No Rock And Roll Fun

CROAKING: He had been due to join Geri Halliwell on stage for a breast cancer benefit, but George Michael's got "laryngitis" and has had to pull out. He's going to send a big cheque to the charity instead - fifty grand, which is a small price to pay for not having to share a stage with Halliwell.

What's astonishing, though, is this would have been George's first proper performance since Net Aid. Remeber Net Aid? It was one of those well-intentioned attempts to recreate the spirit of Live Aid; this one, as the name implies, was an early attempt to try and pull the power of the internet together to create a global feel-good event. We remember watching it on TV, but we didn't bother to log on because we knew that with our (then quite typical) dial-up connection it wasn't going to be anything other than a jerky, quirky mess - and the whole thing did flop quite badly. The original aim was a billion hits; they ended up issuing press releases claiming a success with just over two million visits, and were keeping very quiet about how much they raised. In the end, Michale wouldn't let his performance be shown on TV because it was rubbish. There is a Netaid still on the web, but it seems to have put its start behind it.



They did get Cerys to pop along, though ("watched by countrywoman Catherine Zeta Jones").