David Beckham, Harry Potter, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and Doctor Who lose out to Princess Diana

4:27pm Wednesday 5th September 2007

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I WROTE my best-ever headline last month. It wasn't the funniest, it was not the cleverest; it was just the most successful I have ever penned.

Do a drum roll and prepare to be astounded, because it went as follows: "I return to Doctor Who and meet Kylie Minogue."

Anyone fallen off their chair yet in shock at the sheer exquisite beauty of it?

No, I don't suppose you have, but I repeat this was the best I have ever done.

It was the heading I hurriedly gave a column written by former Doctor Who actor Colin Baker in the Bucks Free Press, last month.

Colin told how he was on a theatre tour in Cardiff, where the present Doctor Who is filmed, and he was invited onto the set of the show's Christmas special.

He was able to chat between takes with the present Doctor, David Tennant, as well as the special guest star, Kylie Minogue.

Colin, who lives in High Wycombe, was warmly greeted by the producers, and wrote about how uplifted he was.

Well, not as uplifted as I was when I saw the figures on our website after uploading the column.

The Bucks Free Press smashed all known records that week with thousands of extra readers logging on.

When I investigated the colossal increase in web use, I found the Doctor Who column was the most read story on the site by a mile. It had notched up thousands of page impressions and was solely responsible for a highly impressive six per cent of the site's entire readership figures.

My good friend Colin will no doubt point to the sharpness of his column and the power of his prose.

Sorry mate, but I put its success down to the internet search engines which seek out keywords and direct readers to stories.

Doctor Who is just about the most popular show on TV, while Kylie is one of the most popular cult celebs of all time. Together, the combination must have been irresistible.

With the internet ruling the roost these days, you don't need funny and clever headlines. Just string a few very popular words together and you'll have readers flocking to devour your work.

Many of you won't believe me, so I am going to try an experiment. I have uploaded this story on to our website with the most absurd celeb-packed headline possible.

Now let's sit back and see how many web readers it gets.

But who could be more popular than the icons in my last headline?

I ran through a few random names in my mind. Wayne Rooney, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Big Brother, Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne, Jordan, James Bond, Victoria Beckham. Hmm, none of them are quite up there at the moment with Kylie and David Tennant.

When I looked earlier this week, the name of Emile Heskey was currently one of the most sought-after on the web. That's because he's just been controversially recalled by the England football team, but Heskey is still not better than Kylie.

David Beckham, however, is a different story. And the name of Harry Potter would just about be wizard as well.

Meanwhile, little these days can compete with Britney Spears' notoriety.

But the number one favourite of all time, who knocks all these names into a cocked hat, would more than likely be the late Princess Diana whose enduring popularity would beat them out of sight.

Which leads us nicely into my new, and very wordy, best-ever headline which I am parading above for the whole worldwide web to see: "David Beckham, Harry Potter, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and Doctor Who lose out to Princess Diana."

Can you come up with a better internet headline? Place your ideas below.