Gordon in the morning: It's there in the paper, it Murs be the truth

Here's a strange little story tease on Gordon's area this morning:

Now, Olly Murs is the only person in the whole entire world to have competed twice on Deal Or No Deal, so he's not above game shows. But is he really "so desperate for love" he's pestering to go on a dating programme?

The first hint that this is going to be a sloppy job is the suggestion that a show on ITV on Saturday nights, pulling in just shy of five million viewers, is a "cult" programme.

So, we'll bite. Show us your evidence.

The story is written by Richard Moriarty, who, like his famous fictional genius namesake, is called Moriarty.

SINGER Olly Murs is so desperate for love he wants to go on dating show Take Me Out.

He wants to go on the dating show because he's desperate, is he?

The Thinking Of Me star told fans he had been pestering host Paddy McGuinness to get him on the cult ITV1 programme.

Poor guy - pestering Paddy McGuinness, and then telling fans about it.

Olly, 28, opened his heart during a performance at Lytham Proms near Blackpool, Lancs.

He opened his heart? This is sounding like quite a serious place to be in.

He teased a band member for being single, saying: “We are in talks with Paddy McGuinness to get him on Take Me Out."

Hang on.

“Obviously he’s got to join the queue — I’m already at the front.”

Ah. So despite the claims that Murs is desperately pestering McGuinness because he wants a girlfriend, actually the story is 'Olly Murs jokes about a single friend and then undecuts it with some self-deprecating humour at his own expense'.

Even if you assume that Moriarty can't spot a joke - that, perhaps, the fictional smart guy he shares traits with Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory - and he was sitting there going "this is all, clearly, factual, because why would anyone say something that wasn't true?", the story is rotten. Because the attempt to turn a weak joke into a news story still adds a load of made-up detail.