Spice Girl announces engagement in The Times

Geri Halliwell, the singer and Spice Girl, has announced her engagement to the Formula One team boss Christian Horner on the Births, Marriages and Deaths page of The Times.

Less than a week after Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of Sherlock, alerted the world to his engagement to Sophie Hunter, a theatre director, on the same page, Halliwell has become the latest celebrity to choose an understated announcement in The Times to relay the happy news.

David and Victoria Beckham may have announced their engagement to the paparazzi outside a Chester hotel in 1998, while Kim Kardashian announced the second of her three engagements — to Kris Humphries — on the cover of People magazine in 2011, but a trend for more discreet revelations has