At hecklerspray towers, nothing quite gets us excited like the opening of a bottle of beer and a sausage roll from the local bakers.

Apart from rubbish PR requests from companies, nothing really gets us going in the morning.

Now, we weren’t fed tons of money to promote this to you, but we thought we’d do the world some good and announce this to you all. Blue, the boyband who had hits like All Rise and er… a few others including that one with Elton John are coming back. We aren’t sure if new material is going to be recorded, but we can see them this summer at least!

As we all know, blue is a colour and is also an important piece of information for gypsies, fortune tellers and other piss-poor psychic folk. They see blue as a sad and depressing colour and use it to convince you you’ll soon cut yourself to death with a bread knife. But since four random idiots formed a band under that name, it has changed meaning. For the better is to be debated.

When we think of the colour blue, we always think of the band first. The following can only wish they were as popular as a manufactured band – the colour of the sky, the colour of the sea, the colour of Carlisle Utd’s football kit, the colour of the office lamp, vile alcopops called WKD, the colour of some peoples eyes, biro ink and the toolbar on a lot of computers.

Each band has to have a novelty wacky member who everyone loves to chuckle at. For Blue, it’s comedy chef and all round bad speller Lee Ryan. Like a bad experience at the fairground, hecklerspray and Lee go way back, following a mini battle where he launched a semi illiterate rant against our lovable scribbler Chris Laverty via the dying MySpace. Don’t worry too much though; Chris only wakes up occasionally now screaming “ONE LOVE.” He’s pretty much all there, despite a sweary message from Lee.

Blue were set to be mass marketed for our American chums, however, in true comedy fashion, Lee Ryan kind of messed that up. Remember the terrible attacks in New York on September 11th? Instead of keeping his mouth shut, Lee decided that this event wasn’t that important. Instead, we had to think of the elephants. Yes kids, the elephants. Subsequently, they weren’t shipped off to other countries for others to hate.

Whilst we all thought the band had thankfully been dead and buried for a long time, they are apparently due to make a comeback! Glastonbury may be a step to high, just like V Festival. We think Bath leisure centre is something that the lads can be content with.

According to Simon Webbe:

“We’re the only boyband that has never split up”.

Unless we’re wrong, there’s some boyband called The Jackson 5 who have never officially split up and still plan to inflict touring on us. They’ve just been caught up in kiddy touching trials, getting in to shitloads of debt and trying to salvage solo careers. Oh, that’s just Michael isn’t it?

Duncan James from Blue also added:

“The four of us will definitely do something together this summer”.

Sadly, there was no word from Lee about the exciting comeback plans. Presumably he couldn’t attend the press conference after throwing a strop when he went outside the lines in his colouring book. He’d have only punched his own reflection or claimed to be dating Ariel from The Little Mermaid, anyway.

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Britney’s big new comeback single Womanizer has jumped 95 places in the American singles chart to reach number one. And you know what they say – when a song that sounds like Professor Stephen Hawking’s faulty voicebox being jumpstarted by a big spluttering clown-car engine gets to number one, you’ve probably been accepted by the general population to some extent.

And now that Womanizer’s number one position is the cherry on Britney Spears’ public rehabilitation cake, it’s time for her to celebrate. How? The same way she always does – by shaving her head, mashing anti-psychotic drugs into her food and trapping her own children in a bathroom until she’s sedated and taken to a mental hospital. Hooray!

Britney Spears should go into politics. Seriously, look at how well she’s galvanised the public with her comeback. It’s been so stage-managed and choreographed that nothing could possibly have upset it. Well, nothing except for Britney Spears’ fragile state of mind, which could still explode messily all over the place and end up with Britney Spears kidnapping a stranger’s child and hiding it in the rafters with her at any moment, but let’s ignore that.

Because Britney Spears’ new single Womanizer has just made it to number one in the American single chart, and it’s broken all kinds records as well. E! Online reports:

The song’s 95-spot jump to No. 1 is the biggest in Billboard history… “Womanizer” also set a record by selling 286,000 digital copies. That not only tops the singer’s 179,000-copy debut for 2007’s “Gimme More,” it’s also the biggest digital debut for any female artist since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking digital sales five years ago. Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body” previously held the record.

Other records that Womanizer by Britney Spears has broken include Most Popular Song To Ever Go ‘Womanizer Woma-Womanizer You’re A Womanizer Oh Womanizer Oh You’re A Womanizer Baby’ All The Titting Time, Best Song To Make Suspects To Break Down And Confess Their Secrets Now That Physical Torture Is Frowned Upon and Best Alternative Theme-Tune To Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The success of Womanizer bodes well for Britney Spears’ new album Circus, to be released in December, and by and large it’s all down to the exceedingly professional way that her comeback has been stage-managed. So, disgraced celebrities, if you want to make a successful comeback all you need to do is follow Britney Spears’ simple five-point guide.

1 – Turn up in public wearing nice clothes and make-up that doesn’t look like it was applied by an elderly Parkinson’s sufferer in the middle of a temper tantrum. The fact that you aren’t red-eyed and bald will confound everyone senseless.

2 - Let your mother publish a book that graphically describes what a mental old bastard you are, but only so long as the last line reads something like “But, hey, she’s all better now, so phew.”

3 - Release a single that just involves you saying the same word over and over again while a fire alarm goes off in the background that everybody seems pretty ambivalent about.

4 - Get naked in the video for that song, because only then will people actually pay any attention to it.

5 - Pray to God that your little sister makes you look relatively sane in comparison.

Followed all those steps? Congratulations, you’re a success just like Britney Spears! Now you’re ready to be the subject of so much unwanted media intrusion and responsibility-free power that your mental health is almost certainly going to deteriorate to a worry extent. See you in the mental hospital!

Imagining that? Congratulations, you’re now Christie Brinkley. And now, Christie Brinkley, given that your ex-husband Peter Cook has just shown himself to be an egomanical attention-div of the highest order by writhing around in the gutter in front of the world like this, what’s the absolute last thing you should probably do?

That’s right – dive into the gutter with him. But that’s what Christie Brinkley has just done. Christie’s released a statement that further slags off Peter Cook, even though it’s basically just another reminder for her daughter that her parents are no longer capable of rational thought. The poor girl’s already called Sailor, for Christ’s sake. How much more do you want her to resent you?

Peter Cook is that rare breed – an egomaniac with no sense of insight whatsoever. Looking back, it was actually over two years ago that Christie Brinkley threw Peter Cook out for having it off with a teenager he met in a toyshop, and several months since the Christie Brinkley/ Peter Cook divorce was finalised.

Since then, given that the world is swamped with piles of brand new meaningless celebrity codswallop every day, memories of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook’s messy break-up have faded. So when Peter Cook decided to bitch about Christie Brinkley to Barbara Walters this week, he made two profound mistakes:

1 - Because people don’t care about whatever tiny ephemeral thumbprint Peter Cook left on the world of celebrity, everyone had to think back to remember who Peter Cook actually is. And that made them realise that, oh, he’s the dirty little bugger who spends $3,000 a month on wanking paraphernalia. Urgh, dirty.

2 - Having reminded people that he’s the man who shagged a teenager and wanks a lot, going on TV to blame Christie Brinkley for all that made Peter Cook look like a sort of giant clueless fudgepot who lives so far up his own bottom that his mouth smells like oesophagus.

In fact, Peter Cook’s 20/20 interview seems like such an ill-advised trainwreck that it actually makes us almost respect Christie Brinkley, and given that she painted the nightmarishly awful artwork for Billy Joel’s River Of Dreams album, that’s something we never thought we’d hear ourselves say about the jumped-up hopeless goon.

In fact, all Christie Brinkley needed to do to come out of this muddle looking peachy-clean was keep her mouth shut. That’s literally all she needed to do. Rise above it. Be the better person. Accept dignified silence into her life. And so that’s what Christie Brinkley did.

For about five seconds, anyway. Then she got her lawyer to release this piece of moronic screech just so everyone could be certain that she’s just as much of an arsewedge as Peter Cook is:

“It is a measure of Peter Cook’s character that he has breached the confidentiality agreement that is in the divorce settlement and has sought to present this distorted one sided view of his marriage. Mr. Cook had his days in court, testified on his own behalf and ultimately agreed with the view of the children’s court appointed attorney and psychiatrist that the children should live principally with their mother and that she should be the sole custodial parent.”

It’s disappointing to see that Christie Brinkley has lowered herself to Peter Cook’s level by continuing to fling mud at each other in public like this, but at least they’re square now. This should be the end of it.

For about five seconds, anyway. At this rate we’ll be stunned if Peter Cook hasn’t released a six-volume autobiography entitled Mer Mer Mer Christie Brinkley Smells Like Badger Balls by the end of the day.

Just a few months ago, the Dirty Dancing star had weeks to live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But it was reported this week that 55-year-old Patrick Swayze is actually returning to work.

Yes, you heard that right: cancer-stricken Patrick Swayze is going to be back on your TV screens very soon. Next year, in fact.

It’s not the first time he has been linked with a return. Only a couple of weeks ago, there were rumours he was to star in a sequel of the highly-successful surfing movie Point Break.

But he quickly denied that that was the case, which, of course, we all expected. I mean, he has cancer, right!?

However, this week Patrick Swayze confirmed he will be returning to work – in the TV show The Beast – after the doctors confirmed he is fit to resume work.

Fit to resume work? Pretty incredible! I mean this is not a bout of the flu – he has an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, for God’s sake!

Read the rest of this entry (opens in a new window) >>

All well and good, but there’s something missing. Know what that is? A mildly psychotic pop star who enjoys shaving her head and displaying her vagina, that’s what.

Thank the sweet weeping lord, then, for Britney Spears. She’s apparently decided to use Vegas – or, more specifically, the Palms Hotel and Casino – as the jumping point for a ’spectacular comeback.’ Given that her last ‘comeback’ involved bobbing around onstage like a confused autistic sealion in front of millions of TV viewers, it’s safe to say that this is gonna be an interesting situation to say the least.

According to the new edition of the National Enquirer:

“Britney wants to make a splashy comeback in Las Vegas. She wants the show to be full of high energy and flashy costume changes.”

The moolah on offer? The equivalent of five million pounds – which, given the present exchange rate, is probably enough money in dollars to bankrupt the entire United States and leave them praying to their great Britneyrian Overlord. Maybe.

All of this Vegas chatter has been ascertained via the medium of sneaky Spears-spies. Those close to Britters have seen her eating lunch with hotel manager George Maloof and engaging in heated business discussion.

Hecklerspray honestly can’t say which we find more remarkable – the fact that someone would actually still want to employ Britney Spears for a not-insignificant amount of money, or the fact that she managed to make it through the entire meeting without smashing her crockery, foaming at the mouth, carving the words ‘worthless devil whore’ into her own face and then launching into a tear-laden recital of Toxic to a rapidly-departing crowd of restaurant leavers.

Maybe she’s saving that for opening night.

Read More:

Spears in talks to stage Vegas shows world entertainment news – Yahoo

You will once again get to look back at her and respond to what she says and does, as if she were actually in your front room with you!

Imagine that. All you need do is squint and someone as famous as Britney Spears will be hanging out with a dirty, little, scum-sucking prole like you – as if it were the most natural thing in the world!

You can lie back, close your eyes, get very, very sleepy and relax all your attention – all your being – toward her and vainly attempt to avoid orgasm as she washes you from head to toe with the benevolent waves of her acting ability and general mindset.

Britney Spears is returning to How I Met Your Mother.

A source tells People:

“The show is ecstatic and so is Britney. She had so much fun the first time around she really wanted to come back. It was a mutual decision to work together more.”

Britney Spears will do one episode, so the source says, but Fox studios would not confirm the appearance. They’re no doubt praying that they’ll get to confirm soon though, what with them being Fox – a TV network that actually managed to turn The Simpsons into the cheapest show on earth! The unparalleled bastards of ineptitude!

Cast member Jason Segel said:

“She was hilarious in the table-read, and I got to see her do the run-through as well, and she was great.”

That’s nice. But how about the other co-stars, such as Neil Patrick Harris, who will be disgusted by the news, as he is a man totally opposed to any form of ‘stunt casting’.

However, Neil Patrick Harris will no doubt be absolutely delighted by the news, a man totally in agreement with compromising the integrity of the show’s entire oeuvre in order to get better ratings. Hwa-tcsh! Dance piggy, dance!

Why not read a book instead, dear readers? Or scratch your bollocks for half hour? Or kill yourself (to death, perhaps)?

Anything else.

Read More – Britney Returning To How i Met Your Mother – People

Just recently – just yesterday, in fact – it seemed to all that, like Kurt Cobain and Vincent Van Gogh before her, Britney Spears had reached the end of the line. The feeling was she had nothing left to give – and that all she needed now was one small, gentle push into death’s eternal release. Ahh.

But, unlike like Kurt and Vince before her, she has seemingly decided that she actually does have something more to offer and that she is going to tour the world, giving it out for about $100 dollars a ticket!

To all of us who’ve once thought ‘what if Kurt hadn’t died?’ the remainder of Britney Spear's life will no doubt offer the answers we’re after. Maybe nothing, maybe everything, will be justified.

The singer/dancer is said to be in training to hit the road again, which perhaps puts an end to previous ‘Britney’s next step’ rumours, such as becoming a regular on a TV sitcom, or playing the role of a deep-south mental patient on stage, but who knows – perhaps she could do all three?

Imagine if Kurt survived! He may have ended up as a regular on Friends? As Phoebe’s new boyfriend, who doesn’t quite fit into the group because he’s ‘like, so serious?’ and when Chandler makes a sarky remark about Kurt’s uptight demeanor he just gets up and executes them all and then himself. If only he’d lived. Like Britney has been and is doing! Woop-woop! 

A source tells the News Of The World:

"There will be no more on-stage blunders. Britney’s turned a corner and the world will be amazed with her. Things are looking up for Britney. She's finally focusing on her career again."

And the positivity doesn’t even stop there! Britney’s former manager, Larry Rudolph (sacked for trying to get her into rehab) has told Ryan Seacrest on his KISS FM radio show:

"I've seen her a few times over the past week or two. I've spent some time with her just socially. I've gone up to the house. I've sat with her. She's in great shape, I couldn't be happier to see the condition she's in. But this is not a time to talk about business with her. What she needs now is the public to be on her side and root for her, because she deserves it and that means a lot to her. I can't think of a situation where somebody's been set up for a bigger comeback than that girl."

Good for Britney Spears.

It seems all this attention we’ve been giving her is working after all. We told you we cared.

Read More – Britney's back…for $100 Million – NOTW

Read More – Britney's in great shape, says ex-manager – MSN 

Amy Winehouse? Don't be silly – we're talking about the queen of substance-deranged power-ballads here, not the scabby-faced pretender to her crack-addled throne, here. That's right, Whitney Houston is back.

Well, sort of back. Whitney Houston's comeback album – her first for six years – will be released in time for Christmas. It'd be ready sooner, but it's going to take nine months of round-the-clock labour to photoshop the album's artwork so it looks like Whitney Houston's pupils are the same size and that she's got teeth and generally looks a bit less identical to Samuel L Jackson in Jungle Fever.

If the American government wants to catch Osama Bin Laden, it'll have its best shot at the end of the year. Everyone knows that Osama has a giant crush on Whitney Houston, and Whitney Houston has a new album coming out in the later stages of 2008, so if the CIA wants to know where he is, he'll either be found at the new releases section of HMV or smooshed up against the Today show window mouthing "Death to America! Marry me Whitney!" when Whitney inevitably does her comeback interview.

Yes, just when you though she'd given up music forever in favour of batting away imaginary demons in a crack-blasted frenzy, Whitney Houston is back. It's been a long journey for Whitney over the last few years – as well as being smashed out of her mind on hard drugs, she's also ended her possibly-abusive marriage to Bobby Brown, was forced to sell off just about everything she owns to prevent losing her house and had to endure dozens of witless arseholes murdering her best-known songs on Simon Cowell TV shows. No wonder she turned to crack.

But that's all in the past now, because the new Whitney Houston comeback album is almost ready according to Whitney's record label boss Clive Davis. Reuters reports:

Four songs have been completed for the as-yet-untitled project, and four more will be put to tape later this month, Davis said during Billboard's Music & Money Symposium at New York's St. Regis Hotel. "We're on track for a holiday release," he said. "We're not going to compromise who she is to fit into today's hip-hop radio market. The public wants Whitney material." Tracks earmarked for the album have been produced or written by Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am, producer/songwriter Sean Garrett and R&B singer Akon.

OK, two things immediately come to mind here. 1) Four songs? That's rubbish – Whitney Houston's comeback was announced 17 months ago. That's 119 days a song. At this rate we'll be lucky to hear the Whitney Houston comeback album before the Sun expands and engulfs the earth, and 2) Did Clive Davis mean to say "The public wants Whitney material?" Because if Akon and will.i.am are in charge then we think he might have meant "The public wants material that sounds like it's from a fizzy drink commercial."

Still, however dubious we are of Whitney Houston's comeback album ever happening, we've got our fingers crossed that it does. Not only will it give Whitney Houston a feeling of success that she's been missing for a decade, but it'll also mean that we won't have to see shelves full of lazily-repackaged Whitney Houston Greatest Hits albums like we've done for every year of our adult lives. And that has to be worth something.

Read more:

New Whitney Houston album set for holiday release – Reuters 

And now for the bad news – the Spice Girls split means we're going to have to put up with five cack-handed Spice Girls solo careers again instead of one big group career that's easy to ignore.

Which we suppose means that we'll never hear from Geri Halliwell again. Maybe this is for the best after all.

According to the Spice Girls, friendship never ends. But we've learnt not to listen to the Spice Girls since Spice Up Your Life urged us to "slam it to the left if you're having a good time" – an instruction that resulted in a loss of blood, dignity and one long-term girlfriend while incurring us a hefty bill from a top hospital's penile trauma clinic.

Perhaps the Spice Girls should have chosen to call their last single Headlines (Friendship Does End, Actually, Probably Even Before The End Of The Tour) because that's much closer to the truth. The Spice Girls are splitting up again, and they're so keen to do it that they're even cutting their world tour short. According to MTV:

The Spice Girls have split up for a second time with rumours that it’s due to the group arguing. The band have cited ‘family commitments’ for the cancellation of tour dates in China, Sydney, South America and South Africa. Due to the group’s fractious past it’s unsurprising fans think they’ve been arguing. According to one press report Mel C and Mel B were behind the split telling the other three: “We’ve had enough.” However in another weekend news story Posh Spice told the News Of The World: “I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm not in the music industry any more. I'm in the fashion industry.”

It's not really a surprise to be honest – the Spice Girls comeback wasn't as brilliant as anyone had hoped. Their single was a flop, they performed in half-empty arenas across America, Emma Bunton knackered her leg and the Spice Girls Tesco adverts were so brain-crampingly terrible that we're pretty sure they made us cry cerebrospinal fluid once.

The last Spice Girls concert will be later this month in Toronto, and then that'll be it. Each of the girls is at least £10 million richer and can go home knowing that they'll have to write four less Christmas cards come December. But what will each of the Spice Girls do following the split?

Well, Victoria Beckham has fashion career to take care of, which we think basically involves waddling around after Katie Holmes a lot and not eating. Mel B needs to have sex with her husband more, because her schedule says that he should have knocked her up and left her by now. Geri Halliwell has that children's book to work on, unless she ditched it because all that writing got in the way of only ever talking about herself all the time. Emma Bunton has a baby to look after. And Mel C?

Well, those houses aren't going to roof themselves, are they?

Read more:

Spice Girls Split - MTV 

Yes, New Kids on the Block are rumoured to be coming back. That’s right; your favourite five heartthrobs – Jordan, Joey, Jonathon, Donnie and Donny – will be back in the flesh!  

Although, it’ll probably be more wrinkly, slightly saggy, muscle-tone free flesh this time around.  

New Kids on the Block, or as they’re also known by the convenient acronym NKOTB (it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), have sent 30-year-old women all over the world searching for their Hangin’ Tough cassette singles since a recent posting on the band’s website which suggests a forthcoming reunion. No exact date listed for the comeback, but we’re sure it’ll be nicely timed with the coming of the Apocalypse.  

The band. comprised of Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood, made their record debut in 1986, as pre-teen girls screamed and threw tear-soaked training bras at them during concerts. Since the group disbanded, each of the five members has gone on to find great success. And by great success we mean poor to mediocre attempts at music and film and melt into obscurity, providing things like VH1 with endless Where Are They Now? material.  

OK, OK. That’s not really true. Donnie Whalberg’s fame can really be pinpointed when you say his full legal name Donnie 'Mark Wahlberg’s brother' Wahlberg. There. That’s better.  

We know what you’re thinking. Will NKOTB change their name to Old Men At The Doctor Getting Their Prostate Checked, or Old Men On The Bankruptcy List (we seriously have a million of these. We could do this all day) to be current with the times? Probably not, because changing their name could mean they won’t have the same commercial success they did in the 80’s. Oh, wait, they’re not going to have the same commercial success that they did in the 80’s because these guys are neither new, nor kids, nor on any sort of block as far as we know.

The website also includes some nostalgic tidbits about the band that really have us fired up for what’s in store: 

"They rose from the streets of Boston," the site touts. "To become the biggest band in the world. They influenced a generation. They sold over 70 million albums and grossed more than one billion dollars.  Five multiplatinum albums, 10 top 10 singles, five number one singles. Then they walked away from it all. Millions of fans around the world await their return. Are you ready?" 

We fear that the question posed 'Are you ready?' is only rhetorical. Regardless of our thinly veiled, slightly sarcastic commentary on the return of NKOTB, we can’t help but scratch our heads and look at all of those record sales and wonder “why didn’t you boys listen to your mothers and save your money so you don’t have to hitch your wagon to the slightly depressing horse of band reunions?”  

We’ve just been through this reuniting garbage with the Spice Girls. We don’t need another reason to be depressed.  

Read More:

New Kids: Back On The Block? - Yahoo 

No, we're just kidding. In fact Michael Jackson will be doing what he does third-best for Sunday's Super Bowl – music. But Michael Jackson won't be performing during the Super Bowl halftime show, probably because a gaunt middle-aged man muttering three lines of Stranger In Moscow before wandering off doesn't cut it as entertainment any more.

Instead, Michael Jackson will be on an advert broadcast during the Super Bowl halftime show. Actually, that's not true either – some of Thriller will be played on an advert broadcast during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Not much of a story, this, is it?

When it comes to making hopelessly-doomed comebacks, Britney Spears is nothing but a young pretender compared to the master that is Michael Jackson. In the last couple of years he's aborted more comebacks than we could ever recall. Remember when Michael Jackson was recording that album in Bahrain that never happened? And remember the big comeback in London that just turned out to be Michael Jackson standing behind a children's choir singing We Are The World for four seconds?

Mangled messes the lot of them. But now Michael Jackson has decided to make a proper, full-on, foolproof comeback that's foolproof primarily because Michael Jackson really won't have much to do with it.

The 2008 Super Bowl will take place on Sunday, and Michael Jackson is being lined up for a starring role. Not for the main Super Bowl halftime performance itself, you understand – organisers have already lined up the mind-blistering white-hot electropunk juggerpop of, um, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers for that – but instead Michael Jackson will be on an advert played in between all the fun parts. Sort of. Metro reports:

Michael Jackson hopes to stage a Thriller comeback at American football's Super Bowl next weekend. As part of marketing for the 25th anniversary of the classic album, a TV advert for a vitamin-enhanced drink from Pepsi will be broadcast with a Thriller theme during the big game next Sunday.

Pepsi? But won't that infringe on Michael Jackson's exclusive Jesus Juice endorsement? 

Anyway, Michael Jackson plans to follow up this – admit it – slightly rubbish comeback with something a bit more substantial. According to reports, Michael Jackson will perform a medley of his hits at the Grammys next month. Or rather he'll just halfheartedly jig around while Fergie, will.i.am and Akon do all the actual legwork.

It's not the most convincing comeback you'll ever hear about, but perhaps it's for the best. After all, what other Super Bowl options did Michael Jackson have? A self-deprecating Kevin Federline-style advert about what a loser he is? A deliberately controversial Snickers-style advert about Michael Jackson kissing a lot of men? No, this is best.

And let's just be thankful that Michael Jackson didn't follow his sister Janet into performing at the halftime show. God knows how the world would react to Michael whapping a booby out.

Read more:

Jacko set for Super Bowl return - Metro 

But somehow, despite all that, the Spice Girls have managed to make £10 million from their string of concerts at the O2. That's £10 million each, by the way.

And if we were the Spice Girls' accountants, we'd recommend that they should be prudent with this new windfall because, treated sensibly, it could be enough for them to never work again. Basically, we want the Spice Girls to never work again. 

Remember when Prince did his 21-night stint at the O2 last year, and how it was such a major talking point that The Times reviewed every single one of the concerts? And remember when Led Zeppelin reformed at the O2 and some old men playing slightly dull blues jams became the biggest story in the world?

Yeah, none of that's really happened for the Spice Girls – after the much-hyped Spice Girls comeback was announced, it all went south a bit quickly. Their comeback charity single Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) did so poorly that the condition of underprivileged children actually declined because of its failure, each of them using their sickly breath to shout "Curse you, Spice Girls, for not coming up with something with a bit more zip!"

And then the Spice Girls Greatest Hits album sank without a trace. In fact, we got the feeling that the enduring legacy of the Spice Girls reunion would be that Tesco advert, where Victoria Beckham speaks like she's just been to a particularly vicious dentist.

But no. Because – between knackering their ankles and whoring out their children – it turns out that the Spice Girls' 17-night residency at the O2 has been so financially successful that we're semi-considering kidnapping Geri Halliwell and taking her place in a ginger wig and some drawn-on abdominal muscles.

Apparently, according to The Times, the Spice Girls have made £10 million each from their O2 residency. Each:

An O2 Centre source said the five – Emma Bunton, Mel B, Mel C, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham – have made £50 million between them. That eclipses any other star who has performed at the venue.

"Barbra Streisand had high ticket prices, but only did three nights, while Prince did 21 nights but sold tickets for next to nothing. Not many groups can sell out 17 gigs at £75 a ticket, it's quite an achievement."

So what do the Spice Girls do now? Although the sensible option would be to go home and live modestly off the interest without working for the rest of their lives, perhaps the Spice Girls will now try to string out their comeback tour for a few years, until they earn enough money to buy themselves a nice subcontinent somewhere.

That's not what'll happen though – between performing to crowds of adoring fans and looking at their newly-plumped bank balances, you can guarantee that each of the Spice Girls are thinking "screw these other bitches, the crowd really loves me!" – and that obviously means that another ego-based messy break-up is on the cards, followed quickly by five reinvigorated, splutteringly pointless solo careers that will quickly sink without a trace.

So we all win, really.

Read more:

Spice Girls make '£10m each' from 02 concerts – Times 

It's been reported that Emma Bunton – also known as Infantile Spice by her young fans – stacked it onstage during a Spice Girls show in Las Vegas and now she's in a cast. But don't you worry, London-based Spice Girls fans – Emma Bunton has vowed that by the time the Spice Girls' world tour hits London she'll have recovered completely, even if she has to spend 13 hours chewing off her bad leg – cauterising the wound with a red-hot travel iron as she goes – and replacing it with one big penny farthing wheel, a bit like those dogs who go round hospitals have. 

Yes, that's actually what Emma Bunton said.

No it isn't.

For all the fanfares and million-dollar sofa-designing contracts that the Spice Girls received when they announced their reunion, things haven't been going as well as expected. Their comeback single Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) is officially the worst-performing Children In Need single of all time – even overbearing cockney git Shane Ritchie did better with a cover of a Wham song – plus hardly a day goes by without seeing pictures of the Spice Girls performing to half-empty arenas. And the few who do turn up don't have anything more constructive to do than slag off Victoria Beckham.

Meanwhile Victoria Beckham is doing nothing to dispel those pregnancy rumours, Mel B has been called a lesbian and if we see that bloody Tesco advert one more time we're going to do a dirty protest right on top of the cheese counter. How could the Spice Girls' comeback get any worse?

Well Emma Bunton could fall over and bust up her ankle for a start.

Wait a minute, that's exactly what's happened. Yesterday the Spice Girls turned up at Los Angeles International Airport to unveil a new plane – called Spice One, presumably because it's always half-empty and a crowd of desperate touts try and sell you unwanted tickets for 10p in the departure lounge – and Emma Bunton turned up on crutches.

When asked why she was hobbling around like cartoon Victorian orphan, Emma offered the following explanation:

"I had a tumble on stage and unfortunately I have sprained my ankle, so I'm hobbling around on crutches. But I'm sure to make a speedy recovery and see you all at the O2."

A tumble on stage during a Spice Girls comeback concert? Well, there can't have been any witnesses so we'll have to accept that excuse as fact. But it does seem a little bit fishy – perhaps Geri Halliwell attacked Bunton's ankle with a ball-hammer one night out of jealousy that Emma has been on more dance-based reality TV shows than her. Maybe we'll never know.

But at least Emma has promised fans that she'll be back to her old self by the time the Spice Girls reunion train stops in London. It's a weight off our minds, that's for sure – the Spice Girls wouldn't be the Spice Girls without a semi-anonymous blonde woman dressed as a child standing at the back and mimbling her mousey backing vocals for a couple of words per song.

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Why's Em On Crutches? – Sky

We're talking about Led Zeppelin, of course – last night marked the long-awaited, obscenely-anticipated, ticket website-melting Led Zeppelin comeback at the O2. But even though the band is now made up of Michael Winner, a curly-haired toby jug, a bank manager and someone's son, could Led Zeppelin match the hype? We've got a round-up of some of the best Led Zeppelin reviews from last night for you, saving you the trouble of wading through the foaming avalanche yourself.

Warning: the following article contains the phrase "Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks." Seriously.

By now you know all the facts about Led Zeppelin's live return. 22 years after they buggered up a comeback at Live Aid – although it's easier to just blame Phil Collins for that one, like we tend to do for everything – Led Zeppelin decided reform for one concert as a tribute to their dead record label boss. It was a risk – not only were Led Zeppelin opening themselves up to criticism about everything from their age to the way that all their songs go on for eight hours, but also it'd mean they'd fall behind in their sideline of bitching about merchandise websites a lot.  

But last night Led Zeppelin got to show if they still had it in front of a tiny slice of the 170 trillion people who attempted to buy tickets for their comeback show. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham's son Jason – whose father wasn't able to attend because it'd mean he'd miss Dragon's Den – turned up at the O2 arena in London to show what we could do. We weren't there, obviously, but that doesn't mean we can't see what everyone else thought of the Led Zeppelin comeback.

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote: "The riff that powers In My Time Of Dying is authentically churning and queasy, Ramble On sounds not like a song that's been brought out of mothballs for a benefit concert but wrigglingly, obscenely alive; Trampled Underfoot's conjunction of jittering funk and squealing, metallic guitar seems more bizarre and beguiling than ever."

Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Plant — the youngest of the original members, at 59 — doesn’t walk and gesture like an excited woman anymore. Some of the top of his voice has gone, but except for one attempted and failed high note in “Stairway to Heaven” (“there walks a la-dy we all know{hellip}”), he found other melodic routes to suit him."

David Cheal from The Telegraph wrote: "Then it got better still: Black Dog. Byzantine riff, pulverising drums, hollering vocals. Magic. And no sign of Jimmy Page's finger injury that had caused the gig to be delayed. 'Good evening,' said Plant."

And finally, since we promised, here's what Pete Paphides from The Times wrote: "Plant’s quick kick to the base of his mike stand sent it flying up into the path of his hand. Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks. It had been good before, but something of the devil seemed to get hold of them at this point. Now sans shades, Page launched into a filthy seam of swamp guitar, from which a magnificent In My Time of Dying swelled to epic proportions."

Sounded good, but can those critics say that they've witnessed the monolithic rock spectacle of Chico from X Factor performing at Skegness Butlins? No, no they can't.

Now the biggest question is about the future of Led Zeppelin. Will they go on a world tour like that bloke from The Cult said? Or will they stick to their original story about only doing one show to honour the memory of Ahmet Artegun? Fingers crossed for the first one – because we get the feeling that a reformed Led Zeppelin could be one of the biggest live draws of all time. 

At least until Boyzone get their act together and start doing some shows, anyway.

But all of that can be consigned to the past, because the real money-making leg of the Spice Girls comeback kicked off last night – it was the first concert of the Spice Girls' reunion world tour in Vancouver. 16,000 screaming Spice Girls fans packed into General Motors Place to see Scary Spice, Baby Spice, Sporty Spice, Posh Spice and Alarmingly Muscular Spice go through all their biggest hits, plus that new song that nobody bought. And according to early reviews, the Spice Girls comeback show is a hit, even though at one point it apparently featured The Sporty Spice Tribute To Lenny Kravitz In Association With The Sort Of Harrowing Bondage Gear That Will Make You Spend The Rest Of Your Life Shivering And Alone.

Pop reunions are a tricky thing to pull off, because the people who liked you first time round tend to have families and jobs and less time to cover every inch of their bedroom walls with posters of you in a wet open shirt with your nipple hanging out. That's why for every pop reunion success (Take That) there are a dozen hopeless failures (All Saints, East 17, Boyzone hopefully).

But the Spice Girls reunion could never fail. Sure, people haven't bought their comeback single in the volume that anyone wanted, their Victoria's Secret promotion looks a bit desperate, nobody in their right mind would buy any of the sofas that the Spice Girls designed for a million quid each, we can't understand a bloody word that Victoria Beckham is saying in the Spice Girls Tesco advert and we get the nagging feeling that they all actually hate each other, but that doesn't mean it will fail.

And that's been reflected in ticket sales for the Spice Girls' comeback world tour – most dates of which are all sold out, even though they all probably went to eBay touts who saw how badly Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) did in the charts and cursed themselves for not investing in Nintendo Wiis instead. 

The Spice Girls comeback tour is going to crawl around the world over the next three months, giving fans everywhere the chance to learn that Girl Power means singing decade-old songs to a bunch of overcharged nostalgia freaks while dressed in clothes that are slightly too young for you, and it all started last night in Vancouver. But how did it go?

Well, you'll be pleased to know that the Spice Girls have dropped the odd Dad's Army fixation that characterised their recent Victoria's Secret Fashion Show performance in favour of corsets and miniskirts and the inevitable Union Jack dresses, and the Globe And Mail seemed to enjoy it all – even the bit where Mel C dressed up as a gimp and sang Are You Gonna Go My Way – with the sole exception of anything Victoria Beckham did:

Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham… looked uncomfortable in her tightly-corseted outfits and carefully-coiffed hair (which she spent a fair amount of time clearing from her face). Her dance moves were stiff and at at least one point she started to sing a line before it was time (not that you could hear her; her voice is not very strong). 

But regardless of any mistakes that the Spice Girls made, they still managed to get 16,000 people to pay an average of about £85 to go and see them, and repeated for each or the 40 or so tour dates the group has announced so far that all adds up to an enormous amount of money for the girls.

Plus, British fans shouldn't worry too much about Victoria Beckham's apparent shoddy performing – it was first-night nerves, surely, and by the time the Spice Girls hit London later in the month she'll be able to churn out performances as numbly robotic as everyone expects her to.

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Spice Girls: Viva Vancouver - Globe And Mail