Naturally, the headline writers have an opportunity to shoehorn in some references to Spandau Ballet's back catalogue:
Tony Hadley’s new golden ale sure to be a true hit
I don't think they quite got that to work, did they?
Hadley explains his ale:
He said: "I love it when you're sat outside of the pub on a summers evening and you've got a beautiful golden ale that just goes down so easily.
“That's the kind of drink we want to make; a brilliant, brilliant summer ale."
Not one of those difficult to drink beers that defy gravity, or are shaped like pianos. This one will be liquid and flow downwards through the throat. "I bet if Duran Duran made a beer, it'd be an awkward beer that had seen too many French films or something. And yeah, it might still be able to be served in one of the really big pubs, but that's because it's just content to churn out the old hits and doesn't have any integrity, right?" he mumbled, before pulling another pint, downing it in one and carrying on.
"Every now and again people are going to want something different so we are trying to give everyone a little bit more flavour.
"When you make a beer you want it to be the best tasting beer you can imagine. I think it is going to be fantastic."
"... you know, like that time we re-recorded all of our best songs for a new studio album. That was to give people some flavour. It wasn't trying to squeeze the last beer out of an old pipe or nothing. It wasn't like that at all. It was fantastic."
By the way, if you're thinking "well, at least Hadley didn't do the cheesey thing of calling his golden beer something like, say, Hadley's Gold"; he couldn't. He'd done that with a previous brewing adventure. ("Moving north" in that story appears to be a code for "closing down").
He told Absolute Radio: “If I’m honest I would have liked a really young band to have closed it.
“If you’ve got Sir Steve Redgrave handing over the torch to the youngsters, it would have been nice to have had One Direction. They’re our biggest export at the moment, pure pop.
“One Direction with the Royal Philharmonic, with about 100 singers in a choir, behind them.
“To me that would have been the new generation kind of thing.”
Hadley's acute nose for putting on a great show explains why his former arch-rivals Duran Duran spent the evening of the launch playing a massive date in Hyde Park as part of the Cultural events surrounding the games, and Hadley was sitting at home tutting.
It sounds like Hadley was desperately hoping for a rerun of that awful moment when Leona Lewis popped up out of a double decker bus at the Beijing closing ceremony. Has he heard One Direction? Seriously?
Spandau Ballet singer Tony Hadley has revealed he thinks there have been no musical movements since the New Romantic phase in the 80s.
Tony Hadley claims there have been no musical movements since the 80s.
The Spandau Ballet singer believes the New Romantic era - which his band were a prominent part of - was the last type of music that interlinked with fashion to create a whole way of being.
This might come as some surprise to goths, shoegazers, garage fans, acid housers and Britpoppers, amongst others.
Did... did the BBC Ten O'Clock News really carry the news of the Spandau reunion?
They bloody did. Spandau Ballet. I mean, I know you can't spend forever showing photos of the damage to Fred Goodwin's car, but the getting back together of the Spands surely only merits flagship news coverage if you happen to be broadcasting exclusively to Steve Norman's house?
Still, it's good to see that Spandau Ballet have got so poor they're having to pretend to like each other again ("it's good to see that the Spandau boys have put their difference behind them") and will get out to do the job of playing the three songs everyone likes and some others to fill out the time:
Gary Kemp, the group's songwriter and guitarist, explained: "This is my other family really and I just missed them for the last 20 years.
"I wanted to get together just to have a chat about all those great experiences we had. To be able to make some new experiences is a really great opportunity and that's what we plan to do."
Actually, Gary, one of them is also your actual family, isn't he? But I take your point.
Yes, yes, the one they relied on to write the words did just make that clunky "it's all about the experiences we experienced, and now experience tells me that we should experience some unexperienced experiences" statement.
But here's Martin, again with the family metaphors:
Kemp's bassist brother Martin - also known to EastEnders fans as club owner Steve Owen - added: "Families go through terrible times sometimes and they argue.
"But in the end we've got back together - which is the main thing."
Yes, yes, family. All this talk of family might be more touching if it wasn't coming from the pair who played the Krays, who were brothers for whom family had a distinct and slightly chilling overtone.
Still, nice to get the family back together, isn't it, Tony? Tony? Sorry, can't hear you through those gritted teeth - could you speak up?
Hadley said they had buried the hatchet after "the realisation that time is a great healer".
"We all realised how powerful the band were, the songs, and what we did as a band in the '80s," he said.
"We first met in the pub, had a few beers, the stories came up and the anecdotes and we just realised that we're great mates."
... the realisation coming just about the same time as the barman said "come on lads, time to settle the slate before I serve you any more."
Isn't a lavish celebration of the anniversary of a compilation album pushing the idea of 'a very special birthday' a little far, even for ITV? Regardless, they spun the 'useless female presenter' wheel, selected Denise Van Outen, and threw a show to mark the 25th anniversary of the first Now That's What I Call Music compilation. On television.
To be fair to ITV, they did at least invite back original artists to do their songs - normally, they'd have got Jamie Cullum and the Sugababes to have a crack at Hey You The Rocksteady Crew. But the format was still a bit of a puzzle - you might have thought that the obvious thing would have been to have 25 songs from across the years, but instead they stuck with 1983. Then, though, they selected 'the best songs from the year' rather than songs which appeared on Now 1 - which, given that there was just the one Now in 1983, released for the Christmas market, you might have thought would have represented the same thing.
True, there was a little crossover, but what are we supposed to make of the songs that were apparently good enough for ITV but not for Now? Particularly Nick Heyward, who turned up last night to do Whistle Down The Wind. Or "Nick Heyward (unless Boy George gets back to us)", as he will now be known. Whistle Down The Wind is a cracking song - and Heyward's performance was a delight - but it's hardly a song that screams 1983, is it? It would be a long production meeting at Crimewatch before they selected that song to soundtrack a particularly brutal crime from 25 years ago in order to jog people's memories.
Heyward also exhibited one of the problems of bringing back old men to sing pop hits - the high bits now lay far beyond them, in the blue-remembered hills of the teenage falsetto. It was a problem Tony Hadley had, too - it's surprising how much the line "listening to Marvin all night long" loses its impact when delivered gruffly. It's clear Hadley doesn't listen to Marvin all night long any more; I'd wager the only time he's awake past A Book At Bedtime is if his bladder calls for attention following one reckless Horlicks too many.
Hadley was there representing the entire Spandau Ballet clan - "named after a prison and a dance" guffawed Denise, "no, not Strangeways Hokey Cokey...". Actually, it might have been Wormword Scrubs Can Can - my ears welded over as soon as my brain detected the possibility someone had scripted a gag for her. Ali Campbell was also there taking a solo role for his entire band who hates him now; when Red Red Wine faded out earlier than he was expected he pressed on looking confused and a little afraid. Understandably, given what happened when his old backing group suddenly stopped supporting him altogether.
Hadley and Campbell were both shoved together at the end, as if to make it easy for the producers to edit down a version which featured just the original bands doing their songs. Perhaps the biggest coup in this respect was the reunited KajaGooGoo doing Too Shy. It was fitting for KajaGooGoo to be there, as not only was Too Shy on Now 1, but they also featured as the post-split KajaGooGoo and with one of Limahl's solo effort, so where better than a celebration of Now for the band to show they're back together, old differences settled?
Well, perhaps they're settled: Limahl seemed a little too determined to stamp his personality over the song by buggering about with it, as if he'd somehow got into his contract that he can do whatever the fuck he wants and nobody can stop him this time. Consequently, the performance was rubbish:
Paul Young's reading of his song, however, was flawless and spookily identical to the record. You might suspect that he was miming to the original track, but given how red in the face he went when insisting that he wasn't saying that he didn't love us, either he's spent the last couple of decades on a diet of goose fat and chocolate and now even opening and closing his mouth is enough to put a strain on his heart, or he was actually singing.
Nik Kershaw looked like a man who really shouldn't have let those snoods go to charity - frighteningly, for a man who I used to really want to see cross-dress (it would have gone lovely with his eyes), he's now turned into the spit of Gary Glitter.
The most obvious missing element from the celebration was the no-show of Howard Jones' former interpretative chum Jed. New Song without someone miming out literal chains for the bit about throwing off your mental chains? It's just not right, is it?
Apparently, Jed would have liked to have come on the show, but sadly the invisible cage he is being held in proved too difficult for him to get out of in time to attend.
You know what made the evening, though? The audience, glumly clapping through songs that they once took painkillers and cider to chase from their heads. It's almost as if the last thing anyone wants right now is to be reminded how grindingly miserable a time of rising unemployment and economic malaise actually is.
With Tony Hadley off on some sort of holiday, Virgin Radio needs someone to fill his shoes. They've got Kim Wilde to cover over Easter.
Which is great, and will help fight the impression that Virgin is a bit blokey, right?
"Kim is an absolute 80s icon and a sex kitten to boot," said Mark Bingham, the programme manager at Virgin Radio.
Hmm. Although Kim is a bit of a sex kitten, we're not sure we recall anyone describing Hadley or Suggs through their sexuality when they joined the station, did they?
"There'll have to be an awful lot of things remedied because things did get personal and it went a bit too far.
"The next window of opportunity that I see would be our 30th anniversary, in about four years' time."
The last "window of opportunity" (and we're taking 'opportunity' in the sense of 'a way of doing it so it doesn't look like a desperate cash-in', of course) would have been Live 8, when Gary Kemp approached Haldey about doing something. To Africa's relief, Hadley harrumphed off, swinging his giant overcoat closed behind him.
We personally feel that the Spands should only get back together if the promise to strip naked and smear themselves in Dulux, like with the Paint Me Down video. Otherwise... it'd just be that bloke out of EastEnders and his old mates, wouldn't it?
Labour backbencher John Robertson, MP for Glasgow Anniesland, [reports the Guardian] led the call for music content to be regulated by the bill, saying he had the backing of former Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley. Mr Robertson said Mr Hadley and other musicians were concerned that the relaxation would leave the UK with American-style centralised radio stations which ignored emerging bands.
Have these people tuned into a radio station recently? I mean, seriously. Presumably not since Tony Hadley used to pop up on the radio from time to time.
Tory John Greenwood weighed in:
"Mr Greenway also hit out at moves to force local radio stations to recruit staff from their area and broadcast from studios within their locality. The most successful stations already did that without regulation, he said.
Really? Can he point to these stations? By which I mean the ones that have most of their functions performed by staff with long standing connections with their area, rather than most of their work done centrally elsewhere; and if he can name a single market leading radio station outside London whose programming comes entirely from its Target Service Area? Because I bet he can't.
Does anyone want to hear about Spandau Ballet? About how the British Boxing Board of Control has stopped the forthcoming bout between Tony Hadley and John Piennar, on the grounds that someone could get hurt (this, of course, is the same BBBC which is quite happy, indeed encourages, schools to hold boxing matches between little boys whose heads are all still soft.
But Tony will get a high profile scrap anyway, as the Kemp Brothers are taking him and Keeble and Norman back to court for another row over the name - they're objecting to Keeble, Norman and Hadley having used "ex-Spandau Ballet" in their billing for the Here & Now tour last year - jesus, let it go, you bitter old men. What is it - did Martin Kemp nearly lose the ability to humiliate himself in that bank advert because Tony Hadley mentioned "I was in that Spandau Ballet" to a bunch of Belle Star fans?
And Gary, of course, is related to the current Second-drawer Star Gossip of the Day, having fathered one of Sadie Frost's kids before she stopped shaving for Jude Law.
Why are Spandau Ballet suddenly everywhere - could someone check the Book of Revelation to see if they're mentioned?
Having taken a hell of a kicking from the other members of Spandau Ballet in the courtroom, Tony Hadley is now so desperate to wank for coins ("now facing up to a physical challenge") that he's going to box, um, John Piennar, BBC Political correspondent and keeper of the oddest moustache this side of Midge Ure for one of those BBC "celebrity" boxing matches.
Also from our "wanking for coins" file this morning, "Fuck" Cilla Black clearly wasn't whistling in the dark when she said "Don't worry about me, chuck, I've got loads of irons in the fire" when she announced her decision to leave ("made her face-saving, painstakingly debated statement") on Blind Date.
She's already, um, lined up to totter round GAY to promote her new album. From prime time TV to the spiritual home of "your fifteen minutes is up" in one easy leap. Who's that whispering "step inside, love?" - could it be dame dumper?
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