And now over to that other Live 8 organiser, Bob Geldof, and on to a rather confusing issue. Despite reports from relatively reputable sources which suggested that Bob had been trying to engineer a Spice Girls reunion for next months anti-poverty concert, and that it was looking pretty hopeful, other sources now appear to be suggesting that the former rat (Boomtown, clearly) has no interest in using the Spice Girls at Live 8, and that it was the girls themselves who were trying to make it happen.
Geldof is alleged too have said: "I can't afford to have bands who won't pull the crowds. This is a political event, not a cultural one. If I get people who are currently selling 15 million albums, then there's an audience of at least 15 million people for the concert. It's a question of who is popular right now; that's the way it is. The whole thing with the Spice Girls isn't about my personal taste - my kids sing their stuff. But there just aren't enough people out there who would want to watch them."
Incidentally, though, we've reported the first three lines of that quote before, only that time it was Bob's response to criticism over Live 8's dearth of minority artists, which the Spice Girls frankly aren't. Either Geldof is getting very repetitive, or people are applying the same quote to different issues. Don't ask me. I'm as at sea as you are.