Tottenham Hotspur star Gareth Bale says he is not fazed by reports linking him with a £40m move to Real Madrid becoming journalistic shorthand for “there is absolutely no news today”.

The Welshman, Welsh, has been linked with a £40m move to Real Madrid at regular intervals ever since scoring a hat-trick for Spurs against Inter Milan in last season’s Champions League, and until now there had been an alarming trend of people giving the stories a semblance of credence on the basis that “it’s in the news, and they’re not allowed to just make stuff up, are they?”.

However, today’s widely circulated regurtitation has sparked a series of doubts as to whether the story owes itself to anything more than one editor saying, “There’s sod all in the news today, and we’ve already run about a hundred articles taking the piss out of Liverpool this week, so let’s just run the Bale to Real story again and not even bother changing the transfer fee involved,” and then loads of other websites seeing the article pop up on NewsNow and rewriting it a little bit so as not to miss out on their share of the hits pie.

Bale said: Nothing, you idiots.

There’s absolutely nothing in the way of actual quotes in this story, so why are you even bothering reading it?

If some idiot child spraypainted “David Bentley to Ajax” on a wall somewhere, and you happened to see it, would you then send a text round to your mates reporting it as gospel?

You probably would and all. Moron.

He added: You aren’t even reading this bit, are you?