Take a picture of the shiny “I” on your phone in any of these surroundings (yes, even online) and text it with the letters ‘NYE’ to 63333 and you’ll receive a reply with the “I” (acting as a door) opening to reveal either a Christmas scene, or an image of The O2 – the latter signifying you are a winner of tickets to one of the New Year’s Eve events at The O2, featuring Elton John, 2ManyDJs (@ matter) and Hed Kandi.

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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 

After all, the idea of being surrounded by rat-faced violent sociopaths for an entire month is something that should send a shiver down the spine of any right-thinking human being. Unless, of course, you live anywhere near Wigan, in which case that's just business as usual all year round.

Still – there's actually one thing that unsettles us more than spending 30 days in the company of bloodsucking vampires, and that's spending 30 days in the company of 'unique' pop star Michael Jackson. Note: this fear isn't particularly based on any of his face-falling-apart, dangling-babies-over-balconies habits, but more to do with the fact that he might try singing Heal The World at us over and over again.

You've gotta feel sorry, then, for the O2 Arena. For it's looking very likely that Jacko is all set to fly over to the UK and perform a 30 day stint. A bit like Prince did, except that everyone going to see him only really paid attention to the popular eighties stuff and politely ignored the rest.

Hang on…

Anyway. The rumours stem from the News of The World, which also reports that Jackson will be set to pocket a million pounds a night from this little shebang, leaving him with 30 million smackers with which to engage in all sorts of tree-climbing, closing-down-supermarkets-so-that-just-he-can-use-them, fairground-building antics. Or maybe just to help pay off those pesky legal fees that he's been feverishly collecting like Panini stickers over the years.

Chances are also big that these upcoming shows could see a big guest-star turnout. Jackson's latest album – eagerly awaited by someone, somewhere, apparently – features a multitude of collaborators including Black Eyed Peas bloke Will.i.am and mumbling 'rapper' 50 Cent. We're sure there'll be lots of other surprises too – maybe a cameo stage spot from a local children's choir.

Actually… nah. That'd probably be a bad idea. Only because the two forms of music being expressed by the respective artists may prove incompatible. And no other reason. Obviously.

Did we say that loud enough? Obviously.

Read More:

Jacko Set For O2 stint? – BBC

During their performance of Mama at the O2 arena in London on Tuesday night, it's been reported that most of the Spice Girls brought their children onstage to say hello to the thousands of buyerless eBay touts who make up their audience these days. In the middle of the song Victoria Beckham, Mel B and Emma Bunton all brought their kids out on stage. In fact, the only Spice Girl mother not to introduce her child to the audience was Geri Halliwell, for fear that the effect of 20,000 people all derisively going "pffft" at the same time after hearing the name Bluebell Madonna would knock over a lighting rig or flip the stage upside down or something.

Now that The Spice Girls world tour has hit its absurdly long residency at London's O2 arena, the girls can put all their troubles behind them. They don't have to worry about gimmicky sales promotions or appalling Tesco adverts, tanking comeback singles or half-sold concerts, because they're in London, and everyone in London loves the Spice Girls.

These London concerts mean so much to the Spice Girls that not even Emma Bunton's buggered-up ankle can stop the girls doing what they love best – tightly grinning through their reported inter-group rucks and performing the same decade-old songs in exactly the same way night after night after night. Except for Tuesday night, that is, when the Spice Girls planned something slightly different.

According to reports, the Spice Girls brought their children onstage during their performance of Mama. It was a joyous moment for sure – you'd need to have a heart as cold as ice not to well up at the sight of six frightened children being hauled in front of tens of thousands of hysterically-screaming strangers by their oddly-dressed mothers. The Press Association reports:

Victoria Beckham decked out her boys, Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz in matching T-shirts emblazoned with the words 'POSH'. Baby Spice Emma Bunton cuddled four-month-old son Beau, while Mel B brought along daughters Phoenix Chi and Angel Iris. The children wore bright green ear muffs to protect them against the noise. Geri Halliwell's daughter Bluebell was the only Spice offspring missing.

For what it's worth, Mel C couldn't bring any children onstage because she hasn't had any yet. But don't be sad, because she doesn't need children – she's got her pet cats, which are almost like babies in the sense that she dresses them up as babies, makes them sleep in cots, constantly tries to enrol them in local nursery schools, carries them around in a papoose, weens them on a diet of milk direct from her own breast and gets angry if you refer to them as cats instead of people.

Anyway, isn't it a weird song choice to bring the Spice Kids out on? Mama is a song that's all about how much the Spice Girls love their mothers, and by bringing their children out, surely the implication is that the Spice Girls are singing it to themselves. In fact, they might as well have just sung a song called The Spice Girls Are Brilliant – a statement that's at best wrong and at worst dangerous.

But that's just a minor quibble. Judging by the reaction that they got with their children, it seems as if audiences love watching the Spice Girls make literal displays of their songs like this. Hopefully it'll continue throughout their London residency – perhaps for Spice Up Your Life the girls can rub freshly-chopped chillies into their eyes or mace each other.

And the prospect of what they'd do during Stop is just too exciting to bear.

Read more:

Spice babies join 'Mamas' on stage - Press Association 

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.

We found ourselves surrounded by thousands of women, baying for the blood of the objects of their desires. The gig began with support coming from an unnamed woman, whose talent with a saxophone and vocals proved far superior than the other supporting act; Sophie Ellis Bextor (yes, she is still trying to give this singing lark a go) who was living off past glories for duration of her set, the only song garnering any kind of crowd reaction was the 2000 summer hit Groovejet, a collaboration with that household name DJ Spiller.  

Take That, on the other hand had the crowd in raptures, opening with couple of new tracks from their Beautiful World then bringing on the old favourites much to the enjoyment of the plethora of fans in attendance.

After their introduction, Gary Barlow (the one who pretty much does everything in the band) asked the audience “isn’t it great to have Howard back?” after the glorified background member had injured himself earlier in the tour. Obviously Gary, Mark and Jason had found it difficult to get a dancer who knew their ten-year-old dance routines.

We were pleasantly surprised, though, by how much the all members did when the concert really kick-started; all band members took turns to sing lead, although Jason Orange strangely sang a solo effort with the rest of the band disappearing for the entirety of the strangling of the cat – obviously hearing this night after night has got to them.  

Overall, though, the band delivered exactly how we expected them to. Except for a section where Howard returned to his DJ days while the rest of the band (including Gary) danced their complex routines that seemed a bit out of place, their performance ticked all the boxes.

It was an all-dancing, all-singing 90s fest with all their previous hits, and a little bit of new material thrown in, we even found ourselves tapping our feet and – heaven forbid – enjoying ourselves a little during their well-known tracks.

If only Sophie Ellis Bextor could do something similar. To be fair, though, that would require her to have some kind of back catalogue – although that’s not stopping the release of her forthcoming Greatest Hits album, due in 2008.

[story by Alex O'Hagan]