1) Coldplay don’t need your money, so don’t even think about buying their new unbelievably over-hyped album, X&Y. It shifted half a million copies in its first week in the UK alone and hit the number one spot in 26 counties. I personally plan to download it illegally and then delete it without listening to it, revelling in the knowledge that this would clearly piss them off. Not listening to their LP is, incidentally, a pretty good idea. It’s more formulaic, bland, stadium-rock-ballads with all the innovation and credibility of a Phil Collins b-side.

2) Everybody knows that Phil Colins is a bad man. He dumped his ex-wife by fax machine (true) and lives as a tax exile in Switzerland (true). Coldplay, on the other hand have the audacity to pretend to be a ‘right-on’ group with strident political convictions, fighting against things like poverty in the third world. However, there’s a fine line between sincere good-heartedness and cynical over-blown egotism, and lead singer Chris Martin has crossed it.

3) Chris described Live8, the charity concert held to make Bob Geldof and Bono from U2 feel good about themselves, as being "the greatest thing that's ever been organised probably in the history of the world". Wrong, Chris. This is clearly a man labouring under terrible delusions of his own self-importance.

4) Anti-poverty crusader is what we would call ‘posh’, having attended Sherborne ‘public school’. Public schools are, ironically, extremely private schools indeed, and are reserved for the children of the rich (studying at Sherborne costs around €9000 to attend, per term). Aside from the fact that public schooling is extremely unfair (creaming off the best teachers and leaving all the bad ones for poor people), there is literally nothing in this world that is less cool than having gone to public school.

5) Coldplay are about as Rock and Roll as a university chess club. The entire band are helpless geeks, something reinforced by the fact that, aside from Chris, you wouldn’t recognise any of them even if they came up to you on the street and tried to invite you to a lecture on Fermat's Last Theorem. And by the looks of them, this is something that they do with alarming regularity. As one A&R man put it, they’re “so fucking studenty. I've never met a band so keen to do well in their exams”.

6) Chris Martin is married to Gwyneth Paltrow. This alone is a good reason to hate Coldplay. The pair are said to communicate in their own secret language, made up of ‘bird-noises’. Unless you’re 12 years old and have just started dating your first boyfriend, this is unacceptable behaviour (as is calling your daughter ‘Apple’).

7) Before Coldplay, Chris considered forming a *NSYNC inspired boy band called ‘Pectoralz’. Sounds utterly improbable, but true. Imagine Chris dancing like Peter Andre and showing off his baby-oiled body next time you’re listening to their whining, introspective songs of post-millennial angst. Suddenly all that sincerity rings oh-so-hollow…

8) Music industry insiders believe that Coldplay have strong links to the terrorist group Al-Quaida.

9) Actually, I might have got that last one wrong.

10) Erm… That’s it.