One out of Friends is engaged to one out of Snow Patrol

Even if it was Matthew Perry, it'd still be a dull story. It's Courtney Cox and Johnny McDaid.

Friends continues to be repeated every fourteen seconds on Comedy Central, and Snow Patrol songs seem to be persistent as well.

How Saturdays get engaged

Wayne Bridge, out of Brighton And Hove Albion, has become engaged to Frankie Out the Saturdays.

Tell us, Frankie, how did he ask for your hand?

Wayne took me to a hotel and he got my dogs involved

Hang on a moment, what?

I didn't know my dogs were there and they came in in little bride and groom outfits.

I'm not entirely sure that walking in your boyfriend in a hotel room with dogs dressed up necessarily means he was planning to ask you to marry him. It could just mean he wasn't expecting you.

And Pixie had the ring around her neck on a ribbon.

You know this sounds... well... odd? Oh, you do.

I think for people who aren't dog fans it's a bit of a weird proposal so I feel like I only want to tell people who like dogs.

I'm not sure you should tell people who like dogs, either. Or even people.

Gordon in the morning: Wedding announcement

This morning, Gordon Smart announces an extra wedding in a busy schedule:

If you were thinking PRINCE WILLIAM's nuptials were shaping up to be the booziest...

Eh? Who would be thinking "you know what, I bet the bloody King Of Tonga is going to get bladdered at William's wedding. I can't wait to see how shitfaced the Archbishop Of York is that day. The Mall is just going to be a river of privileged vomit"?

...or ED MILIBAND's the "must-have" invite - you'd be wrong.

Well, yes, if you really thought that, I think you'd be very, very wrong indeed.

But what is this wedding that is going to be more desirable than - yes - even the chance to stand around awkwardly while David Miliband fields questions about how he's been this last few months?

Former OASIS star NOEL GALLAGHER and fiancée SARA MacDONALD are tying the knot in the most rock 'n' roll ceremony of 2011.

Gordon has a "source" who stresses how low key this ceremony will be:

"Noel secretly asked Sara to marry him on her birthday last October. He's not one for making a big scene. This is the man who kept his leather jacket on when his lad Donovan was born."

That's not actually 'not making a fuss', that's 'behaving like some sort of cock in a midlife crisis'.

Smart doesn't seem to have spotted that his "source" contradicts his claim that this will be the most boisterous wedding of the year; presumably if he had he'd have simply made up a totally different source.

But do continue, "a source":

"They have been living like they are married for years anyway, but now they have a family together Noel thought it was the right time to do the romantic thing."

Their first child was born in 2007, but apparently this didn't constitute 'being a family', then.

Gordon finishes with a little anecdote:

I hear he bumped into MARK WAHLBERG in Toys R Us in Hollywood the other day.

That's something that doesn't happen very often when he's getting the milk in Waitrose in north London.

Yes, I suspect he doesn't ever bump into anyone in the Hollywood branch of Toys R Us when he's in a Waitrose in a totally different country. Or did you just forget to have a sub look at that paragraph?

Gordon in the morning: It's not a secret if you know

Stuart Pink - who seems increasingly to be handling the bigger stories on Bizarre these days - files news of an engagement:

ROCK star MATT BELLAMY and Hollywood actress KATE HUDSON have got engaged in secret.

Not much of a secret if you know about it, Mr. Pink.

Gordon in the morning: Astley crashes engagement party

Let's not detain ourselves too long on the headline on Gordon's coverage of Paul Weller's engagement:

Weller's the changingman

It doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Engaging Man, surely?

Mind you, the story itself is just as odd. It starts off sounding like it's being written by Ena Sharples:

PAUL WELLER has an extra spring in his step - he's just got engaged to a girl less than half his age.

Less than half his age? (So she must be, what, less than 64?) Is she - and I'm guessing here - also no better than she ought to be? Maybe she's a flighty one, that one.

The Modfather's fiancée, HANNAH ANDREWS, was wearing a huge sparkler on her wedding finger as they hit the shops in London at the weekend.

A huge sparkler? Suddenly we're out of Weatherfield and caught in the middle of a heist caper.

By the way, it's called a ring finger. Unless Andrews has an extra finger. Or maybe a third hand. Maybe it's a marriage hand.

If the crashing style is strange, the next paragraph gets really odd. We've heard Weller is engaged, and his fiance has a ring. Can you guess where Gordon is going next?

And Eighties icon RICK ASTLEY popped up on Sunday behind the drums for new band THE LUDDITES, at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, Surrey.

It's not just that there's no apparent link between the two stories, it's that "and", which suggests there's something that connects them - not only did Weller pop the question, but he made Rick Astley play drums.

I'm not quite sure why Smart is so puzzled by Astley appearing with the Luddites, either - given the band is called Rick Astley And The Luddites. But then 'Astley popped up with Rick Astley & The Luddites' might have just been too odd, even for this column.

Robbie Williams is not afraid of being cheesy

There's perhaps nothing cheaper than using local radio to propose to your girlfriend - sure, the first couple of times, popping up on air and saying 'Elmer, will you marry me?' was cute; now, it's become a cliche and has the air of someone too mean to buy an upside-down pineapple cake to hide a ring in.

It's no wonder Robbie Williams would do it, although his 'people' are now rushing to make clear that his proposal on an Australian radio station was "just a bit of fun". Except for the listeners.

One of the Jonas Brothers engaged, it says here

Haircut Jonas, the most eyebrowed of The Jonas Brothers, has arranged to appear in a special souvenir edition of Us Weekly.

Haircut told reporters "It's going to be hard deciding if my brother SlightlyWacky Jonas or my other brother Booklearning Jonas will get to stand on my left in the photos. I figure the one who doesn't stand on my left could stand on the other side... the... uh... unleft side."

Haircut has been dating his fiancee since a Disney executive told him "we want to stop those 'Haircut is gay' rumours before they start".

It's hoped that Haircut Jonas' godfather, restaurateur Chuck E. Chesse, will be present at the ceremony.

Gordon in the morning: Geri shows off her ring

What a wonderful time for the tabloids: Geri Halliwell is pregnantengaged. Ah, the joys to come: an OK! Wedding, rumours and speculation, estrangement, divorce. This one could keep Gordon in lead columns for years - why, like the Winehouse-Fielder Civil union, which today offers up a sixteenth rapprochement tale.

But Gordon's not entirely happy. What's wrong, Gordon?

the Italian stallion has wasted no time in making an honest woman of Geri.

Just as well on the honesty front, as Geri wasn’t very truthful when Bizarre asked about the good news after Christmas.

She denied it then, and has been wearing gloves a lot recently — something to hide perhaps? — but in a statement yesterday Geri’s management firm 19, said: “We are delighted to announce the engagement of Geri Halliwell and Fabrizio Politi.

“As a token of their commitment to each other Fabrizio presented Geri with an engagement ring over the festive season."

Aw, did Halliwell decide to announce her own engagement in her own time rather than through your column? What a beastly thing to do. How shockingly dishonest.

If not bending to Smart's whims and desires was a fault, then Halliwell's paying for it now, as Gordon unleashes his hurt at not having been told the truth, like an annoyed fairy in Grimm Tale:

GERI HALLIWELL’s Italian fella must have overcooked it on the grappa.

Oh, that's right - he must have been drunk off his tits to have even considered asking her to marry him. But Gordon's only just warming up with his sub-Perez Hilton snark-gobbets:

“There are no immediate plans for marriage as the couple are enjoying their engagement.”

No immediate plans?

That sounds like a get-out-clause to me — which is probably a wise move for the shipping tycoon, given Geri’s pretty dire history with blokes.

Yes, it can't be that the couple are just enjoying being engaged and haven't started to plan anything yet. It must be that - having got engaged when Fabrizio Politi was drunk - they've decided to have an engagement they don't believe in. And you can prove it because Geri has had boyfriends in the past, can't you, Gordon?

The surprising thing is that Rebekah Wade, who has let this appear in the newspaper, was delivering last night's Hugh Cudlipp lecture (you can pretty much get the flavour of it here, in Wordle form). Cudlipp, I'm sure, would have run pretty much this sort of thing himself.

Darkness at 3AM: Otherwise engaged

The 3AM Girls have noticed that Kelly Osbourne is wearing a ring on her ring finger, and decided she must be engaged to Luke Worrall (rather than the more likely explanation, that she put a ring on her finger in order to get some low-end gossip column action). But, of course, the 3AM Girls need a joke to finish on:

Worrall your mum and dad say Kel?

But they couldn't think of one. So they just put some words down instead.

Darkness at 3AM: More than a feeling

Let's just leave aside the observation that "man proposes to girlfriend at gig" should be more the business of the Kent Messenger than the Daily Mirror, and wonder at the 3AM Coverage of said event.

It happened at a Feeling gig - we can well imagine such a show would be so dull you'd say anything, anything at all to break the tedium - and the 3Amies record it thus:

Graeme Gall, from Kent, went down on one knee and asked his girl Liz to marry him.

So far, so cute - although we can't help wondering if the words "if we make it out of this gig..." were involved. But then:

A source said: "There wasn't a dry eye in the house."

A source? Do you suppose they've just set up a Word Macro which strips out any attribution at all from their copy? Could they not have at least pretended the person from the Feeling's record company who probably rang this story through to them was "a person at the gig" or something at the very least? Or was there a long, involved discussion - off-the-record, on third-party territory - as to how they would work this quote into the story? A Deep Throat insisting "you can tell your readers there wasn't a dry eye in the house, but please, in God's name, make sure they don't trace it back to me..."?

Still, congratulations to the soon-to-be Mr and Mrs Gall. You might want someone else to pick your first dance tune, though.

MIA to become Mrs Brewer

MIA has told an audience that she's going to marry the son of the Warners boss. Benjamin Brewer is Edgar Bronfman Jr's junior, which makes for an enticing prospect when all the families get together for the wedding supper.

ContactMusic speculates after Roberts ends engagement

Sure, sure, we'll bet there's a good few slashfics written along these lines, but in reporting the ending of Nicola Roberts' engagement, ContactMusic seems to have assumed a little too much:

GIRLS ALOUD star NICOLA ROBERTS is seeking comfort in the arms of her bandmates after splitting from fiance CARL DAVIES.

Do they really mean "in the arms of", popular journalistic euphemism for 'shagging', or did they mean the slightly-less lesbian-orgy-esque "from"?

Unless they really are making her feel better with intimate touching, in which case we apologise wholeheartedly to ContactMusic.

Wentz: Pregnancy stories "a witch hunt"

It's reassuring to discover that, for now, there's not to be a new generation of Simspons, as Pete Wentz denies that he and Ashlee are expecting the pitter-patter of tiny emo-pop feet:

"There is a witch hunt for people to be pregnant whenever they get engaged in Hollywood," he wrote. "This is all news to me. I can't wait for the story about how I'm really in a gay relationship and this is all just a cover. ... I mean really, this is crazy. ... I mean we're engaged, that's true, and happy about it."

We're not sure he means "a witch hunt"; he probably means that there's innuendo, but then it's not like his job would require him to be able to use language confidently, is it?

Wentz-Simpson: A union is announced

It's been confirmed that Pete Wentz, advertising shill from Fall Out Boy and Ashlee Simpson, off of Saturday Night Live's sketch about someone's sister accidentally being booked as a musical guest, are to be married:

She told People magazine: "Yes, we are thrilled to share that we are happily engaged.

"We know there has been a lot of speculation recently about Pete and I and we wanted our fans to be the first to know because you guys are the best."

Presumably, though, Simpson and Wentz's families knew beforehand? So who, exactly, are "the fans" finding out ahead of? "We want the fans to know before we sail off to the Andes to tell the indigent population of our plans - it's only right."

And while we're sure that Wentz's fans are "the best" in many ways, we suspect that what Simpson really means it "we wanted to tell the fans as you guys will have to tune in to watch the series about the wedding on MTV this fall."

Showbiz Zoe reports on the party from hell

The prospect of the Moss-Hince nuptials is clearly going to keep the gossip columns busy for a few weeks. Sunday Mirror's showbiz section, Showbiz Zoe with the Showbiz by Showbiz Zoe, announces that plans are already being made:

Kate Moss plans gypsy wed party over curry

That's quite a clumsy headline, with its mix of tenses. Luckily, there's a subhead to clarify matters:

Kate plans gypsy wed party over curry

Oh.

It actually turns out that the curry was another party, at Davina Taylor's "mansion" - with Lily Allen and Sadie Frost in attendance. Do these people only ever hang out with each other? They're kind of like a version of the Corrie factory girls only with more money and roughly the same level of education:

It turned into a lively night - hostess Davinia laid on an Indian feast followed by cupcakes at the do at her mansion in St John's Wood, North London.

So, someone called for a takeout from the local balti, then.

That'd be the curry dealt with, but what about the "gypsy wed party". It turns out this isn't - as you might have expected - the actually wedding party, but, says a "friend":

They are thinking about having the actual wedding in September, so the plan is to hold an engagement party in August to give them both enough time to recover before their stag and hen do's.

But don't you have the engagement party roughly when you get engaged, and not... oh, never mind. Let's just try and work out the gypsy bit?

. Kate asked all her mates for ideas for the engagement and Lily Allen suggested a gypsy-themed party. Kate got really excited and star ted talking about what dress she could wear for that."

So, although Kate was planning a gypsy-themed party, she was planning in the sense of "if we did that, we could do this" rather than actually going out and buying caravans. Let's hope she abandons the idea, because the idea of Moss, Allen, Taylor, Battersby and Frost trying to have a party themed around a persecuted minority has the potential to challenge Prince William's Out Of Africa bash for levels of sensitivity.

Watching the tide of history rolling out

James P emails with news of Suzanne Shaw's engagement. And one keyt detail:

It's the headline that struck me - The 'boyfriend' in question is JK, from former Radio 1 duo JK and Joel, now a weekend presenter on Virgin. Up until a few weeks ago, he would've merited getting his name in the headline, rather than just 'Boyfriend'. It's like a demonstration of how quickly celebrity status can change in a few short months. In the world of celebrity couples, I don't think I've seen a shift in the role of 'The Famous One' like this since the days of Neil and Christine Hamilton...

It's also worth noting that JK is now so unfamous, they're also having to refer to him as Jason "JK" King - not, to be honest, that that's going to make people think 'that bloke who used to do the Top 40' rather than 'wasn't he a fictional character?'

Blake Sennett engaged

Rilo Kiley's Blake has got himself engaged to some actor or other. Congratulations all round.

Why we love local newspapers

Hats off to the Norwich Evening News, which knows exactly the pecking order for the story about KT Tunstall's engagement:

Norwich man to marry pop star

This might be interesting to the 'is KT Tunstall gay' audience

KT Tunstall is either about to marry the love of her life, or enter into a passionless, PR-driven attempt to hush the whisperings about her sexuality, depending on your point of view. She's got engaged to Luke Bullen from her band.

Apparently he turned up on Christmas Day and asked her:

"So, 11 o'clock on Christmas morning, the doorbell goes and it's Luke suited and booted. With all his bags. And a little box. Wrapped with a ribbon.

"He proposed. Being an opportunist, I obviously said yes. It feels smashing. We're gonna do the deed way up in the wild North."

Depending on which side of the debate you've placed yourself, this will either be a charming, heartwarming tale of romantic gestures, or a cunningly scripted tale from a cynical press office.

Gareth gets engaged

Given that his last attempt to muster a comeback relied on desperately trying to spin out the "I've had sex with Jordan" anecdote, the news that Gareth Gates is getting engaged probably signals the last scrape of bottom of the musical career jar.

The Bradford-born singer is rumoured to be among the contestants on the next series of ITV1's Dancing On Ice.

Oh, yes.

Even the BBC News report on his engagement mentions the Jordan connection, which probably means the best man will feel obliged to try and work it into the speeches.