We’re

not completely heartless here at Wasted Inches. We realise that the death of a member of the Royal family is a legitimate news story. But don’t you think that today’s hagiographies are taking it all a bit too far?

This is a bit of a strange one. As we’ll see over the next few days, I think the tabloids rather misjudged public feeling here. The general public didn’t seem to be quite as interested in the Queen Mother’s death as the tabloids thought they should be.

A number of today’s papers have telephoto snaps of Britney Spears without a vest on. Where’s the news in that?

Of course photos

of celebrities sunbathing topless are still a tabloid staple. You’d think the celebrities would have learned by now. Unless, of course, they want to be caught like that. Surely not! Britney herself is no longer quite so common in tabloid pages. Well, not until she has one of her periodic meltdowns. Or another comeback.

Mid-week sales indicate that Gareth Gates’ single is out-selling Will Young’s and that Gareth will be number one when the new chart is announced on Sunday.

Although Will is (apparently) gay and Gareth is a member of a church that (allegedly) hates gays, they are still the best of friends and many of today’s papers carry a space-wasting photo of Will congratulating Gareth. Wasting space on reporting who is number one is, of course, pointless. Wasting space speculating on who might be number one in a few days time is just taking the piss.

The tabloids continued to try and manufacture competition between Will Young and Gareth Gates. And their publicity machines continued to find

excuses to show what good mates they were. Tabloids still print stories like this on a particularly slow news day.

Or if a vaguely interesting record looks like it might beat the X Factor winner to the Christmas number one spot.

The singers (and I use the word in a very loose sense) from Hear’Say are all completely uninteresting. Their families are even less interesting (if that is possible). Why then did today’s News of the World think that it was worth telling the world that one of their mothers is (or maybe was) a hooker. It must have been a really slow news day in tabloid land. I think they said it was Danny’s mother. He’s the one who looks a bit like a potato.

Hear’Say had won Pop Stars in 2001.

By March 2002 their career was very much on the wane. By the end of the year, they had split up. Myleene Klass went back to classical music and then became a TV presenter. Kim Marsh and Suzanne Shaw both ended up acting in soaps. Noel Sullivan and Danny Foster both pretty much vanished without trace. I remember being really quite pleased with the “a bit like a potato”

line.

Obviously vitally important stuff here people, as it’s all over the front page of today’s Soaraway Sun. Apparently Posh (hah! have you heard her speak?) and Becks are spending a quarter of a million on a party for the England football team. Aren’t you glad you’re not invited? Imagine how bored you’d get at a party where all the guests were either footballers or Spice Girls.

Football (in particular the World Cup) was going to become bit of an obsession on Wasted Inches and this was its first mention. This story could easily be written today. The Beckhams are still standard tabloid fodder. And the tabloids’ coverage of the England World Cup team gets more offensively jingoistic every

time the competition comes around. Of course, the other four Spice Girls have largely been forgotten.

Some distinctly average singer and her almost completely unheard of boyfriend have split up. Or have they? Do we care? Is this news? If they are are splitting up, then it’s probably because she won’t let him shag her.

This seems a little strange in retrospect. The “completely unheard of boyfriend” was, of course, Justin Timberlake who is probably now just as well-known as Britney Spears. And do you remember the days when Britney still claimed to be a virgin? It all seems such a long time ago now.

Was anyone really surprised that Will Young came out as gay? If you were surprised, have you ever watched Pop Idol? Didn’t you see Will and Gareth singing “The Long and Winding Road” to each other?

Will Young had won Pop Idol in February 2002, beating the favourite Gareth Gates in the final. Very few people were surprised to hear that Will was gay. Many people were very surprised when, some time later, Gareth came out as straight and admitted that he had lost his virginity to Katie Price.