American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, who took so much offence at host Russell Brand’s mockery of abstinence that she marched up to the stage and threw a prissy little tantrum about it on live TV, basically calling all unmarried non-virgins ’sluts’ in the process.

Now that the dust has settled a little, though, Jordin Sparks is feeling a little bit sorry for herself. She still stands by the notion of purity rings, she says, but she wishes she hadn’t called everyone a slut like that. And we have to agree with Jordin Sparks – we think the term she was reaching for was ’squalid Godless fornicating AIDS-carrying sodomites whose corpses will blister and writhe in hell for eternity’. We imagine.

Remember on Monday, when everyone thought that the MTV VMAs were all about Britney Spears and the way she’s amazingly recovered from her mental illness to the extent where she can sit still for as long as it takes a team of experts to style her hair and apply her makeup? How foolish we all were back then.

Really, what we should have been making a fuss about was the growing tension between Russell Brand and the new generation of popstars in the audience. After all, Russell Brand is a notorious sex addict who spent most of his time onstage reeling off lewd gag after lewd gag, and he was playing to a crowd of clingfilm-faced virgin performers who all wear purity rings as a promise to God that they’ll never act on a single dirty thought until they’re married, and who all have Action Man-style sanded-off plastic nubs where their genitals should be.

It was never going to end well, and it didn’t – halfway through the MTV VMAs, blindingly anonymous American Idol winner and proud purity ring-wearer Jordin Sparks clumped her way on stage and said:

“It’s not bad to wear a promise ring because not everybody – guy or girl – wants to be a slut.”

The implication was clear. If you’ve ever had sex outside of wedlock – even if you’re middle-aged and in a professional position of authority – then you’re a slut. A great big slut. A great big dirty slut who hangs around grimy inner-city train stations asking strangers if you can ejaculate into their faces for money. That’s what Jordin Sparks said, give or take a sentence or two.

Already The Jonas Brothers – who bore the brunt of most of Brand’s jokes – have forgiven Russell Brand for his jokes in a last-ditch attempt not to alienate the large swathe of their fanbase who do actually happen to be sluts. But Jordin Sparks is fairly unrepentant about her outburst, apart from the bit where she called everyone a slut. She told Entertainment Weekly:

“I wish I would’ve worded it differently – that somebody who doesn’t wear a promise ring isn’t necessarily a slut – but I can’t take it back now. It was a split-second thing, and it came out kind of wrong. Still, I don’t regret it.”

Still, given that she has already semi-apologised for her remarks, it would be wrong of us to chastise Jordin Sparks further, and we should respect her right to wear a purity ring.

After all, if she wants to deprive herself of sex until she becomes so helplessly terrified and frustrated that she eventually compromises her ideals and marries a completely unsuitable man only to realise that they literally couldn’t be any more sexually incompatible and ends up grinding out the rest of her joyless life one day at a time trapped in union with a man she’s come to resent because he consistently fails to satisfy her physically, then that’s her choice entirely.

Because, honestly, if the alternative is Russell Brand…

As the host of the MTV VMA awards, it was Russell Brand’s job to gee up the audience and remind everyone about the awe-inspiring spectacle they were witnessing. That’s technically not what Russell Brand did, though – what he did was slag off all virgins for being rubbish and then get shouted down by a tubby virgin from American Idol for it.

But it’s OK, because The Jonas Brothers – the virgin pioneers, the virgins that all other virgins aspire to be, the virgins that Russell Brand spent most of the MTV VMAs mocking for their preposterous purity rings – have forgiven Russell Brand for his comments about them. Which might make them seem like the bigger men, but let’s not forget – they are virgins, so they’re definitely not.

We thought we had this tween pop thing nailed, you know. All you need to do is get a pretty-looking teenage girl, make her sing a bunch of wholesome pop songs about how special everyone is if they believe in themselves and then act all surprised when they inevitably take all their clothes off on the internet.

But no, apparently some of these tweeny-poppers actually take the idea of virginity pretty seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they’ve taken to wearing purity rings to show the world that they’re never ever having sex until they’re married. Ever. Presumably this is because their religious beliefs are stronger than their desire for physical intimacy, and also because they all love On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan so much that they want to reenact it word for messy word one day.

Given the prevalence of this chastity movement at the moment, it seems a little odd that the man picked to host the most purity-ringish MTV VMAs in history was Russell Brand – a man so constantly lust-demented that he can actually get people pregnant just by saying their name out loud three times in a row.

And when the unstoppably horny force of Russell Brand collided with the immovably chaste object of a bunch of teenage virgins at the MTV VMAs, there was only ever going to be one outcome. That came when, after Russell Brand had dedicated the majority of his airtime to ridiculing the purity rings worn by anaemic genital-free catalogue model virgins The Jonas Brothers, Jordin Sparks from American Idol told him off, saying that not everyone was a slut.

Which is definitely true – there are plenty of famous teenage girls who definitely aren’t sluts. Jamie Lynn Spears isn’t a slut, for example, and nor is Bristol Palin. True, that’s because they’re either too busy looking after their newborn baby or getting so swollen and pregnant-looking that no boys will go near them to be sluts, but that doesn’t matter.

But, just as it looked like Russell Brand had flushed his chances of American success down the toilet forever with his controversial anti-virgin stance, The Jonas Brothers have ridden to the rescue and forgiven him, noting that he did mumble a half-hearted semi-sincere apology under his breath at the end of the night. They told Radio 1:

“For us it’s cool to see that he recognises we are gentleman. …I think he did a good job. We saw him on Conan O’Brien and thought he was hilarious.”

And with that everything was OK again. Russell Brand has emerged from the MTV VMAs as a kind of rebel anti-hero, The Jonas Brothers have shown that they can be courteous even though they’re essentially rubbish virgins and – thanks to Miley Cyrus‘ continued use of a purity ring – a whole generation of American teenage girls will continue to believe that they can roll around on boys’ laps in their underwear, go topless for glossy magazines and take photos of themselves in the shower and God’s basically cool with it so long as nobody sticks anything up anyone else.

We love a happy ending.

There are many, many better ways. Surely. Hooking up with that mad-haired berk isn’t going to help her claw back the piles and piles of sanity the girl seems to have lost over the last couple of years.

Let’s be totally honest – it’s going to damage her more than she already is, and that’s before she’s even spoken to the man who dresses like a particularly stupid pirate.

But hecklerspray didn’t get in fast enough with our warnings, leaving poor old crazy Britney Spears free to appear alongside Russell Brand in some MTV promotional adverts for the upcoming Video Music Awards.

It still isn’t confirmed if Britters herself will be in attendance at the awards as she hasn’t got permission off her dad yet, but hopefully the blow to her psyche that surely occurred when she met the TV and radio ‘funny’ man will have been too much, forcing her to stay at home on the night. The other option doesn’t even bear thinking about, frankly.

For now, the only thing we can say with so-called ‘facts’ backing us up is that there have been a few promotional skits released and… well… they’re quite good, really.

Brand is still an irritating prannock, but he does at least have the good sense to make a joke of the fact that no one in the US knows who he is – and believe us, oh American readers out there, you don’t want to know who Russell Brand is – whereas Britney is actually quite charming, seemingly happy to poke fun at herself.

Does this mean we’re allowed to make fun of her again? Or is it still too serious an issue, that she’s gone mental and her life has fallen to pieces and all that gumph? No? Still not cool? Okay – just checking.

Did we mention there’s an elephant in the videos? Yes – in an all-too-subtle move on the part of the ad creators, they’ve decided to quite literally tackle the issue of the elephant in the room. And it’s actually borderline clever, the crafty little buggers – obviously it’s still blatant enough for the MTV’s core demographic to get the joke (it’s referring to Britney’s performance at last year’s VMAs, you fools!), but at the same time it’s pretty brave on their part.

We should stop writing with hangovers, it makes us too nice.

Russell Brand is an arsehole, Britney Spears went mental let’s all point and laugh… ahh, that feels better.

Anyway, a couple of the ads are below for your viewing pleasure. They’re bound to raise at least a smile, and it’s good to see Britney looking less like a skank-harpy of death (twice in a month). She leaves that honour to Brand.

Zing!

Ever since we found this bunch of rock ‘n’ rollers hiding in the shadowy corners of Myspace on one of our trawls, we have been firm fans.

Nowadays it appears that you can get a one way ticket to brief musical stardom by brandishing an Argos syringe and screaming “look at me I’ve just pricked the skin and all this yellow gunk is squirting out!”

Whatever happened to the good old days of bands getting up to all sort of fiendish antics which resulted in everyone getting a laugh and some poor bastard suffering for a little bit? Can you count on The Kooks, Scouting For Girls or some other indie twonks to do this?

Don’t be daft – you need a real band. After an overdue absence Medusa have returned with another tale which sounds so random that it belongs in one of those Family Guy cutaway scenes.

After recommending the band to you, the welcoming and sometimes friendly hecklerspray readership, we thought we wouldn’t hear from them again, at least not until new releases and tours came about did we expect to push some information your way.

But it turned out that other people had caught on to the buzz surrounding Medusa. Big haired funny man and dodgy author Russell Brand invited the band round to his gaff to play a set and help them get signed. The Sun reported the band simply nicked a naff looking gnome, but thankfully Julian from Medusa told us the truth:

“Russell Brand was gonna set about helping us to get signed a couple of months back, and organised us to play privately at his house. The band got a bit wasted afterwards and bass player Amadeus De La Fontaine had a piss on what turned out to be a ridiculous porcelain statue of a trout wearing pyjamas. Russell went psycho (and he started lecturing us about how much things cost). He told us the deal was off. I stole a garden gnome on the way out.”

Hoorah! Some national press for the band and a chance to laugh at Russell Brand a bit more. But the stories didn’t end there, and in another odd encounter between the two, another bodily fluid was used to annoy people and – even stranger – a goat was involved.

Russell had forgiven Medusa for the gnome nicking incident and invited them on to a pilot of a yet to be seen program. For a reason we are still unaware of, the band smuggled the hairy beast into the studio where the presenter’s clothes were eaten and his shoes shat in. Amadeus De La Fontaine told us what happened at the time:

“We snook the little bastard in inside a bass cab that we use to transport contraband. Shoes’ the goat was in the dressing room on his own for a good 20 minutes and chewed up a couple of Russell’s frilly shirts, shat in his pointy shoes and helped himself to some of his hair products. It was fucking shitting all over the place. Russell was prancing around in a tizz complaining that one of his cravats was missing too. It was marvellous!”

If this isn’t worth the keys to a brewery or a Page 3 factory then we don’t know what kind of award is worthy of them.

After a quite few months of gigging, getting drunk and working on new material, we have been told of a new shenanigan that these rascals have been up to. Moving away from stealing, destroying items and the improper disposal of bodily fluids, the band have this time been involved with comedian and singer Ken Dodd. Yup, we’re confused too. We’ll let Julian explain what happened:

“Medusa got asked to play a gig in the back garden a friend’s birthday. Her mother is a close family friend of Ken Dodd’s and it was held at her house in Liverpool. Our bass player Chrissy had made some space cakes for the night’s festivities. Early on, after we had set up the gear, sitting in a Gazebo, he took them from his bag and put them onto a plate, about to eat them but went off to answer a mobile phone call, when he came back Ken was saying how good they were as he had almost finished one, believing they were part of the buffet. We didn’t tell him, and after about an hour, he began acting a little strange.

“Later on he was in a gazebo entertaining people and put a colander on his head, making people laugh [especially us], then he went off and cooked a ridiculous amount of food in the kitchen, especially concentrating on the gravy wearing an apron and singing Queen’s ‘I want to break free’. He then poured gravy on the birthday cake. We noticed Ken doing a bit of old man dancing during the gig too. Me and our drummer Paul Brynes got kicked out shortly after for feeding the goldfish to the family dog.”

Forget all your mindless destruction to hotel property and shagging fifty groupies in a single session. This is what we want to see happening more often – old people getting involved in amusing incidents against their will. It’s just another day in the life of Medusa really.

The band play Lark in the Park in London on August 31st. Go tell them hecklerspray sent you. Space cakes may be offered. Or a hug at best.

His winning tactic? Erm … simply rambling about author Anthony Burgess in relation to his own bestseller My Booky-Wook and expecting the assembled onlookers to clap like special-needs sealions at his stunning intellect.

Cue a grim look of realisation as Brand found this wasn’t his usual crowd – i.e. an audience made up entirely of slightly-dim sixth-formers who’d label a turnip a ‘legend’ if it had its own E4 series. He then had to do more entertaining, rather than pass off unremarkable literary references as the height of sophistication. A task which – unsurprisingly – he failed spectacularly.

Still. Stupid people, eh? They’re everywhere. Want evidence? How about we look no further than the fact that Booky-Wook (Christ, doesn’t the title alone make you want to hurt yourself and others?) has to date sold over 600,000 copies in the UK alone.

Each and every person who bought a copy, it goes without saying, was an utter cretin … and it’s their amassed idiocy that has resulted in a new deal being brokered with publisher HarperCollins.

Oh yes. Brand is now getting $3million dollars to scrawl out two more drivel-packed volumes, presumably to be entitled My Sequel-Wequel and My Artistically Invalid Pile Of Shitey-Wite.

Obviously, we’re just guessing as to the titles there, but we’re willing to take bets in the hecklerspray office that they’ll be wholly accurate in the long run.

Want worse news? What, are you some sort of sadist? Oh, go on, then – apparently Brand has also been in talks to:

‘ … play a Simon Cowell-style music impresario alongside stars including Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding in ‘Carry On To The Next Round’, the first film in the famous British comedy series for 16 years.’

Sad, really – despite that being possibly the worst idea ever mooted by anyone ever, chances are that every broadsheet critic across the land will continue to collectively lose their senses and carry on their bizarre Brand-worshipping, all the time labelling the walking Beetlejuice-audition as ‘the most exciting comedian of his generation’ or something along those lines.

Which brings hecklerspray to a final point: fucking hell. Doesn’t anyone remember when to become ‘the most exciting comedian of a generation’ you had to actually be something special. Not simply a ballbag-obsessed pirate-fetishist?

Doesn’t anyone remember when you had to be a Hicks or a Bruce or a Kinison or a Cook or a Sellers? Anyone? Anyone?

No? Okay, then.

Note to any Brand fans: You may start your inevitable babbling comments below. Just try to tone down the textspeak, though, eh? You’re dealing with fans of words here, for Christ’s sake.

Read More:

Russell Brand Signs $3 Million Deal – Music News

Russell Brand loves Morrissey so much that he's got a pet cat named Morrissey, and every time he's tried to interview Morrissey he's quickly dissolved into giggling fits of awkward schoolboy fandom. And now Russell Brand's love for Morrissey has been reciprocated. No, Morrissey hasn't bought a cat and named it Russell Brand – there's a chance the cat might have come from another country and partially helped to destroy the British identity, meaning that Morrissey would have to knock it unconscious with a spanner and throw it out of the window, or something – but he's letting Russell Brand be in his new video. According to an email we just got off some bloke:

Popular comedian, TV star and noted author Russell Brand is to star in the promo video for Morrissey's forthcoming single That's How People Grow Up. That's How People Grow Up is due for release on 28th January, one week prior to a 15 track Greatest Hits which spans his unique 20-year solo career.

The video to Morrissey's new single hasn't been released yet, so we can't tell you if it's good or a self-indulgent bag of cock. But, you know, take a guess.