DOOLEY.

Remember where you heard it: It has been just days away for weeks, but now the AOL and Time Warner deal has finally gone through, the men who know at WEA and London suggest their own merger is finally set to roll. Questions still up in the air: will the sweeteners Roger Ames and Nick Phillips are offering Tracy Bennett and Laurie Cokell to stay keep them, umm, sweet? And has All Saints' jacket-inspired bust-up convinced Ames that his rumoured buy-back clause will never be worth taking up? ... Word is the girls are going to get individual demo time at London to work out their creativity, but they are under heavy manners to keep it together for the sake of their bank balances, not to mention looming legal action ... Germany's usually reliable Suddeutscher Zeitung reports BMG could sell its 20% Zomba stake to ease an EMI merger ... February 1 now looks set to loom large for one particular transfer that never quite made the news last year ... Meanwhile, Mercury has put the finishing touches to its new-look A&R line-up ... Westlife in uptempo song shock: the ballad specialists have lined up a cover of Billy Joel's Four Seasons pastiche Uptown Girl for Comic Relief and next month's Brits. Word has it that they are trying to get hold of Liz Hurley -- strike action permitting -- to perform the Christie Brinkley "role" on the Brits stage ... Worried what damage the Brits is doing to the environment? Fear not, because this year a programme is being put in place with eco business Carbon Neutrala to plant enough trees to make up for the energy wasted not just by the event itself but the punters watching at home ... Jeff Smith may well ...