Girls Aloud could have done with another day, too

As you head back to your desks and swivel chairs at the end of a too-short bank holiday weekend, spare a thought for poor Girls Aloud, trapped in drudgery:

Nadine Coyle, 21, moans: "Your time's not your own. It's the other things that come first.

And the early mornings - we can't get used to them." And Sarah Harding, 23, chips in: "I'd much rather work from lunchtime right through the evening, rather than morning till five."

How unlike the happy little elves at play in Britain's factories and offices, who might work the same hours, but at least have the dignity of doing it day in, day bloody out, over and over, until they die, and don't have to cope with the shame of taking hundreds of thousands of pounds to the bank.