Apples and Oranges

Breaking news - celebrities have feelings, too.

Eight years after they released their first EP The Safety on the Fierce Panda label, Coldplay have finally called it quits, with Chris Martin admitting at yesterday's Brit Awards that "people are fed up with us - and so are we." They did little to ingratiate themselves to the public when they made an annoying contest out of the release of their North American tour dates.

Rumours about potential breakups have surrounded the band for a while, most notably at the end of their Parachutes tour in 2002 and when Peta's "Sexiest Vegetarian" Chris Martin married actress and fellow vegie, Gwyneth Paltrow.

In a way, Coldplay and especially Chris Martin have been easy targets - what, with his pretty ways such as writing self-righteous messages across his knuckles in black magic marker and baking a vegan birthday cake for his daughter, called uh - Apple. It is not his fault that his "sweeping, melodic rock" sound came to be associated with innumerable adverts on television. He is a mere pawn of the music industry - a very smart and rich pawn - how else could you make the decision to "go into hiding" for at least two years

AnswerBankers have long weighed in on the Coldplay debate, i.e "Are they brilliant or a load of depressing rubbish " and either laughed at or commiserated with them when they were robbed of their Number One spot on the charts by the Crazy Frog last year. Now, with their announced break up the AB house is unusually quiet - a sign of silent agreement