There's a new form of manual communication on the horizon. Forget the "can I have the bill?" or myriad forms of swearing. This one's relevant to your modern-day pop princess and is called "the wide-eyed ingenue". You start with your fingers pinched together then quickly open them, as if mimicking blinking, like an ingenue landing at a debutantes' ball and being amazed at the assembled glamour. If this is a trend, then Elena Jane Goulding is the trend-setter, for she uses these hand movements to accompany both the video and live version of "Starry Eyed", her second single, released next month. It follows her debut "Under the Sheets", which brought her to mainstream attention last year; her album, Lights, is due in March. Brit nominations and BBC poll-topping are already history. She exudes polish on-stage, presumably aided by support slots touring with Little Boots last autumn.

The pop world is hardly in need of another curiously named heroine with a big voice and even bigger shoulder pads after those very girls permeated the charts in 2009, but there's always room for one more to join the party, right? So meet 24-year-old Marina Diamandis from Abergavenny, south Wales. Moving to London after completing her A levels, she arrived in the city with one ambition: fame at any cost. She studied dance and auditioned for just about every musical venture being advertised in The Stage, before realising she was chasing a rather empty dream and took a step back to concentrate on honing her talent as a songwriter.

Former All Saints girls Nicole Appleton and Melanie Blatt sparkled at London's IndigO2 for Monday's BRIT Awards Nominations Launch party.

Female artists dominated the Brit Awards nominations yesterday with Lily Allen, Lady Gaga and Florence And The Machine all in the running for prizes.

Lady Gaga, JLS and Kasabian are among the acts who will perform at the Brit Awards next month, it was announced today.

Up-and-coming act Ellie Goulding, who has yet to make the top 40, today landed a Brit Award.

While most teenagers are squabbling with their parents over pocket money, the teen classical singing sensation Faryl Smith, 14, has been busy signing a £2.3m record deal with Decca.