A few days later...

I don't want to make it look like I'm picking on NME.com this afternoon, but how come it's just now running the Britney to star in Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill story - not only four days after everyone else, but four days after everyone else ran stories pointing out that the idea was just a fanciful creation and based on no facts at all?

The report offers its source:

According to The Telegraph, Spears is set to play the role of lesbian dancer Varla in the film.

And, yes, the Daily Telegraph did report that. In a story published on the 6th August.

Perhaps they've been fact-checking for the last nine days?

Mind you, even if it was a new story, you'd hope that NME wouldn't take the Telegraph's word as gospel on pop culture.
There are clues that it might not be that newspaper's field of expertise.

Fact check, Pussycat

The Telegraph runs an eye-catching headline:

Britney Spears to play lesbian killer in Quentin Tarantino film

The claim is that Tarantino is remaking Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill, and that Britney is going to be in it.

Trouble is, as I Don't Like You In That Way points out, Tarantino isn't currently remaking the movie. More to the point, while he might sometimes cast stars whose acting career has faded, he tends to not choose those whose acting career has faded because they have trouble reaching the acting standards required of a DFS commercial.

So why would the Telegraph bother with the story? Could it be an excuse to run a giant snatch - I think that's the word - of Madonna snogging Britney at the MTV Music Video awards 1973 or whenever it was? Private Eye ran a story recently about how Telegraph writers are being encouraged to write stories which feature words which do well on Google - a three-way with "lesbian" "Madonna" and "Britney Spears" in would almost be a dream, wouldn't it?