some highlights from this week's popbitch...

So, you're a reclusive but legendary dance act. You decide to do a few gigs. Your agent contacts the big European festivals and tells them you are prepared to do three dates only - to the highest bidders. Bidding reaches 300,000 euros, so you agree. And then your agent rings more festivals and says - ok, you'll do ten dates only, at 300k a pop. You then do these festivals dressed as robots. Except, you don't even bother going on stage for every gig, you get two replacements to work the pre-programmed synths etc.

Congratulations - you are Daft Punk!

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Freddie Mercury would have been 60 next Tuesday. Millions of odd Freddie fans will no doubt be commemorating the day, including:

* Axl Rose - who once said, "If I didn't have Freddie Mercury's lyrics to hold on to as a kid I don't know where I'd be."

* Simai Mohammed Saidi, owner of Mercury's Bar, Zanzibar, who is organising an event in Mercury's birthplace, but coming under fire from Islamic conservatives who say, "Allowing such a function for a person known outside Zanzibar as a homosexual tarnishes the name of Zanzibar."

* Iranians - since Bohemian Rhapsody and I Want To Break Free got an official release in August 2004 in Iran, Queen have been the biggest band, and first western act to be officially tolerated.

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