We aren't the world

So, with all those a-list stars reworking We Are The World, a load of press coverage, a plum launch spot during the Olympics - that's got to mean We Are The World will debut at number one in the US, right?

Oh... maybe not:

'We Are The World' Debuts At #2 On Billboard Hot 100

But it must have taken something quite special to keep Richie, Jackson (deceased), Jackson (Ms), J, Jean, i.am and the gang from number one? It's not like such a pack of esteemed artistes would have been bested by some clapped-out beast, is it?

The song, a remake of the Michael Jackson- and Lionel Richie-powered original, was only bested by Ke$ha's "Tik Tok," which tops the chart for the ninth straight week.

Doubtless there's going to be angry scenes behind the scenes. Insiders claim they've heard Lionel on the phone hissing "I told you we needed to dig him up and use some sort of ropes to have him dancing around..."

It'll still raise a fair sum for Haiti. And that's the main thing, right? Not the fact that if you pull together all those famous faces, they still can't shift a song which everyone in America must have already bought three times in the last three months.

Bratman now a dad... perhaps

The exact position of Christina's Aguilera potential child is a matter of some debate. Like a kind Schroedinger's Cat with added placenta. Some insist that the there is a child, while her people insist it is still a foetus at this stage.

Adding an extra edge, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are in the same hospital, Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They're also having something approximating a baby.

This doubling-up is useful; not only does it allow economies of scale for papparazi and entertainment journalists, but it also makes that episode of Friends where Monica and Janice spawned simultaneously seem a little less far-fetched. There's also the tantalising prospect of a delivery-room mix-up, with Christina bringing up Lionel Richie's grandchild believing it was her own child. You can almost smell E! and Us Magazine willing those little ID anklets to fall off...

The value of nothing

It's perhaps unsurprising that the sort of wedding where Lionel Richie is booked as a trophy rather than an entertainment hardly knows how to treat a singer. Richie had the misfortune to be booked for the wedding of John Terry and Toni Poole, and - according to Victoria Newton's column - struggled to make himself heard above the melee of people overpaid for playing football:

When he started singing Hello the boys started chanting back to him as if they were on the football ground terraces.

“They had downed so much champagne at the reception the guests became really lairy and started shouting over his set.

“In the end he asked the crowd to be quiet and said, ‘I’ve only got two more songs, please stick with me.’

“When he came off stage he moaned to one of the organisers, ‘I imagine this is what it’s like at a working men’s club’.”

Which is a little bit unfair to working men's clubs, to be honest.

Hello?

The 3AM Girls should be on their guard, as they have an in-house rival for "making lame puns based on songtitles". Louisa Pilbeam presumably brightened her Bank Holiday by turning to the R section of the Guiness Hit Singles when the news broke that Wayne Rooney went to see Lionel Richie:

He and Coleen McLoughlin, both 21, weren't born when the crooner, 57, had hits like Three Times A Lady. But they danced All Night Long at the Manchester gig. Wayne's famous for smashing old records. Looks like he's been buying some too.

And the headline?

THROO TIMES A LADY

Because, erm, Wayne's nickname is Throo. Oh, no it isn't, is it? But he went dressed up as a lady. No, he didn't do that, either.