JG1

I can't say this excites me. When I heard the lyric I immediately thought of the cheesy old Bellamy Brothers hit 'If I said you had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold it Against me?, which really didn't help. No doubt a hit, but not a song I'll be listening to.

Gave it a listen. Truly awful. Plink plonk backing track, strained vocals, humdrum melody and no hook. Super. It sounds cheap, have they never heard of strings?

The point of doing something for Charity openly is to raise awareness of that Charity to more people - particularly the sector of society for whom giving to charity isn't a regular thing - not to feed an ego trip. It's easy to criticise good intentions, but so many do absolutely f*** all. There were tens of thousands of donations made through Radio1 for the Kili climb. Please don't kid yourself that a fraction of those listeners would have donated without an incentive. If that incentive is Cheryl Cole, Ronan Keating or Chris Moyles doing something unusual then so be it...it bloody worked!

Thanks for the video chart info.

Gary wanted to celebrate his 40th with something a bit different. He discussed it with the rest of TT quite a while back and Mark mentioned it in one of the Progress promo interviews, later Gary asked fans on his website if they thought it was a good idea. They did and so he planned it. It's a charity gig with him and friends he's met and worked with over the years playing music together. The fact that fans are able to be there is great. He could have filled it with friends and family and left the fans out of it. He also said on his website that he intended to do material that dated right back to Take That and Party, so not a gig full of his solo material, although I would hope some will be included. 11 years ago he said he'd never perform again, and several times over the last 5 years he's said he could never perform solo again. The fact that he's managed to regain enough confidence to do a one off show on his own is a cause for celebration, not derision. Many of you have called it self-indulgent? So is it self-indulgence for any artist to perform alone? Why the hell shouldn't he? He's got 20 years experience in a fickle and difficult industry, he's seen the highest highs and the lowest lows it can offer and finds himself at the age of 40 right at the top of his game despite everything. To resent him wanting to celebrate his Birthday doing what he loves, with friends with whom he enjoys making music, his family and many fans who have longed for him to take to the stage solo again, even if it's just for this one time, is mean-spirited and churlish. Booking The Royal Albert Hall would have been a sign perhaps of slight over confidence but he booked The Shepherd's Bush Empire, capacity 2000. He could have filled it several times. For Kath's information the lottery had no re-released tickets. The option to accept them stood for 24 hours after which the tickets were released into the auction. All auction tickets were taken up on the day the bidding closed.The lowest qualifying bid being £140. Many bid hundreds because they valued a place at this gig very highly. The proceeds go to Charity, how is this an act of arrogance and self-indulgence? Would the same criticism be levelled at other bands who do intimate charity gigs? Or at comedians who also do charity gigs on a regular basis? God forbid anyone should plan a Birthday celebration doing what they enjoy best, surrounded by people who will enjoy being a part of it. That's shameful isn't it? Or is shameful more the attitude of people who damn anything and everything for the sake of their own bigoted pomposity?

Just get rid of Reggie. That is all.

Precisely. Cut the guy some slack - he was coughing his way through all of his interviews today.

I'm with the Matt Cardle vote. He's a genuine musician. I love the stuff he did with Seven Summers and I think if Simon leaves him alone he stands a good chance of producing a decent album.

Metropolis studios have congratulated Take That on a million sales on twitter. Any details? If it happened today it puts Progress 2 days ahead of Beautiful World and 6 behind The Circus I think. BTW I'm not really new. I re-registered for personal reasons. Been reading here for years with occasional posts.