Team hecklerspray likes to bond over a game of croquet and snifter of port, but not Take That. Take That like group wanking sessions. Or at least they did. Honestly.

Because Take That’s fans were all twelve when they split up, it probably wasn’t best letting that sort of sordid information cripple their ears. But we’re all grown up now so, yes, Take That did all used to masturbate furiously together. Happy now?

When people meet for the first time, it can be slightly awkward. After asking someone what their name is, what they do for a living, who their favourite death metal band is and what they had for tea the previous evening, conversation can get slightly stale. So what happens next?

In what sounds like the making of a second-rate low-budget porn film, it appears that the manly men of Take That used this lull in the conversation to whip out their cocks and tug away at themselves.

Talking to Q magazine, Howard Donald revealed that he and former bandmate Robbie Williams had a wank session together when the band started out, saying:

“It were me and Rob… it only happened once.”

We aren’t sure if it was in a hotel room, a bedroom or a room where naughty boys are sent. Still, it is slightly peculiar to indulge in that sort of behaviour with your fellow man.

Maybe they were in a hotel together without a swimming pool and they desperately wanted to see who could survive underwater the longest without drowning. Perhaps we are wrong to judge and should applaud them for inventing such a creative game of wank endurance.

But it gets worse. If it wasn’t enough spreading each other’s seed around, some of the more nervous members sat and watched. Mark Owen added:

“That was an odd one, that. I think I was more of an observer.”

No Mark, you’re all odd. Though with a new single coming out in March it is one of the strangest promotional techniques we’ve read in a while. You’re all utter freaks.

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Apparently this is a desire that many of us share, which is why M&S has decided to ward off economic collapse by advertising Christmas using its normal collection of models in conjunction with Take That, who Happen To Have An Album Out. And what fun they all seem to be having – look, there’s Twiggy greeting the boys with a welcome note that looks like used to be used for holding children to ransom! Look, there’s Mark Owen trying to distract everyone from the fact he resembles Old Man Steptoe more and more with every passing day by cuddling a tinselly puppy!

Look, there’s the startlingly masculine model acting out Bernie Clifton: The Motion Picture during a game of charades! Look, there’s everyone getting progressively drunker and drunker until they inevitably end up in a disgusting swingers’ orgy where Lily Cole will have to end up with the tinselly dog because Robbie Williams isn’t in the band any more!

Look, M&S, you’ve gone about this all wrong. Christmas is about goodwill to all men. And what sort of goodwill do you think you’re promoting by waiting a full 77 seconds before letting Noemi Lenoir get her bra out? You utter sods.

Is that what happened, though? No – thanks to the Brits' stringent 'don't let Ozzy Osbourne say more than three words in a row' policy, the only vaguely controversial thing the Osbournes brought to the Brit awards was the way that Sharon Osbourne's face looked as if it had been attacked by jellyfish in her sleep.

Oh, and Leona Lewis didn't win any of the four Brit awards she was nominated for. That's sort of controversial, isn't it? Anyone?

The Brit Awards always manage to scrape at least one stand-out moment, whether it's Jarvis Cocker mooning Michael Jackson, that Tubthumping bloke lobbing water at a politician or Joss Stone acting like the world's biggest anus. There was plenty of scope for controversy at last night's Brits, too – Ozzy Osbourne wanted to violently attack Heather Mills, for example, and the puffy-cheeked chimney sweep from Kaiser Chiefs got in a strop because people thought he was quite a lot crapper than he thought he was – but nothing came of it. 

In fact, aside from a brief display by Vic Reeves reinforcing why he isn't famous any more, the Brit awards were so utterly incident-free that we wish we spent two hours doing something a bit more worthwhile, like trying to burp the national anthem or crying.

So, without anything interesting to discuss, the Brits can be boiled down to two things – the performances and the awards. The awards went to the artists you expected them to – Take That got a couple, Foo Fighters got a couple, Arctic Monkeys got a couple, Mark Ronson won one – and Mika and Kate Nash also won a Brit each, although they weren't so much 'expected' as 'horribly, horribly wrong'.  

Sad old X Factor winner Leona Lewis didn't win a jot, though, despite being nominated for four Brits – Best Breakthrough, Best Female, Best Album and Best Single. Leona's losses might have been down to music industry snobbery – she won a talent show contest, after all – or a backlash because you can't listen to any local radio station for more than 30 seconds without hearing Bleeding Love any more.

And then there are the performances. Despite the much-trumpeted musical collaborations at this year's Brit awards, nothing really clawed out of the realms of mediocre. Mika wanked around like a little girl hopped up on Um Bongo at a karaoke party with Beth Ditto. Rihanna and Klaxons sounded like one of those dreary mash-ups that were popular six years ago. Mark Ronson, Adele, Daniel Merriweather and Amy Winehouse made Version sound even more Stars On 45s-y than usual and Kaiser Chiefs were upstaged by some tiny buildings.

And let's not forget that Paul McCartney finished the evening with the same four-hour version of Hey Jude that he closes every single bloody event he's ever invited to with.

So that was the Brits 2008. Woo hoo. Let's put in an early motion to get Joss Stone to host next year's show. And let's fill her dressing room with Special Brew beforehand. At least that way we'll have something to talk about afterwards.

Read more:

Leona Loser - Mirror 

In fact, all the acts that scooped the most Brit Award nominations are just sugar-free versions of older performers. The three biggest Brit nod-getters were Mika (Freddie Mercury lite), Leona Lewis (Whitney Houston lite) and Take That (Take That lite).

But don't worry – the Brits also had something for you indie kids too. The Eagles are up for Best International Album. That's The Eagles.

The Brit Awards are traditionally the jewel in the crown of the British music industry calendar, when everyone gathers together to celebrate the best music that this grey little island can produce and then goes home mumbling that it wasn't as good as last year.

And although they're wrong – the worst the Brits ever got were whenever Ben Elton was allowed to be the host – this year looks set to be the best ever because the Osbournes are hosting! Yeah! That means danger and excitement and rock and roll, even though the Osbournes are actually a shaking, forgetful old man, the star of a Saturday teatime singing contest, some girl from a musical and a part-time rock climber. Danger!

However, it doesn't matter how dangerous the Osbournes are because the Brits nominations have just been announced and the likely winners are all so doggedly personality-free that the evening promises to be less fun than a regional barometer convention.

Don't believe us? OK – let's look at the acts that got multiple Brits nominations. There's Take That, the greying reformed boyband up for Best Group, Best Album and Best Live Act. Thought Gary Barlow was a wildchild when he was a kid? Well you should see him now that he's in his mid-thirties! There's Mika (Best British Male, Best Album, Best Breakthrough, Best Single), whose biggest ambition seems to be to write songs for gruesome hen-night parties to screech at full volume on their way to Wetherspoons in a tatty white rented limo.

Then there's Kate Nash, up for Best British Female, Best Breakthrough and Best Single, which means that hopefully she'll be able to give up her day job as a monotone Claire's Accessories Saturday girl. And then there's Leona Lewis (Best British Female, best Album, Best Breakthrough, Best Single) who somehow managed to make the UK's fastest-selling debut album ever, even though no living human has ever heard her say more than three words in a row.

Still, there are a handful of decent acts with Brits nominations, like Arcade Fire and Jamie T and PJ Harvey, so maybe the Brits won't be as completely boring as we're expecting them to be. But, let's face it they won't win. It looks a lot like the 2008 Brits will go down in history as the most grimly professional Brits ever.

Joss Stone, we've never needed you more. Start drinking now.

Read more: 

The Brits – The Nominations - Sky

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] 

Robbie's biggest fan is his mum, and she spoke to the illustrious Stoke Sentinel about Robbie's Take That return. She's probably a more reliable source of information than Robbie Williams, too, because we've always got the feeling he'd say he went down on a horse if it gave him an ounce of extra publicity.

Robbie's mum said:

"On the question of him doing something with them, I feel that will happen. It would be something he wanted to do."

Well, getting your mum to do your PA work for you is new for Mr. Williams, who normally just gets his head fried with drugs and then goes to rehab and blubbers to the tabloids about his 'hell'. Personally we'd prefer to see Robbie's old-school, sad masochistic destructive form of promoting his albums.

His much publicised fall-out with Take That singer Gary Barlow might stand in the way of a reunion, but these two media whores will gladly let bygones be bygones if it gets them mentioned by the 3am girls. Robbie has continuously denied he would rejoin the group, but seeing as how his last album was panned by critics and Take That's album was a commercial success, a reunion looks very likely, especially when his mum added:

"I'm thrilled that out of all the negative stuff that happened in the past, there's now something great happening".

Well, keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks, as there will probably be some response from Robbie's agent soon. In the meantime Take that will be arranging the necessary changes to their touring schedule, such as finding arenas which can fit Robbie's huge stomach and unbearably big ego, along with buying every packet of Walkers Crisps they can find.

Read more:

Robbie Williams Might Rejoin Take That – NME

[story by Paul McLoughlin]