No Rock And Roll Fun

DO YOU REMEMBER ME?: You wonder how delighted Victoria Beckham must have been at the meeting where they decided that she doesn't stand a cat in a washing machine's chance of being loved in Britain, so it's time to target the US. And how the fixed smile must have lurched a little at being told that she's going to have to be branded as Posh Spice Victoria Beckham - or, in other words, "Nobody knows who the fuck you are, so we're going to hang a big sign saying 'Used to be a Spice Girl' round your neck for all eternity. A few years back, being a soap opera condemned you to never have any further success - the popular view was that once you'd spent some time as Matt Skilbeck, the public would never accept you in any other role. That's clearly passed now - you can't move for TV dramas cluttered with people who used to be soaps stars - but it seems the curse of typecasting has now moved on to pop stars. We're not entirely convinced that America will buy Beckham's ropey old rubbish, even if it has got 'Ex-Spice Girl' stamped all over it, but at least if she's off humiliating herself in New York it'll spare us for a little while.

We're also a little tired of the modern habit of labelling people "haters" if they don't like something - Fred Durst popularized the concept, trying to make out those that ridiculed him did so out of hate rather than simply because he's a pudgy middle-aged bloke trying to pass himself off as 18 - and now 19 are trying to blame Beckham's failings on people hating her. No, no, no: finding someone sadly hilarious isn't the same thing as hating them at all.