Mid-week sales indicate that Gareth Gates’ single is out-selling Will Young’s and that Gareth will be number one when the new chart is announced on Sunday.

Although Will is (apparently) gay and Gareth is a member of a church that (allegedly) hates gays, they are still the best of friends and many of today’s papers carry a space-wasting photo of Will congratulating Gareth. Wasting space on reporting who is number one is, of course, pointless. Wasting space speculating on who might be number one in a few days time is just taking the piss.

The tabloids continued to try and manufacture competition between Will Young and Gareth Gates. And their publicity machines continued to find

excuses to show what good mates they were. Tabloids still print stories like this on a particularly slow news day.

Or if a vaguely interesting record looks like it might beat the X Factor winner to the Christmas number one spot.