NME goes cold on Olympic anthem story

Paste are running a story based on an NME piece, trumpeting that Chris Martin, Damon Albarn and Matt Bellamy would be writing an anthem to open the Olympics.

It does sound unlikely, doesn't it? To be fair, the NME didn't make it up, and were just churning something they'd read in the Mirror, but they had joyfully run the story as fact without showing any critical thought at all.

Someone seems to have finally got round to reading what they were telling their visitors, though, as the news story has since vanished, leaving only a version in Google's cache:

Coldplay, Muse and Damon Albarn have reportedly been approached to write the official anthem for the London 2012 Olympics.

According to the Daily Mirror Chris Martin and co are the organisers' top pick for the job, and have been asked to write "something inspirational" for the official song of the event.

A source told the paper: "Chris is at the top of the list to front the official record. We're pulling out all the stops to get Chris, ideally with the rest of Coldplay involved too."

Joss Stone has also reportedly been approached to take part in the games' opening ceremony, as well as Coldplay - should they agree to write the song.

For god's sake, did nobody even twig when typing that Joss Stone was being lined up for this? Joss Stone? Were they thinking 'well, that makes sense, they probably left it too late to book Alex Parks'?