Top brass angered by claims of military incompetence after singer's morale-boosting trip to front-line troops is thwarted

James Blunt's "greatest ambition" is to have a family.

James Blunt once styled Elton John for one of his concerts.

Singer questioned US general's order while serving in Balkans

How to put this, well, Bluntly?

Three years ago, James Blunt was struggling to come to terms with the implications of his sudden success on All the Lost Souls, the follow-up to the all-conquering debut album Back to Bedlam.

It's four decades since the residents of one of the most famous addresses on TV made their debut. Guy Adams reports on an educational institution

On the sunny side of the beat

Not such an independent woman after all

For someone who has become a figure of fun, James Blunt isn't doing too badly for himself. Many may find his songs the worst type of dinner-party music and his lyrics bland to the point of inanity, but by now you will already know whether you love him or hate him.

For this follow-up, Guillemots adopt a more direct approach than on the overly sensitive Through the Windowpane. In place of the lavish orchestrations that bookended their debut, Red starts with the synthetic fanfare that opens "Kriss Kross", a lumbering funk-rock groove imploring one to "dance with your thunder and lightning".

He's rich, famous, boasts a jet-set lifestyle and has the supermodel girlfriends to match. Shame, then, that James Blunt also gets dubbed the most hated man in pop. What's he done to deserve it? And should he even care? Esther Walker finds out

The Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly star tells Elisa Bray why he's not being naive

"Now, you know I get a hard time from the press," says James Blunt towards the end of the sold-out debut show of his latest tour. "I reckon you [the audience] are very brave people; it's not a cool place to be, a James Blunt concert." He's right. Blunt's name is a critical byword for spoon-fed, flat-packed, consensus rock, and he'll never be cool, credible or any of the other adjectives with which most musicians crave affiliation.