Liam Gallagher: Will pay to fight

It's perhaps inevitable that Liam Gallagher has been involved in an empty spat - he and Nicole Appleton have burned through £800,000 on divorce lawyers to end up with a judge saying split everything 50/50.

I know this might make the phrase "Liam Gallagher is living off royalties for Never Ever" slightly a stretch, but... Liam Gallagher is living off royalties for Never Ever.

The illustrated Hello: Peter and Paul

Oh. The first one is a bit of a challenge. Peter and Paul.

The general assumption is these are the Saints of the same name - how apt for today.



You could throw in a Mary and then you'd get this:



Saint Peter was the first Pope - and probably the only one who didn't preside over a Catholic Church that was full of financial and sexual irregularities; Saint Paul was a large city in Minnesota, birthplace of Charles Schultz - who crops up later on in the song via one of his more famous creations. And, across the river in the twin city, there's this chap:



And, erm, they're all saints, aren't they?



Hmm. Two names in and I'm already stretching it a little.

[Part of The illustrated Hello]

Gordon in the morning: Liam Gallagher's big hitch

Aah, sloppy old romantic pub-fighting Liam Gallagher marked Valentines Day by marrying Nicole Appleton, and Gordon Smart was there, or at least heard about it.

Ah, but what headline would you slap on such a story?

Oasis Liam's wed for it again

Sorry... what? He's got married for what? "It"? Sex? Was he saving himself until Nicole had a ring on his finger?

Accepting the headline doesn't actually make any sense, Smart crowbars in a reference to explain it:

“Mad for it” Liam...

Oh. Mad for it. Wed for it. Yes. Now we see.

Still, you can't blame Gordon, he's been busy, with a photo of the top of Jordan's nipple to somehow turn into news.

His colleagues turn their attention to Cheryl Cole. Again. You'll recall yesterday a picture of Cheryl in a bikini showed that she was stick-thin, dangerously underweight and at death's door. Twenty-four hours later, in (admittedly) a different bikini, she's looking

"well tanned, was joking – and appeared to be showing Chelsea ace Ashley, 27, just what he is missing."

Presumably she's had some sort of reverse liposuction.

The second Mrs Gallagher

The Mirror has picked out a special hat as it believes that Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton are getting married today.

Nicole celebrates by sharing a glimpse into life at the Gallagher home:

"When I see him strutting on to the stage I don't recognise him."

"He's like a lion tamer and with a crack of the whip he controls the fans.

"He can't do that to me. At home, I'm the lion tamer. Definitely."

We're not sure we'd peg Oasis' audience of beered-up men on the cusp of middle-aged spread as lions in need of taming; they're more like tapirs who need some help turning round. But we do appreciate the extravagant metaphor, even if it implies that Nicole - like lion tamers - dare never turn her back on the wild beast she shares a cage with.

The patience of a Saint

Not bothering to answer the pressing "yes, but why?" question, Shaznay and Mel from All Saints are still insisting the band is a going concern:

"We're still working closely together.

We don't know what next year holds but we could well do a comeback tour."

It's unclear if they mean the comeback tour that was originally going to happen at the start of this year, or if this is a comeback tour as a comeback from the collapse of the original comeback. After all, if it's meant to be part of the original comeback, doing it two years after the actual reunion might look less like a comeback, more like not taking a hint.

All Saints look to the future

You can't keep a good band down. You also, it seems, can't keep a bad one down, or a disappointingly reformed one. On their MySpace, All Saints insist they'll be carrying on, even until you hate The Beach as much as you hate the new stuff:

Hi everyone

First of all the four of us just want to say that we're really sorry you didn't get to know about the recent news i.e. the split from our label before anyone else. It really wasn't that clear cut for a while and we wanted to let things settle for a while and give ourselves a break. As usual the press seems hell bent on repeating their negative reporting and we just felt it was time to say something official.

As you know we are so happy with the way our single "Rock Steady" went in November. We couldn't have wished for better and it just showed that we still have our fans supporting us as well as picking up some new ones along the way.

Of course we're really disappointed that things didn't work out with our album, Studio 1 on Parlophone. We've just hit some very weird turns along the way with some of the media which is such a shame for our fans as we know you love our music. It's funny how things go with certain people's perception of things - the negativity has been astounding to us all as we've only ever been honest about ourselves and more importantly just wanted to make and perform great music.

Our heartfelt thanks go out to you all. It's great to read all the positive comments on our myspace and on the messageboards.

We're going to continue making our music and we'll keep you in the picture as things go...

It's all the media's fault, it turns out. The nasty old media, ruining things for the fans by reporting the album is poor, and that its sales are disappointing. We're trying to sift some logic out of why a group of four intelligent, media-savvy women would think that the media would bury stories that portray their comeback in a dismal light on the basis that they "just want to make and perform music."

It's like suggesting that Harold Shipman should never have been vilified in the press because he was into what he was doing. The comeback (All Saints, not Shipman's) was ill-conceived, miss-timed and half-hearted - did they really expect nobody to say so because they meant well?

[Thanks to Michael Moran for the link]

Never, Ever no more, no more

The not-entirely required All Saints reunion has lived up to the underwhelming new material, with Parlophone and the band ending their assocation with a brave statement:

"Both the label and the group are proud of the album," it said in a statement.

"All Saints are excited about moving forwards with their career and Parlophone wishes them the best of luck."

We're not sure if you're meant to read that last sentence in a sarcastic or amused voice.

All Saints flop again

There's signs that the All Saints reunion has come completely off the rails - after the album sold slightly fewer than a Bernard Matthews concession at a fashion show, EMI have decided to not bother with a physical CD for the next single, Chick Fit.

Good lord, it's a single called Chick Fit, which sounds like a Fisher Price sorting toy.

It's expected that the label will cut their (quite heavy) losses on the band shortly after.

Gennaro Castaldo watch: Reunited, and it feels so good

The Belfast Telegraph has noticed a trend - that old bands are getting back together.

And a trend cannot be noticed without an expert being asked to explain the trend.

This, of course, is a job for HMV's Gennaro Castaldo:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said he thought there was a "fun" element to it as well.

"Usually most of the names that are successful enough to reunite... have to be of a certain stature anyway, hence the motivation is very rarely likely to be financial," he said. "They think it would be a lot of fun, maybe with a slightly different audience."

But not every band can make a successful return.

Gennaro said: "All Saints failed to match the success enjoyed by Take That when they recently reappeared on the scene. Their new album Studio 1 debuted at number 40. All Saints never really had that kind of emotional engagement.

"You also need a song that really announces you are back in a big way.

"Take That had their single Patience - it was not out of place for them to sing but it came across as still being relevant."

You know what? He's right. Except for, erm, Take That coming back and doing a sell-out tour before they'd even thought about going into the studio. Except for that bit.