Spice Girls sell out in seconds

The big switch-on for Spice Girls tickets happened earlier today, with the London date selling-out in 38 seconds, almost certainly a record for selling anything to do with Mel B.

We're presuming the story in today's claiming that Bono is writing a song for the band was a last-minute attempt to dampen demand to a point where the phones could cope.

Bono? Really? Writing a pop song?

Of course, it doesn't matter overmuch, as the Best Of will sell on the backs of the good songs from the first two albums rather than anything from the point where more time was spent styling the video than writing the lyrics, but Bono.

The Spice Girls are - okay, were - a burst of over-coloured pop frenzy. Has nobody noticed that when Bono attempts to be pop, and carefree, it comes across like a headmaster joining in an end-of-term revue in a bid to be thought of as a good egg? What motivation can there be for asking someone who wrote his last decent song before the Spice Girls were formed - indeed, before they were teenagers - to provide a song for a pop band?

Or is it an RDF life-swap series, and somewhere they've got Alison 'Betty Boo' Clarkson trying to knock up a song for Rage Against The Machine?