FACED WITH A CHOICE, WE MAKE NO CHOICE

Radio 2's annual "choose a track, pay some money" 24 hour splurge is working its way through to the £750,000 mark; cash which goes towards Children In Need. (How did Pudsey lose his eye in the first place, though? We should be told).

What's puzzling about this, every year, though, is what people pay money to hear. The BBC Gramophone Library at their disposal, they put their hands in their pocket and ask for... Clocks, by Coldplay, the last time I tuned in.

Really? Someone is so desperate to hear Clocks they can't retune to another station or wait six hours or so until it's back to business as usual? Isn't there something they'd want to hear that they can't hear every five bloody minutes anyway?

On tonight's BBC Children In Need telethon, by the way, there's hijinks as BBC newsreaders dress up and try to pass themselves off as 70s popstars Queen, and Madonna takes her skirt off and tries to convince people she's 80s popstar Madonna.

But, hey, all our ribbing about Madonna not exactly being part of the club scene any more might have been a little cruel. At her post-gig party the other night she had a dance competition. Against, erm, Sharleen Spiteri and Stella McCartney.

music charity madonna children in need