Ah, bless those ageing, cantankerous Mancunian pop stars. Not only did Liam Gallagher describe brother Noel's dress sense as being "like Liz Hurley's son's", but Peter Hook - probably the one person in the world who could out-moody Morrissey - has referred to the former Smiths singer as, well, "a twat."

The ex-New Order bassist was speaking at a 'please buy my book' session at Bristol's Borders bookshop, and claimed he was never a fan of The Smiths:

"There's no way I could have liked The Smiths as they were our competition," he declared, "Morrissey's a twat anyway! He makes Mark E Smith look popular! He really does."

A much better, and possibly less accurate quote followed regarding Morrissey's legal team: "What I do love about Mozzer though, is that any time anyone has any legal problem with him, the only person you can speak to about [it] is his mother! That's true. So if you have a problem you have to deal with Morrissey's mother. And the first thing she says is, "Our Steven wouldn't do that!""

I want that to be true soooooo much. In fact, I may sue him for the waste of my life that was Kill Uncle, just to try out the theory. Anyway, as well as plugging his new book, The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club, Hooky was busy promoting his new band Freebass. The band contains ex-Stone Rose Mani and, somewhat ironically given the above, ex-Smith Andy Rourke. That's a lot of bass heavy talent for one band; indeed one can't help but think they came up with the puntastic name for a band during a pissed conversation, and then decided to stretch the joke to breaking point by actually making a record. The band now have a full time vocalist, none other than Gary Briggs of indie losers Haven. Speaking about how they managed to snare such an, ahem, big name, when they had previously been linked with such nomarks as Liam Gallagher, Hook had this to say:

"We know everyone don't we? Liam, Kele (from Bloc Party), Tim Burgess - So we asked a lot of people, and to be honest, I'm a bit busy, so most of them are really busy too, and the only three that delivered were Howard Marks - Mr Nice - who's done a fantastic state of the world rap, which is mega. Pete Wiley did a fantastic track for us, Tim Burgess did one, and I sing the other.

"Then Gary appeared, which was a relief so then I didn't have to deal with them other idiots! Going from one difficult lead singer to nine, you know! Mani said 'Let's get someone who's just starting out and then we can persecute him!' So that's what we're doing, but don't tell him!"

Consider yourself warned, Mr Briggs. Freebass plan to release an EP featuring the guest vocalists, and eventually a full LP featuring Briggs. We can but pray it's as good as Monaco.