The Sport has a great way to fill its front page when its journalists are feeling particularly lazy (which seems to be just about all the time). They surf the web for a while looking for fake photos of some young starlet. When they find them, they print them on the front page with a story saying how terrible it is that photos like this can appear on the internet. I don’t think they can spell “hypocritical” – let alone understand what it means! Today it’s the turn of Britney Spears. They’ve found a fake that has her body attached to a large-breasted entrant from some “wet t-shirt” competition. Of course, the headline forgets to mention that the

photo is a fake. You only learn that when you bother to read the dozen or so words that constitute the “story” under the photo.

I haven’t been looking all that closely, but I don’t think we see many stories like this any more. I think that’s largely because even the readers of the lower end tabloids are so used to the internet that no-one is the slightest bit surprised when they come across pictures like these. Mind you, the Mail still likes to run “ban this sick filth” stories that are illustrated with photos which leave you in no doubt exactly how sick the filth is.

Now this is a perfect example of exactly what is wrong with tabloid journalism in the UK. A third-rate has-been has a TV show to promote so she’s suddenly seen around town with a man less than half her age. The tabloids then print this on their front pages. In what possible world could this be considered news?

This is nothing more than a press release and it has no place in a newspaper.

If there’s one entry in the whole of Wasted Inches that I’m slightly contrite about then it’s this one. I mean,yes, of course it’s appalling that people engineer photo opportunities in order promote

TV shows. But I’m a little ashamed of describing Lulu as a “third-rate has-been”. She’s awesome, of course. I must have been feeling particularly cynical that day.

That’s “Kylie is Single”, not “New single from Kylie”. It seems that Kylie has split up with her boyfriend (can’t remember his name – but it’s not important, he’s a nobody). Why are all the tabloids telling us this on a day when the BNP are winning council seats?

Another day, another pointless story about a pop singer’s love life. History has failed to record who this particular ex-boyfriend

was. More happily, ten years on from this story, the BNP lost pretty much all of its councillors.

Britney’s recently dumped

boyfriend, the completely unknown pop singer Justin Timberlake, has said that, contrary to her claims, Britney is no longer a virgin. And says “I should know”. Why would anyone care about this? Will hoards of pre-pubescent girls stop buying Miss Spears’ records because she’s known the pleasures of the flesh? We can only hope.

It’s strange to remember how obsessed with Britney Spears the media was ten years ago. These days she is almost completely ignored. And remember how she used to claim that she was still a virgin? Of course, now she has two or three children. And that “completely unknown” pop singer is now probably more famous than she is.

A number of today’s papers have telephoto snaps of Britney Spears without a vest on. Where’s the news in that?

Of course photos

of celebrities sunbathing topless are still a tabloid staple. You’d think the celebrities would have learned by now. Unless, of course, they want to be caught like that. Surely not! Britney herself is no longer quite so common in tabloid pages. Well, not until she has one of her periodic meltdowns. Or another comeback.

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.

The singers (and I use the word in a very loose sense) from Hear’Say are all completely uninteresting. Their families are even less interesting (if that is possible). Why then did today’s News of the World think that it was worth telling the world that one of their mothers is (or maybe was) a hooker. It must have been a really slow news day in tabloid land. I think they said it was Danny’s mother. He’s the one who looks a bit like a potato.

Hear’Say had won Pop Stars in 2001.

By March 2002 their career was very much on the wane. By the end of the year, they had split up. Myleene Klass went back to classical music and then became a TV presenter. Kim Marsh and Suzanne Shaw both ended up acting in soaps. Noel Sullivan and Danny Foster both pretty much vanished without trace. I remember being really quite pleased with the “a bit like a potato”

line.

Some distinctly average singer and her almost completely unheard of boyfriend have split up. Or have they? Do we care? Is this news? If they are are splitting up, then it’s probably because she won’t let him shag her.

This seems a little strange in retrospect. The “completely unheard of boyfriend” was, of course, Justin Timberlake who is probably now just as well-known as Britney Spears. And do you remember the days when Britney still claimed to be a virgin? It all seems such a long time ago now.

Was anyone really surprised that Will Young came out as gay? If you were surprised, have you ever watched Pop Idol? Didn’t you see Will and Gareth singing “The Long and Winding Road” to each other?

Will Young had won Pop Idol in February 2002, beating the favourite Gareth Gates in the final. Very few people were surprised to hear that Will was gay. Many people were very surprised when, some time later, Gareth came out as straight and admitted that he had lost his virginity to Katie Price.