Matt Goss hopes sounding kinda stalkery will help the comeback

With that much-promised Bros reunion still very much an unwanted puppy left in the window of a pet shop on Christmas Eve, Matt Goss is trying to keep things moving by sharing a tale about the time his life briefly intersected with that of someone famous:

He told BANG Showbiz: "We had a lunch with her back in the day and it was an extraordinary experience.

"You had a sense that she knew she had a beautiful presence. When you looked into her blue eyes it was very hard not to blush.

"She had that intensity that a woman should have.

"I'm a hopeless romantic, I was flirting with her, of course I was, I tried my best. I like grace and femininity in a woman."

Where do you even begin? If Diana had flirted with you, that might be an anecdote. "I flirted with someone at a dinner thirty years ago" just sounds a bit creepy. Especially when you say you "tried [your] best", like you were attempting to win a goldfish in a fairground.

But I wouldn't worry about coming across a bit creepy, Matt, as the "intensity a woman should have" and "I like grace and femininity" stuff is more than quease-making enough in its own right.

Gordon in the morning: Chronicle of a death retold

Without any apparent sense of irony, Gordon's deputy Lia Nicholls reports how Lady GaGa worries she'll die like Lady Diana did:

A source close to Gaga says she sees herself as a "pop version" of Diana who died aged 36 in a horrific car smash in Paris in 1997. The source revealed: "Gaga has always been absolutely fixated on Diana and sees herself as a 21st-century incarnation of her.

"She knows she is almost as recognisable as Diana and is hounded by photographers and fans on the same level.

"Gaga has had dreams about dying the same way as her and has genuine fears that her fame could literally kill her, either in a chase or at the hands of crazies."

Goodness, "source close to GaGa", these terrible photographers. I wonder why they'd even be chasing her?

Surprisingly, Nicholls doesn't put a "GaGa fears we'll kill her someday" headline on the story. Second day running The Sun has missed the chance to play up its central role in a big news story.

Just one thing: GaGa "almost as recognisable as Diana"? Really? Doing ITV2 specials with Perez Hilton hardly in the same league as dissing the Windsors on Panorama, is it?

Pink: something must be done

Pink has issued a dire warning that if something isn't done about paparazzi photographers soon, something tragic might happen. Like, ooh, maybe a drunken chauffeur driving too fast in a tunnel, pursued by photographers, and crashing, for example. (Presumably Pink hadn't heard about that whole business.)

For what it's worth, Pink doesn't think its fun any more:

“I feel like something tragic is going to have to happen for people to wake up and see how vulturous and poisonous it’s all gotten. Before it was kind of silly, how stupid everyone was. Now it’s just kind of sad and dark; it’s all gone to a totally different place.”

And not solely because they don't seem to be taking pictures of Pink as often as they used to. Oh, no.

Fergie: Less like Fergie, more like Di

The 3AM Girls have read Fergie's interview in Blender and were taken with this:

"People put celebrities on a pedestal and act like they're perfect. But I'm more like the people's artist - the same way Diana was the people's princess."

Actually, you're more like The People's Post Office, Fergie.

Diana prepares to spin in her grave

Presumably, had Diana not been buried on that island on the Althorp Estate, by now Geri Halliwell would have dug up her corpse and be escorting it around town. In lieu of being able to despoil the corpse, Halliwell is merely going to try and screw with her memory by way of a tribute record.

Yes, The Spice Girls are writing a song to glory the remembrance of Diana:

"Lady, you are an inspiration to us all
you made every woman stand so tall"

It brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

This time, la luna?

It's good to see that the concert in memory of Diana is set to be a dignified affair, with Simon LeBon setting the tone - apparently, Duran respect the life and work of the woman in return for her respect for LeBon's arse:

"She and I used to go to the same fitness club - Chelsea Harbour in London.

"One day I was on the running machine. I jumped off because one of my shoelaces had come undone, and she wolf-whistled at me across the room, and yelled, like a brickie, 'Nice legs! I'd recognise that bum anywhere!'

"I was quite taken aback, actually, and quietly got back on the machine with a red face."

It's lucky that his shorts' underpant lining hadn't perished, otherwise the course of history could have been bery different indeed.

Travolta thanks Diana for saving his career

It's true - apparently dancing with the then-being-cuckolded Princess of Wales turned around Travolta's career:

Speaking as the 10th anniversary of Diana's death approaches, he said the moment the princess took him in his arms he felt "like a frog who had been turned into a prince".

Travolta revealed how then-First Lady Nancy Reagan took him aside at the 1985 glittering gala and quietly told him that Diana had specially requested to dance with him.

He was told to wait until midnight before approaching her. At the stroke of 12, he crept over nervously and asked: "Excuse me, princess, would you care to dance?"

Travolta said: "I looked her in the eye and said, 'We're good. I can do this.'"

Grease and Saturday Night Fever star Travolta said: "That was an amazing moment because I was having a dip in my career and no one was interested in me.
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"Suddenly, I was the only thing that mattered in America to Princess Diana and I was reborn. I was like, 'Wow!

I matter to someone again.' I was on the cover of every newspaper and magazine in the world and someone as significant as Princess Diana reminded everyone of me.

And, indeed, just, erm, nine short years later, Travolta made Pulp Fiction. The career-reviving power of Di might be amazing, but apparently it works incredibly slowly indeed.

Madonna turns down Diana

It's being reported by Gigwise that Madonna has turned down a request to perform at the Diana concert.

It's understandable: after all, Diana was blonde-haired icon in the 80s who everyone loved at the time, until she married a dull bloke from London, moved into a big house, took on a second big house in the South West of England, had a couple of kids, went off the boil a bit and ended her career in a massive car crash. Whereas Madonna is quite different, as her car crash was only metaphorical, and nobody actually bothered to leave flowers outside the spot where she signed the contract to make Swept Away.

Lily Allen's sobs for Diana

The surprise of Lily Allen turning up on the bill for the Diana concert is nothing compared to the surprise that Keith, Lily and Alfie all plodded down to see the funeral ten years ago. Mind you, Victoria Newton has the story:

A fellow mourner told me: “I was shocked to see Keith standing next to me with his kids.

“Some reporters tried to talk to him but he told them it was a private moment. As the coffin passed, Lily was quite upset.”

Interesting that for ten years this "fellow mourner" remembered the reactions of Keith Allen's daughter when she was just Keith Allen's daughter. Amazing, even.

And she was only twelve years old, so I'm not quite sure we can all make the leap Newton has from a "quite upset" preteen, through

I can reveal how Lily wept in the crowd at Princess Di’s funeral almost ten years ago

ending up with conclusion that

Street-smart Lily is a royalist

Apart from anything, at the end, Diana was hardly a supporter of the monarchy, was she? And can we really believe that Allen would be a supporter of a system whereby people are granted fame and fortune based not on their talents, but who their parents are?

Oh.

Never say never again

Although he said he'd never sing it again - which we took to be a promise - it turns out Elton John is thinking of doing Candle In The Wind, his song about Marilyn MonoreDiana as the grand finale to the Diana concert - with the threat that other people on the bill might come along to honk in the background.

Which we really can't see - it's hardly a Chas and Dave style knees up round the old joanna, is it?

Still, at least it'll mean that people can start heading to the car park early.

It's the (second) most glittering event of the year

Although now somewhat eclipsed by Al Gore and his anti-Exxon Communist Music Event, the party being arranged by Princes William and Harry to mark something (25 years since the Falklands, isn't it?) is still going to try and glitter.

The line-up for The Concert For Diana, marking 300 years of the Act of Union, has been announced. It's an odd mix of fox-hunters, lords, faded glories and a couple of contemporary US acts in order to try and get an American network interested ("US acts Diana would have appreciated"):

Take That

Kanye West

Pharrell Williams

Elton John

Bryan Adams

James Blunt

Keane

Orson

Rod Stewart

Meatloaf (sic)

James Morrison

Duran Duran

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Bryan Ferry

Joss Stone

The English National Ballet

Here, then, is the most compelling argument for wearing a seatbelt and not getting into cars with drunk drivers: if you perish in a road accident, look at what will be done in your name.

A Bad Night For Di

Not only did she come third behind Churchill and Brunel in the BBC Greatest Briton poll, but before the final debate kicked off Channel Five attempted to recreate her life through her record collection. You hope a bad wrong has been done to her, you really do.

They got Peter York to present - presumably because he co-wrote that Sloane Ranger's handbook sometime in the 1980's; on this basis, whoever ghost-wrote Adrian Edmondson's How To Be A Complete Bastard should have been doing the voiceovers for The Nazis - A Warning From History. Now, while the basic idea - that you might be able to get the measure of the man from the music he chooses to listen to - is a good one, the show suffered from three basic flaws.

Firstly, it relied on those elements of her record collection that were held in safe keeping by Paul Burrell (You remember, Your Majesty? Butler man. He told you he was looking after them for you. Do you remember?), which obviously strained the format before it began.

Secondly, Diana's musical taste has been picked over so many times, you could tick off the bands before they appeared (Duran Duran)?

Third, rather than use the music to try and imagine where Diana's head might have really been, they drew up ten artists she liked, made a list of what they know about Diana, and then joined up the two lists any old how. So, 'Rocking All Over The World'? Right, well, we know that they played that at Live Aid, and she "boogied" when Status Quo played it, and Prince Charles was wearing earplugs (this is meant to suggest he wasn't listening and was some way out of touch - but nearly all rock acts wear hearing protection, too) so that must show that they'd grown apart by this point as their reactions to Status Quo were different.

Trouble is, this supposes that Diana's reaction was like a young persons - whereas, at the time of Live Aid, dancing in an awkward geography teacher way to Status Quo smacked of middle aged, middle class values. Charles bored look was more in keeping with what the youth were thinking.

The programme was sloppy in other ways - "Most people believe [Lady In Red] was written about Diana" claimed York, which is rubbish - everybody has heard the story about how it was written for DeBurgh's bloody wife about six hundred times; it's like trying to claim that people think the original Candle In The Wind was written for Diana.

But where it scored was in the things it didn't set out to do. Once again it exposed just how dull, smug and self-satisified the old Radio 2 school are. Cliff Richard took the opportunity to moan again that he's not played on the radio, you know, and said "It's been said that 'Some People' [his song, not the Belouis Some track] was Diana's favourite song. She had very good taste" and then proceeded to tell a tale about how Diana, Harry, former Radio One DJ Mike Reid and he sat around jamming after a hard day's skiing.

Apparently, Harry asked for Great Balls of Fire, which Reid and Richard took as a request for them to sing, but we suspect may have been a call for judgement to rain down from God. Leo Sayer told a spectacularly immodest story about being told by Burrell that Diana would lock herself in her room and play one of his songs over and over again. Considering he was meant to be so discrete, Burrell seemed to blab an awful lot, didn't he? Sayer's reaction was to say "Wayne Sleep had already told me that." Nice. Locking yourself in with Leo Sayer is a cry for help if we ever heard one.

To try and provide some sense that she wasn't just a dumb blonde with godawful taste (Uptown Girl?) they tried to suggest she'd been developing an interest in classical music - because she had a Verdi album and went to see Pavarotti. Yeah, my Dad met Meatloaf in a toilet once. It doesn't make him Howlin' Wolf.

Then over to the Greatest Britons, where Lennon looked even more out of place amongst the others than he had when the list was just a list. Even Alan Davies, there supposedly to speak for the dead Beatle, admitted that he thought Shakespeare was better.

The most interesting aspects of the two shows were the copyright messages that snuck in. As the credits rolled for Greatest Britons, we were warned that "Imagine - Sole worldwide copyright of Yoko Ono" (or words to that effect) and during the Di doc, Nothing Compares 2U was doctored so that we never saw a glimpse of Sinead without the acknowledgement that it was Universal's property we were seeing. Self-aggrandising and unneccesary.