Take That’s Prodigal Son and Stoke’s most irritating son Robbie Williams has been waking up in the night covered in a liquid that isn’t his own urine according to The Daily Star. In an interview with Britain’s least believable paper, Williams prophesied that he might be a target for terrorists because he’s so completely important.

The egotist, who recently returned to the warming, Northern embrace of his former Take That, has been  having trouble sleeping recently and instead of taking a Night Nurse and keeping his massive flapping trap shut, he decided to give an “exclusive” to a woeful Red Top.

Luckily, he’s been having dreams that even Joseph & His Technicolour Fraud Coat wouldn’t have any trouble analysing.

Poor ol’ Robbie says that he can’t remember the last time he had bad dreams. We’re not experts on the Rapid Eye Movement of celebrities but we’d hazard that his last bout of nightmares was what prompted him to believe he was Sammy Davis Jr. & release ‘Swing When You’re Winning’. Still, the snivelling little rodent believes he’s part of a different Rat Pack now, one being funnelled into a killing field by a “certain paramilitary group”.

He told some lobotomised hack;

“I had a dream the other night that a sectarian group was trying to kill me. I have not had a nightmare like that for a long time, forever really, but a certain paramilitary group came to kill me.”

A certain paramilitary group. Could have been any of them so hecklerspray used our underground network of contacts to find out if any terrorist organisations were employing dream assassins. Yes, dream assassins. Haven’t you seen Inception? Of the sixteen worldwide paramilitary groups we contacted, fifteen asked us who Robbie Williams was while a representative of “The Real IRA” said;

“Fuck off, we have better things to do.”

Ayda Field’s husband (that’s Robbie, apparently) needed the reassuring sight of a relative to remind him that he was very much alive and still an incredibly rich man;

“I suddenly woke up and saw my brother-in-law Rich from Stoke-on-Trent at the bottom of my stairs at my home in LA and knew everything was all right.”

The paramilitary group responsible for this attack will have to step up its efforts if it wants to avoid another ‘Rudebox’ incident. Hang on a second, do the NME have a paramilitary wing? We’ll get them on the phone and get back to you*.

Williams has admitted to spells of paranoia in the past and spent a summer holed up in his Los Angeles mansion, before emerging disguised in a gorilla suit and wearing a pair of sunglasses. Suggestions that this may have been due to an over-indulgence in a certain white powder were refuted, despite obviously being true**.

*NME’s lawyers would like us to point out that they are not in the habit of forming paramilitary wings in order to assassinate celebrities who are stealing column inches from The Kaiser Chiefs. Protesting too much?

**Legal Note: Robbie Williams has never even seen cocaine, let alone snorted loads of it to make himself feel like Dean Martin.

And here we are again. You all look so incredibly tired.

So before we begin, let’s really think to ourselves – what do we really WANT from episode 2 of The X Factor 2011? Because so far, nobody has really got what they want, have they? Nobody really voluntarily asks for Kelly Rowland, for example. Nobody really wants Gary Barlow to be angry to them before 9pm.

Hopefully this week, things will change for the better. We would like to see integrity. We would like to see a jazz singer sing an ironic version of She Wolf. We would like to see at least three testicles. But most importantly, we would like X Factor to bring us a window of entertainment that preceeds an ENTIRE EVENING with Will Young, preferably singing low-key versions of his amazing selection of pop hits, preferably in a tuxedo. Hey. What can we say? We dare to dream.

Actually, sod that – can we have a talent programme which circles entirely around the cinematic technique of  a montage sequence instead? It’ll be like watching a Shane Meadows film or something. EXCEPT WITH GLAMOUR!

We are greeted by the usual selection of bints all wanting to make their dreams come true as usual. Like the selfish bints that they are. Bints. Just get a job at Costa, and buy a keytar like the rest of us, why don’t you. This goes on for quite a while. Dermot O’Leary is for some reason overlooking these proceedings, equipped with a brand new monologue about how a large quantity of people are standing outside a building waiting to sing an acapella Jason Derulo song. Doesn’t Dermot O’Leary crave a better life sometimes? Jesus, Dermot. Just get a job at Costa and buy a keytar like the rest of us.

The judges are introduced to us once again, just in case we were by any chance excited about that. Kelly Rowland, Gary Barlow, Louis Walsh and Tulisa Consideryourselfoneofus-StavrosFlatley.

After a few lonely months, a couple of brutal divorce battles, some mild alcohol poisoning, and the fading of a strange pigmentation issue on our upper thigh, the first contestant of tonight’s show is eventually introduced. He is called Johnny Robinson, which sounds like one of those names that was made up on the spot to get out of a tricky situation. Don’t worry, JOHNNY. Your secret’s safe with us, JOHNNY.

‘Johnny’. Brilliant.

‘Johnny Robinson’ is one of those rare male hybrids who is a cross between John Inman and that lad from that C4 Boy Who’s Skin Fell Off documentary. Oh, and he has a personality. This could potentially get charismatic, so put on an extra jumper for this bit.

He sings ‘At Last’ (by Katie Waissel) for the judges, and is ultimately amazing. He sounds like Orville the Duck and everybody absolutely adores him for it. One of the Mature 2008 Take That Albums plays in the background as his verdict is revealed. But only an instrumental version, because Gary Barlow is humble. He gets through.

Another montage now. Everyone is kissing everyone else on the lips, like we’re in bloody Basic Instinct or something. Disgusting. This is followed by another audition, just as a rare treat. Oh no wait, it’s just a disguise for an audition which is actually another bit about how some people in the world like to bone each other sometimes. What is happening? Don’t the X Factor producers know that they have a registered sex offender on the judging panel this year? Things start off pretty normally. The auditionee in question sings a Kings of Leon song badly (WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN THE WORLD EVER) and then a man comes on stage and asks him to marry her, in a crazed act of unscripted, love-driven spontaneity. It’s a lovely moment for a show which is usually so intently driven to be all about the music, so we simply have nothing else to add, except congratulations. Congratulations for pretending to love your girlfriend so she would get through her X Factor audition.

Up next is Derry, who is black. But that’s cool, because ITV1 totally get that, and play some 90s Will Smith records over the top of him so that Derry will more likely feel at home. We also learn that Derry voluntarily likes Kelly Rowland. In fact, he voluntarily likes Kelly Rowland to the point where he is actually excited to meet Kelly Rowland, which is a bit of a new one on us. ITV1 obligingly celebrate this fact with getting Kelly Rowland to film herself in a dark room blowing kisses for him, which really puts the whole concept of ‘money’ into perspective.

Derry has brought 800 people with him all wearing DERRY HAS THE X FACTOR T-SHIRTS. They look fantastic. If anybody knows where you can get hold of those things, please contact us because we really would like to know. Topman only do knitted versions of it, and quite frankly we were hoping for something a little more breezy.

Derry goes up for his audition and sleazily sleazes to Kelly Rowland about how great her vagina is, or whatever. Jesus, is this the X Factor or CASABLANCA tonight?? He sings an acapella Usher song. Kelly Rowland effectively tells him to sod off and join JLS. In fact, all of the judges tell Derry to change little aspects of himself. Because celebrating who you are as a person is so very 2010, you know. You wouldn’t catch Official Representative of Modernism in Western Culture Tulisa pulling shit like that now, would you? Nonetheless, Derry gets through, and also gets a cheeky kiss on the cheek from Kelly. The sweat on our collars is LITERALLY LIKE THE NILE.

At this point, we’re approximately in the second trimester of the show, and all that really seems to happen in these moments is Kelly Rowland changing the title of The X Factor to ‘The Cool Factor’, some obligatory Louis Walsh is Harmlessly Gay match cuts, the ‘record scratch’ joke still being like BILL HICKS X 1000, and the Polar Bear off the Birdseye advert developing some sort of horrific advanced level of Schizophrenia.

But now everything is fine, because we’re in LIVERPOOL now! Yes, Liverpool! In Liverpool! Dermot boasts that ‘they’ve never been to Liverpool before’ on the X Factor. Presumably to try and comb over that pretty heavy Ray Quinn situation they got themselves into a few years ago. Gary Barlow proclaims that if they don’t find an X Factor star in Liverpool he will literally and definitely not figuratively eat his own suit, which is such an incredibly crazy thing to say. Still though, if you think about it, Gary Barlow does look exactly like the sort of person who readily eats his suits, so all in all – pretty plausible statement.

But lo and behold, the first auditionee from Liverpool doesn’t sing very well at all, despite the fact that Paul McCartney is from Liverpool and DOES sing well, which is pretty confusing. He has a nice collar, and has quite a pleasing blonde hue to his hair however, so still makes it on to TV. An overweight man tries his luck instead, which obviously can’t work because he’s a bit overweight. AND they’re playing Razorlight over the top of him as if he were in a Louis Theroux documentary about Death Row. Regardless of this, the overweight man WHO DOESN’T DESERVE A NAME (but if he did, we assume it would probably be something along the lines of ‘Craig’) comes on to the stage and tells everyone about how he is from Liverpool. The audience absolutely crap themselves with excitement that someone from Liverpool is auditioning at the X Factor auditions in Liverpool. Even Brian Cox would probably admit he couldn’t fully measure the universal aspects of that one.

Craig tells the judges that he works in a biscuit factory, presumably not knowing that you’re not meant to take  taunts from people in the street literally. Then in a shock twist, it turns out that the slight fat does not obstruct his lungs after all and he sings a lovely Adele song to the delight of the entire of Planet Earth. All of the judges tell him how they didn’t expect him to sing well, because what were the odds that after Susan Boyle, there was actually another talented, unattractive person in the midst of our hemisphere after all? Another disappointment from Brian Cox this evening.

Next up, X Factor remind us that they also let groups audition for their show too. A duo called ‘The Duos’ (POST-MODERNTACULAR!) are just one of these. They sing badly and everyone laughs at them. Gary Lucifer Barlow shoots them a disapproving glare. So a group called ‘BROMA5NCE’ (*Google explodes out of confusion *) try their luck instead, but unfortunately have not picked up any of the Beatles overwhelming musical talents despite being a band from Liverpool, which is yet again devastatingly bad luck. Still, Broma5nce is definitely the name of our next budgie, so it’s not all bad.

Another horrific moment from Louis, as he mistakes a masculine looking woman in a checkered shirt for being an actual man, even though the Guinness World Records clearly state that Louis Walsh was the guy who pitched the whole idea of lesbians in the first place anyway.

Eventually, things begin to stagger (jagger) to a halt, and we begrudgingly listen to the words of our final auditionee of the night, Misha Bryan. Take it away, Misha! Misha is a poor, penniless girl who sobs dramatically to the camera about how she is so skint she has to humiliate herself by travelling on Arriva buses sometimes. ITV1 apparently have a clause where X Factor contestants are not allowed to wipe away their tears, and the poor girl is Sinead O Connorring all over the ruddy shop. Eventually, they let her sing a song called ‘RESPECT’ by an old woman called ‘ARETHA FRANKLIN’ (*Google explodes out of confusion*) and does a rap too. Just like how Cher Lloyd used to rap. Seriously, it’s like the world is shrinking.

Coming up next week!

More people go on stage and sing, but we will most likely never get to see that. AND – to give our internal organs an extra bit of a kick, we we will be teaching you how to play your very own home-version of the Kelly Rowland cocaine-taking game!

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!

Take That are bunch of drips, aren’t they? If they’re not gyrating around in front of millions of middle-aged women or complaining about press intrusion in effete Northern accents, they’re having little panic attacks about getting felt up by giant robots. Or something like that.

Their latest woe has come in the form of a little bit of lightning which gave the lads the heebie-jeebies when their tour plane was lightly struck by it ahead of the start of the European leg of their Progress tour. Oh no! Did they survive the ordeal?!

Of course they did.

The band were travelling to their opening show in Milan when their plan hit bad turbulence at 35,000 ft. Planes never hit anything at anything less than 30,000ft. It’s a rule set down by aeronautical disaster films since the beginning of time. Seriously, you could skim a plane along the ground and it would be in less danger of running into something than at the dreaded 35,000 ft.

Of course, there’s no difference in the feeling of turbulence to the plane actually being struck by lightning. It’s not as though the wings were sheered off by the wrath of an angry god. The plane was hit by a pretty routine bit of weather. Planes are hit by lightning all the time because they have some pathological desire to fly in the ‘danger zone’ of 35,000 ft.

Some nincompoop told the Daily Mirror;

“The plane took off fairly normally, though we knew there was bad weather ahead, but mid way during the flight the turbulence was really quite frightening. Then suddenly, there was a bright flash, and the plane had obviously been struck by lightning.”

Obviously. That being said, the Take That lads were obviously and visually shaken up by the affair with Robbie Williams questioning why the strike didn’t leave them all with super powers before Mark Owen pointed out that they had always had the ability to induce the menopause in any woman over the age of thirty.

The incident was no doubt an act of God, the great and benevolent ruler in the sky that some of you believe in. However, why would God do such a thing?

A spokesman for God told hecklerspray;

“Well, that’s what you get when you release a ‘special edition’ of your old album and try to pass it off as a completely new one in order to grind more shekels out of your fanbase.”

Take note, pop stars. God is watching.

Once upon a time, bands and artists were nominated for musical awards based on the merit of the audio they committed to LPs. Now, it seems that you can predict the nominees for ceremonies months in advance. Lady Gaga could release an album where she tapes herself constructing a shelf. It could sell bugger-all, but if a good marketing campaign backs it up, then some idiot will buy it.

Hooray for the humble PR team, the people who are paid to promote artists and generate advertising for them at inappropriate times – such as Take That on every single TV show and advert when opportunity becomes available.

Given that, let us offer our worthless opinion for this year’s nominations that had a great marketing team, appeared at festivals or featured in trashy magazines.

It isn’t all bad news though, we can happily report that Muse didn’t receive any nominations and nobody on the Brit committee decided to award Michael Jackson another post-death statue.

However, just like fans of the two artists mentioned, the ceremony will be devoid of laughs and personality as James Corden attempts to host. Perhaps he’ll just resort to running around with belly out for a couple of cheap thrills. Oh how the O2 arena will erupt into a lol frenzy.

Looking at the lists in all the categories, one thing stands out to us (once we cast aside any musical prejudice).

Every single person is instantly recongnisable and seemingly nominated because they’ve sold a bucket load of records. Of course, this seems obvious as “pop” is short for “popular”, but amazingly, there are all sorts of hidden gems that never get played, mainly because the music industry is close to imploding. Anyone daring to play something or even experimental may find it backfires and ends up short on sales.

Therefore, household names like Cheryl “coz am worth it pet” Cole, Eminem and the Glee Cast are being handed nominations on a plate. Cole’s album is nothing more than a ropey cash-in based on the seeming love for the electro sound and songs all about her marriage. As for Eminem? He did that song with the lovely Rihanna, focusing on happy themes such as domestic violence, even though he did something similar with Dido on the track Stan. And Glee? Well, that is nothing more than sugar coated karaoke featuring children who look innocent and sweet, but they’d probably form a crime syndicate if they weren’t actors.

Even though “celebrity” is muscling in on the modern day award ceremony with rock n roll behavior being classed as staying up till 2AM and squirting someone with ketchup, a small lifeline to music is still being offered.

Best Producer may throw up names that aren’t instantly recogniseable, but without these people, half the records on the shelves wouldn’t be there. Whilst bands might be able to pluck a guitar sweetly, they mightn’t have the technical ability and skills to record the sounds, subsequently arranging and manipulating audio in to songs. Whilst a band may have four official members, the unknown fifth is always the producer.

The Brits always offers supposed change and diversity, but these categories are still the same old boring ones we’re used to seeing. Why not dedicate something towards new artists by having an award for “best debut album”. Best breakthrough is a basic term for “artist who became really popular and sold loads of records”. Elsewhere, “best independent label” wouldn’t go a miss, so recognition could be shown to labels actively hunting and promoting underground music.

Or thinking out of the box completely, looking at sub-genres in established genres, such as the currently popular dubstep in electronic music.

Come the time the awards are dished out, we probably won’t feel any more excitement than we currently do. Saying that, as long as lovely Rihanna wins, that’ll make us happy. The full nominations below:

BRITISH MALE SOLO ARTIST
Mark Ronson
Paul Weller
Plan B
Robert Plant
Tinie Tempah

BRITISH FEMALE SOLO ARTIST
Cheryl Cole
Ellie Goulding
Laura Marling
Paloma Faith
Rumer

BRITISH BREAKTHROUGH ACT
Ellie Goulding
Mumford & Sons
Rumer
Tinie Tempah
The xx

BRITISH GROUP
Biffy Clyro
Gorillaz
Mumford & Sons
Take That
The xx

BRITISH SINGLE
Alexandra Burke ft Pitbull – All Night Long
Cheryl Cole – Parachute
Florence & The Machine – You’ve Got The Love
Matt Cardle – When We Collide
Olly Murs – Please Don’t Let Me Go
Plan B – She Said
Scouting for Girls – This Ain’t A Love Song
Taio Cruz – Dynamite
Tinie Tempah – Pass Out
The Wanted – All Time Low

MASTERCARD BRITISH ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
Plan B – The Defamation of Strickland Banks
Take That – Progress
Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy
The xx – XX

INTERNATIONAL MALE SOLO ARTIST
Bruce Springsteen
Cee Lo Green
David Guetta
Eminem
Kanye West

INTERNATIONAL FEMALE SOLO ARTIST
Alicia Keys
Katy Perry
Kylie Minogue
Rihanna
Robyn

INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH ACT
Bruno Mars
Glee Cast
Justin Bieber
The National
The Temper Trap

INTERNATIONAL GROUP
Arcade Fire
Black Eyed Peas
Kings of Leon
The Script
Vampire Weekend

INTERNATIONAL ALBUM
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
Eminem – Recovery
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream
Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown

CRITICS’ CHOICE
Jessie J
James Blake
The Vaccines

BRITISH PRODUCER
Ethan Johns
John Leckie
Markus Dravs
Mike Pela
Stuart Price

For some inexplicable reason, some people look toward popstars as some kind of bastion of good. Really, our singers and songwriters are court jesters, there to entertain us with song, dance and, with any luck, their private lives.

Probably the main reason for 99% of young men getting into music is to have sex with people. Of course, they tell you that they want to make an artistic statement, but really, the closest thing they get to that is expressionist smears and wet-patches on various hotel bedsheets.

And so, it comes as absolutely no surprise that another popper has been accused of sticking his wang up a lady’s front garden when perhaps he shouldn’t. The surprise is, is that it’s Take That’s lisping thrust-machine, Howard Donald.

Yes indeed. The High Court has lifted the super injunction ‘gagging order’ that has kept Howard Donald’s DIRTY MUCKY FILTHY MUCKY SEXY DIRTY ROMPY DIRTY FILTHY MUCKY secret safe for months.

Basically, what has happened here is that Howard Donald had an affair with a musician called Adakini Ntuli. Okay? Good. We personally think its a bit crappy. We want our popstars to indulge in mass orgies while hoovering up high grade cocaine in penthouses made from solid gold.

Anyway, in March, Ms Ntuli sent him a text message reading:

“Why shud I continue 2 suffer financially 4 the sake of loyalty when selling my story will sort my life out?”

She then decided to toddle off to Max Clifford’s office and start brokering a deal. Sadly for those wanting to make some cash from Howard Donald’s erections, the scuppers were put onto the whole show.

Howard successfully applied for an interim injunction, handed down by Mr Justice Eady which banned any reporting of the proceedings and prevented his relationship with Adakini Ntuli becoming public knowledge.

Until now, because presumably, it is now in the public interest seeing as Take That have a new album out and a massive and very expensively ticketed tour to promote.

Of course, this is all rumour and hearsay, but y’know, it’ll give people the chance to coo and grumble about just how Howard seemed like a nice bloke and all that rubbish. Too nice if you ask us. We want more decadent behaviour from our celebrities thankyouverymuch.

The judgment refers to a “clash of human rights” in which Mr Donald sought to maintain his right to privacy and Ms Ntuli relied on her right to the freedom of expression.

So there you go. You all probably could’ve had sex with a member of Take That if you were discreet, but now they’ll all be saying how much they’ve grown and learned from mistakes, leaving our most precious boyband to turn into boring, evangelical singers who have shunned the trappings of game.

Thanks for nothing Ms Ntuli. You’ve gone and spoiled it for everyone.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

The trouble with asking any question with “Did you know…?” is that you’ll always get a smart-arse that says “I did actually, yes,” before you’ve even finished your sentence. Suffice to say, these articles are aimed at those that don’t so they can coo “Oooh! That’s interesting!”

And so, today’s unknown covers special looks at Take That. The boys did a few cover versions in their time – some improving the original, some almost identical… and one in particular, so woeful that you’ll wish humans had never evolved ears.

Even if you have one of Britain’s most talented pop-song writers on board, you can still find time to take someone else’s song… and in the case of Take That, turn them into gigantic hits.

And so, Take That and covers?

If you don’t know that they did anything outside of a Bee Gees tune, this list could be very surprising and interesting indeed.

Let us stop this yakking and get on with listening to some music. As ever, if there’s any missed, feel free to link us all up in the comments.

We’d like that a lot.

Barry Manilow ‘Could It Be Magic?’

Barry Manilow is a rare old bird. He hit big with a mixture of disco and singer-songwritery pop. His ‘Mandy’ was, of course, covered badly by Westlife. Or was it Boyzone? Do we even care as they were effectively the same thing? Anyway, Take That covered his epic show-stopper, ‘Could It Be Magic?’ and took it from being a maudlin, inspired by Bach piece into a camp as you like pop smash.

Tavares ‘It Only Takes A Minute’

You might know Tavares as the disco outfit that did ‘Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel’, but their first big hit was ‘It Only Takes A Minute’ which of course, provided Britain with another gigantic pop record. Of course, we’re talking about convicted sex-offender, Jonathan King. However, Take That’s version blew-up and everyone knows their version best… apart from hardcore Tavares fans and stubborn record collector types who refuse to acknowledge anything that makes them look like anything but a contrarian.

Dan Hartman ‘Relight My Fire’

Whiteboy discoer, Dan, is probably best remembered for his hit, ‘Instant Replay’, but again, it took Take That to get a hold of one of his hits and turn into something truly global. Take That effectively revived the career of Lulu with this, which is no bad thing.

Bee Gees ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’

When the entire world sobbed it’s daft little heart out when Take That split-up, they bowed out with a cover of an already famous Bee Gees song (taken from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack). Take That’s was a decent enough version, but disappointing seeing as they’d released their best work to date with ‘Back For Good’ and the Should Have Been The Last Single As It Sounds Like A Decent Farewell of ‘Never Forget’. ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’ sounded like a bit of a damp squib. That said, they got back together so everything worked out okay in the end.

And, just because everyone needs to see how awful Take That covering Nirvana sounds…

Take That did a number of cover versions in their lives shows, with a relatively well received Beatles medley on one tour. However, Gary Barlow being asked to sing like Kurt Cobain is a stretch even for him.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

When Robbie Williams left Take That, the news was so seismic that a rubbish punk band called The Pin Ups wrote a song about it called ‘Robbie Left Take That’. It wasn’t long before Take That called it a day and This Morning had an all-morning grieve-in for people who didn’t realise that the band’s departure didn’t mean their CDs would self-destruct.

And then, after Gary Barlow and Mark Owen’s solo careers fizzled out, Robbie began to conquer the world… except for America which broke him in two, leaving him bloated and dead-eyed.

This all lead to a very successful Take That reunion and then eventual offering of an olive branch to Robbie Williams, currently of no fixed talent.

After Robbie sang some Take That songs at The Brits, it was obvious they would reunite and this year, being the 20th anniversary of the band as a fivesome, Robbie’s on-board once again and going on the road with his old chums and sparring partners.

However, it nearly wasn’t to be thanks to Robbie Williams having toothache.

Williams told breakfast show DJ Chris Moyles:

“I was very nervous because there were four of them. I came so close to not going because I had toothache that night and I’d just taken a painkiller. I was quite large as well, and I thought I can’t go mumbling, looking like Elvis.

“I’d said some nasty things about Gaz. What do I do if I go in, is he harbouring anything? So the missus pushed me through the door.”

Then, in what appears to be a rare moment of candid truthery, Williams added:

“I spent the last 15 years thinking what I was going to say. We had that big chat and the most amazing thing happened at the end of it, we both said sorry to each other and we both meant it.

“That’s all we needed. It just lifted so much off my shoulders that I didn’t know was still there.”

“It was the start of a very magical 18 months that we’ve had since then, writing songs together, getting to know each other.

“It’s nice being able to be grown-ups and hear each other and say sorry because not many people can do that.”

Gary Barlow responded:

“All these things had been built up for so long, they just sounded stupid as they were coming out. We just needed to sit opposite each other and talk.

“I think we had a lot of guilt, the four of us, because Rob was the youngest, the most impressionable of all of us. We always felt like we didn’t look after him enough. If there was one big thing we sat and regretted it was always that.”

Robbie and Gary confirmed that Take That had recorded an album together (untitled at the minute) which will be released in November. And there’s talk of a tour.

Barlow said:

“We’re talking about a tour right now – hopefully next summer we will tour.

Williams added:

“There’s some stuff on the cards but there’s only so much we can talk about now. There’s big plans in the works, but when, where and what we’re not allowed to say. Plus we don’t really know.”

We, as leeches in the media, can only hope that this whole thing is a disaster filled with bitterness, ill-feeling and fist-fights. For the record, we reckon that Jason Orange is secretly the hardest in Take That as he can combine his dancing skills with martial arts to kick people’s heads clean off their bodies.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Married heterosexual men in their thirties were last night wondering why the sofa smelt of piss.

The smell appeared shortly after the news the news that Take That are to release a new album written and performed with overrated supper-club entertainer Robert ‘Robbie’ Williams.

“It’ll be just like the old days!” said one 37-year-old disappointed housewife desperate for 45 minutes escape from the crushing inevitability of her life married to an imbecile who wears a high-vis jacket for a living and who really REALLY wished she could be seventeen again just for a second and do everything differently.

“I’m over the moon that Robbie’s back with us, however long it lasts. I just want to enjoy our time with him. Life is beautifully strange sometimes,” said Jason Orange, the one remaining member of the outfit still poor enough to talk to the press. He needs the exposure.

Tragic women are gearing themselves up for an extravaganza of unseemly over-excitement at the ‘beautifully strange’ possibility of a tour that every SIA qualified crowd-control staff member in the country have privately described as ‘a fucking nightmare. Imagine a nationwide middle-aged hen-night. Christ’.

Gay men were unavailable for comment – one spoke to hecklerspray off the record expressing his extreme disappointment that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS ‘THAT WAY’ – a bitter disappointment after years of homoerotic videos that fortunately we will never see again what with their lower back complaints and the fact that at least two of them look like handsome tramps.

At time of publication, even normal women were tiring of their husbands’ insistence that I Am Kloot are shit now that they occasionally hear their new single played in Asda after telling anyone who’ll listen for the past ten years that they’re the best thing ever and are considering buying the new Take That album just to piss them off.

New Take That album feat. Robert ‘Robbie’ Williams currently has no release date.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

During their time in Take That, Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow enjoyed a particularly unique relationship.

People liked Robbie Williams, in general. And people thought that Gary Barlow was a fat idiot. But now times have changed, and people generally like Gary Barlow and think that Robbie Williams is a fat idiot, so that sounds like the perfect time for a reunion.

According to reports, Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow have teamed up for a duet that’ll appear on Robbie’s new greatest hits album. The rest of Take That were scheduled to appear on the track, but that idea was dropped when it emerged that two of them can’t sing and the other one was probably busy being balls-deep in a woman that he wasn’t married to at the time.

This, readers will probably remain the biggest news in all of music until the day that Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer from East 17 put aside their differences to record a glorious new follow-up to their hit Do U Still. That’s right – it may have been a while since they became friends again, and an eternity since they began their slightly nauseating “You’re so great” “No YOU’RE so great” moony-eyed mutual masturbation shtick, but Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow have finally recorded a song together. According to The Guardian:

Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow have reunited on record, the first time the pair have collaborated for 15 years. The former bandmates have written and recorded a track called Shame for Williams’s forthcoming greatest hits collection. The track was announced shortly after Williams, 36, and Barlow, 39, joined forces for a charity football match in aid of Unicef.

Now, don’t get too excited about this. Yes, it would be nice to see the two driving forces of the biggest British boyband from the 1990s patch up their tattered relationship and put out a song together, but don’t forget that the song isn’t due to be released until October, and this is Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow we’re talking about here.

In the next four months, who knows what’ll happen? Chances are Robbie Williams will decide that he hates Gary Barlow again, and grow a beard, and scrap his greatest hits album in favour of a conceptual piece involving him whispering the names of everybody who’s ever said anything nasty about him over some ice cream van music. And Gary Barlow might quit music to do whatever he can to get that knighthood he’s so transparently desperate for.

We can hope, anyway.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Christians around the world will be marking the day that Jesus casually strolled out of his tomb and blew everyone’s minds, by frenziedly heaping great big handfuls of chocolate egg into their mouths, whilst enjoying Mel Gibson’s rather angry take on The Life of Brian.

Yes sir, it’s going to be a great few days.

Anyway, in honour of this chocolatey holiday, we thought it high time we paid our respects to some other historical figures – more specifically, famous people – who have also risen from the dead. Only in a slightly less literal sense. They weren’t actually dead. They were just jobless for a wee bit.

John Travolta

After driving everyone wild with his groovy walking technique, and that odd hole in the middle of his chin in the late 1970s, John Travolta was the toast of Hollywood. And then he vanished. No one knew where he was. A hunch suggests that he was busily filling in Scientology questionnaires, and begging pilots to let him sit in the cockpit, but nothing is for certain. What is for certain, however, is that Quentin Tarantino kindly plucked him from retirement, and turned him into the new Marlon Brando. In that he was a bit fat.

Mickey Rourke

Rourke famously turned his back on acting in the 1990s to have his face repeatedly punched instead, and after some rather clumsy reconstructive surgery, he returned to acting looking a little bit like the Bride of Wildenstein’s husband. Hence, he has moved from playing kinky lotharios or charming gangsters, and now only chooses films which are subtle variations on the Quasimodo story. As it happens, there are lots of these.

Robert Downey Jr

Robert Downey Jr’s life – it’s a classic tale of boy becomes famous, boy takes lots of drugs, boy owns gun, boy goes to prison, boy takes drugs again, boy goes to prison again, boy takes more drugs, boy guest stars in Ally McBeal, boy has sex with people, boy takes drugs, boy pretends to sing Elton John song, boy becomes man, boy stops taking drugs, boy fills void from drugs with acting, boy gets acting roles, boy is Iron Man. All rather predictable really.

Kiefer Sutherland

With his long feathery Rod Stewart hair, Kiefer Sutherland enjoyed a wonderful 1980s – Lost Boys, Young Guns, Stand By Me, Bright Lights, Big City – and then suddenly, from nowhere, absolutely no one wanted Kiefer Sutherland any more. Not even Julia Roberts, who had agreed to marry him before cancelling the whole thing with less than a week to go. It was pretty bad. But then, of course, Kiefer had the last laugh, by rising from the ashes like a phoenix with a very husky voice to land the lead role in 24. And where’s Julia Roberts now? Does anyone even know?

Take That

As reinventions go, Take That morphing from topless young boys having their buttocks smeared in jelly, to stubbly grown men in expensive M&S suits is up there with the time MC Hammer decided that, actually, he’s a gangsta rapper. Unfortunately for Hammer, that comeback didn’t really work out, whilst the gentlemen in Take That are enjoying another warm blast in the sunshine. On the downside, it’s all gone slightly to the little one’s head, and he just can’t stop himself having it off with people who aren’t his wife. Every cloud… oh no, hang on, that doesn’t work here…

This was a guest post by Josh Burt from Interestment Comedy. Hooray!

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

We’ll tell you what he loves what he really really loves. Oops, wrong band there, and completely the wrong gender.

Saying that though, some of The Spice Girls looked like they could have been closet transsexuals didn’t they? Elsewhere, we had Take That – a watered down music act for girls to love.

Instead of telling girls to embrace their inner rebel, Take That made all girls drool from their chops. With a well-timed move here and a ripped shirt there, Take That had a massive audience, even if their songs were arse. Out of all the members, Robbie Williams stood out to all the band’s fans. Once he left, he went onto release a variety of albums, spot a variety of UFOs and – for the entirety of 2009 – smoke a variety of marijuana. He says it’s lovely, so therefore we think it is too.

Don’t believe us? Well, here’s a lovely comment made from the porky singer. Only now can we realise that making fun of his weight was cruel – it wasn’t his fault; it was because he had the munchies. Soon we’ll be apologising to ginger people when evidence emerges that their red hair comes from dipping it into lava. Anyway, Robbie said:

“Weed, it’s such a lovely drug. It is such a lovely drug. But it doesn’t mix well with me – at all.”

Doesn’t mix well? As in it’s a dangerous concoction like water and electricity, woman and technology or a Twilight fan with a grain of intelligence? Say it isn’t so, Robbie Williams. We wouldn’t want to lose you as a musician. After all, you’ve given such epic songs as erm… Rudebox, and that one where you sing about the year 2000

We think lots of stuff is lovely. Like the confused look on a puppy’s face when you squirt it with water, or when Page Three models try to give an informed opinion on the day’s news. But smoking marijuana? Come on Robbie, it isn’t the mid nineties again, you know. Back then, all the kids were spending their pocket money on drugs instead of chocolate. Have you just caught up now?

Perhaps you could educate the youth of today by giving up the drugs and telling them about the wonders of pie addiction. After all, there are so many different types. Pork, beef, apple and our favourite 3.14 with double cream. Add in a handful of chips and you’ll soon be a young porker like Robbie Williams. He may need to actually start doing this, as the drug charity types aren’t impressed about his marijuana promotion. David Gilbert, chief executive of drugs education and awareness charity DARE, said:

‘This is grossly irresponsible. He is a role model. Young people look up to him, they admire him, they want to emulate him so saying something like this is thoughtless.”

Can we suggest sending Robbie Williams to a desert island so he’ll never bother us again with his evil drug-taking antics? Actually, scratch that. Let’s send him to a dessert island instead! Haw haw.

Ahem.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

That’s about it. There’s nothing that we can add to this story apart from involuntary shuddering.

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.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

Christmas is a time to spend with family and friends. Or, failing that, a rubbishy old boyband from the 1990s and a gaggle of neatly age-diverse supermodels. And if you could spend it in what’s basically the hotel from The Shining just to make it even more super-depressing, why that’d be just dandy too.

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.

The Osbournes hosted the Brit awards last night, so the show promised to be jam-packed with enough controversy to turn your granny blue.

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 

Take That, the group of four 50-year-old men who get paid to sing the soundtrack to TV ads for low-rent supermarkets – have got a lot of Brit Award nominations.

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