Geri Halliwell and Chris Evans have proved a week is now longer than ever in showbusiness - but, for now at least, seven days of being the most-talked about couple in the UK has done their profiles world of good.

The story broke on 4 November, while 27-year-old Halliwell was battling with her former Spice Girls colleague Emma Bunton for supremacy of the singles chart.

In the headlines again

Halliwell's Lift Me Up - released the previous Monday - was just ahead of Bunton's collaboration with Tin Tin Out, What I Am.

The thought of the two best-known ginger-haired personalities in the UK getting together caught the media's imagination - and the following day's newspapers were full of "are they or aren't they?" stories.

As this happened, sales of Halliwell's single soared, and she gave an "exclusive" interview to The Sun confirming their romance. Meanwhile, Evans did the same at the Sun's rival, The Mirror.

On Sunday, Halliwell had scored her second number one and was all over the papers, while Emma Bunton - at number two - was nowhere to be seen.

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So Bunton is the biggest loser out of the whole affair, closely followed by her collaborators Tin Tin Out. The duo, Lindsay Edwards and Darren Stokes, have lost out on valuable publicity for their new album, which is out on Monday.

Halliwell and Evans' publicist, Matthew Freud, gains kudos from the affair too.

Freud - who also hit the headlines for helping Frank Dobson's campaign to be Labour's candidate to be London mayor - usually shuns the spotlight, but is known as one of the country's most effective publicists.

The Mirror carried a photo of Halliwell and Evans kissing - but Freud knows the value of supposedly spontaneous "snatched" shots. He set one up between Evans and Radio 1 boss Matthew Bannister before he got the job on the station's breakfast show.

The Sun's showbusiness editor Dominic Mohan - who claims the credit for breaking the story - also comes out with a smile on his face, as does his Mirror rival Matthew Wright, who got a rare interview with Evans out of it.

But what of the ginger couple themselves? Evans may have hoped for a boost to the viewing figures for TFI Friday, which are bumping along at around 2.5m.

Out on the town: Halliwell at the MTV Europe awards on Thursday

But unofficial figures show TFI's ratings remained static last Friday - even though Evans had dominated the tabloids for the past two days. Old episodes of The Simpsons on BBC Two attracted more than double the audience of the early evening edition.

And for Halliwell? The current hype-driven state of the singles chart helped her score an easy number one last week, and promote her album Schizophonic, which has not set the charts on fire.

But - contrary to the days when singles used to be in the charts for more than a month - last week's top dog can be this week's mangy mutt, and Geri Halliwell is set to lose her place at number one to Robbie Williams' new single on Sunday.