Kevin Clooney

“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s really not f***ing easy. It’s hard. It’s really hard.”

Bless her. That’s what an emotional Duffy said live on television last night as she received her third Brit award of the evening for her album Rockferries.

I love it when women swear, me. I reckon it’s well sexy. I sometimes ask my Donna to talk dirty to me when we’re in bed, you know, doing it.

I wasn’t working at the Brits ceremony, I’m busy in Manchester at the moment doing a boring trade show. I’d rather be in bed with my Donna, though – or Duffy, especially if she keeps swearing like that.

I did a couple of show with her last year and I must admit she does have a great voice – just like her dad, Tom Jones.

He swears, too. All Welsh people do. It’s from when they used to have to work down the pits and shout at each other all day long. Or something.

Nice to see Kate Winslet nominated for an Oscar and eleven Baftas and an Olymypic gold medal and what have you for her latest movie The Readers.

I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it’s supposed to be okay - it’s about the Nazis or something. She’s always in these kinds of films is our Kate, a bit like Woody Allen who is always in films about Nazis and Jews and that.

I was in a restaurant in Newark a few years ago when Kate came in with her husband at the time, Jim Treacleton or something I think his name was. She seemed pleasant enough, but he had a face like a smacked arse. I reckon they had been arguing or something; you can see why she dumped him for rich movie director Sam Mendes, who I think is not exactly a Jew, but a bit Jew-ish.

Treacleton was drinking his white wine with a straw as I recall and, to me, he looked a bit gay.

I worked for singer Will Young last year and he was doing the same thing backstage after the show: drinking with a straw. (Don’t quote me on this, but I think it was pink Champagne - though it could just as easily have been fizzy Ribena.)

He looked a bit gay, too.

I’m just reading here on Coldplay’s website that miserable singer Chris Martin thinks that Obama winning the US presidential election was ‘a great great great great great day - everything’s alright with the world again, especially now that our tour is going really really really really really well in America.’

You’d think Martin would have been rooting for the republicans, wouldn’t you - what with him being a rich Conservative landowner and everything. He once told me he was going to vote for David Cameron at the next general election in the UK.

And The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture apparently told his wife, Regina Spektor, that ‘It feels like finally being freed after having spent many years in prison.’ Well I reckon her dad, Phil Spektor, will be able to tell them what that feels like soon enough.

My Donna likes his hair. I sometimes think she’s pulling my plonker, I really do.

I had a night off and went to see Ghost Town last night, UK comedian Ricky Gervais’s new Hollywood movie.

It was okay - quite funny, actually. I think Gervais took something of a risk in taking the leading role in a romantic comedy but he pulled it off nicely, I reckon. Cynical idiots here in Britain were wanting to see him fall flat on his face but he has given them the finger and done a good job.

Tea Leoni is good in it, too. I quite like her. Sex weirdo David Duchovny made a good investment there, if you ask me.

I’ve bumped into Ricky a few times on the circuit and thought he was a decent enough bloke. And my Donna got on well with his wife Julie, swapping recipes with her and that. He’s well past his prime physically, but a good laugh, which is quite important if you’re a comedian, I reckon.

There’s a problem with his actual laugh, though: it’s crap. He laughs like a girl. You wouldn’t get away with a laugh like that in my line of business - you have to laugh like a man; it’s part of the Roadie Code.

One of my showbiz sources (Donna) tells me that Paris Hilton is in the UK at the moment to promote her new TV show. Apparently, ITV2 has signed Hilton up to appear in a new UK-produced show in which she will attempt to find a British best friend.

I’d be her friend, no worries. Donna reckons she has read somewhere that Paris loves cats - well she could bring her pussy to come and play with mine; I’ve got a lovely blue Persian at home called Ozzy and he really misses me when I’m away working.

I’m sure my Ozzy would love to play with Paris’s little pussy.

Actually, I’d quite fancy Paris Hilton if she wasn’t so, well . . . stupid.

My old mate Kate Moss has just been immortalized in gold.

Amy Winehouse was telling me about this and I didn’t believe her, but apparently it’s true. Some swanky sculptor has made a statue of Moss out of solid gold.

Artist Marc Quinn said he wanted to sculpt the ‘ideal beauty’. He should have done one of my Donna.

Winehouse reckons she’s going to buy it and send it to Pete Doherty as a Christmas present. I bet I know what he’d do with it.

Hi, pop pickers! I bumped into Amy Winehouse the other day, nice girl, looked a bit rough as usual, though – probably had a ‘busy’ night. She’s got some dates coming up and was asking me if I was going to be on the crew. ‘You’re the best,’ she told me. I didn’t see any reason to argue with her.

Her mobile rang and she yelled into it, ‘No! Go away, clown!’
I asked her if she was being hounded by the press again but she told me no; said it was that ‘smelly Pete Doherty tw*t.’

Apparently he really fancies her and keeps ringing her up for a date. (That’s Pete on the left). What a loser.

The Libertines were a bloody good band though. I heard on the grapevine that a reunion is on the cards. You heard it here first! I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Anyway, cheerio for now.

I reckon Justin Timberlake ought to give Britney another chance.

By re-associating himself with his ex he would give his faltering showbiz career a boost. He might be a good little mover on stage, but let’s face it: he’s not the world’s best singer, is he. He’s crap, basically.

I’ve worked on his shows twice in the past and I can’t remember what they sounded like; I was smashed out of my head on both occasions - you have to be in this job.

I do remember that on one - in Vegas, if I remember correctly (I love Las Vegas; they could improve it massively, though, if they had a few dartboards in some of the bars and casinos) – I was doing stage security and I kept frightening the pretty ladies at the front because my jeans kept falling down all night – probably due to my enormous bunch of keys that are permanently attached to my waistband. I need to sort them out a bit, actually.

I have no idea what most of them are for, but you have to have them there – it’s part of the Roadie Code.

We all know in the business how bad Britney’s singing voice is when she’s performing live. There are a lot of recordings and videos flying around with monitor feeds from her mic taken when she has been miming and prancing around the stage in some ridiculous dance routine; but I reckon it’s time to stop making fun of her.

I’ve met her on several occasions and she has always been very friendly with me – too friendly, sometimes! I like her. Her music’s crap, mind you.

The last time I saw her I was part of the crew at the MTV awards. I was busy humping backstage (humping PA cabs, not women! I love humping stuff: like all roadies, I get a psychological high from lifting heavy things) when she wandered by on the way to the toilet. She looked really dejected so I winked at her – women love that – and told her how lovely she looked.

‘I’ll be alright,’ she said. ‘It’s JT – I just can’t stop thinking about him.’

‘Forget about him,’ I told her. ‘He’s a wrong ‘un, that one.’

‘I can’t. I still love him.’

Women.

Justin Timberlake’s crap.

I heard a track from Sting’s awful album of Medieval Lute music on the radio this morning and it reminded me of when I bumped into the aging rocker and tantric sex expert at an awards ceremony last year.

I was part of the lighting crew and had taken a few minutes to have a cup of tea and a Cornish pasty behind a massive Winnebago in the carpark. It turned out to be Sting’s van and he must have seen me because the door burst open and he greeted me with his usual ‘Ha way, me lad!’ Sting and I go way back; we share an interest in racing pigeons.

We were enjoying a right good natter about the Police reforming and about mutual friends like Miles Copeland, Kate Moss and Ken Dodd, when who should wander by but Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. ‘Hi, guys!’ shouted Sting, who was suddenly speaking in a cheesy mid-western accent.

Funny thing was, the pair completely blanked him! They both had a look on their faces like they were really unhappy with the world. Pitt was scowling and Jolie had a face like a bulldog licking pee of a nettle. They wandered through some firedoors escorted by two big security men. ‘Must have had a bust-up or summat,’ said Sting.

I finished my pasty and went back to work.