Apparently the Coca Cola advert was on a couple of weeks back, so Christmas has been officially underway for some time.
Adele has already received a few presents early – Grammy Award nominations for Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Solo Pop Performance. With that many, it's not surprising they've asked her to sing at the ceremony in Los Angeles on 12th February, 2012. Hopefully she’ll be fully healed by then.
She’s currently resting her voice after undergoing vocal chord microsurgery to stop recurrent bleeding from a benign polyp – you know, one of those abnormal tissue growths projecting from a mucous membrane. Science.
In the Halloween edition of the Weekly Round Up (the Weekly String Up), this column suggested that Adele’s recurrent bleeding from a benign, abnormal tissue growth projecting from a mucous membrane – you know, a ‘polyp’ - was in fact an aggressive zombie infection that would soon turn her into a brain-hungry member of the Undead. Recent reports of Adele’s behaviour suggest something potentially more sinister.
To refrain from stressing her vocal chords by talking, Adele has been communicating through a downloaded smartphone application that reads out whatever she types, Steven Hawking-style. “She’s been using the speaking app to buy coffee at Starbucks and to order cabs. It is far easier to communicate using it rather than writing everything down on paper and showing it to people.”
It’s painfully obvious what is really happening. Adele is now half robot. She certainly has the money to do it, having being revealed as number 16 in the UK “rich list” of under-30s with an estimated £7.6 million worth. They have rebuilt her. They have made her stronger.
But talking is one thing; singing live is another. There’s always that autotune app. T-Pain seems to have done alright for himself using it.
As is the way with late-90s, early-00s pop groups at the moment, S Club 7 are intending to reform to satisfy fan demand/make loads of easy money. “They’re hoping to make a TV show following their reunion, a tour and the release of an updated Greatest Hits album – just like Steps.” J O’Meara, Bradley McIntosh and Paul Cattermole still perform at birthday parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs as S Club 3, so hopefully the ring rust will be minimal.
I saw Bradley perform live as the highlight attraction of a Fresher’s Ball one year. He played a few S Club 7 tracks, but then moved on to his own material. Unfortunately most of the audience seemed to have finished their drinks when he announced this, or possibly needed the toilet, as half the hall emptied rapidly to the bar.
Afterwards, in the damp September air, I bumped into him drinking a beverage on the campus lawn. It had always bothered me, so I asked: “What does S Club stand for?”
“Because the grass is wet,” he astutely replied.
Wocka wocka.
