TONY BLAIR turned down The Spice Girls when they invited him to appear in a pop video before they became famous.
"He just said `No' outright and I said: `All right, I'll ask John Major then'," said redhead Geri in a New Musical Express interview.
Mel B was once in Coronation Street and Emma took part in the "human wedding cake" Halifax Building Society advertisement before pop fame beckoned, the interview reveals.
Former US president Richard Nixon spoke with aides about resigning more than a year before the Watergate scandal pushed him to do so, the Washington Post said yesterday.
"Wouldn't it be better to just check out?" Nixon asked his chief of staff Alexander Haig, one month after the growing scandal forced the president to fire his longtime aide H.R. Haldeman. The conversation was among 201 hours of White House tape released for public hearing by the National Archives, after the Nixon estate gave up a 21-year fight to keep them secret.
British rock star Ray Davies, of the legendary band The Kinks, said in Newsweek magazine that he has not changed from the 19-year-old who recorded You Really Got Me.
Davis, who says Charles Dickens and Joseph Conrad were his major influences, is wrapping up a 12-city tour of the US and is about to release the Kinks new 29-song CD, To The Bone.