Daily Star, GTA Rothbury and Channel 5

To be honest with you I'd missed this story last week. Apparently the Daily Star managed to claim that Rockstar had started work on GTA Rothbury, a game based on the brief visit to the village by killer Raoul Moat. They reportedly went to members of victims families for comment an mocked up a cover for the game (shown to the upper right). Thinq reports on it here.

Now the Daily Star have had to publish a grovelling apology and give "substantial damages" to Rockstar, who are going to give them to charity.

I know what you're thinking, and I agree, it'd be a terrible game. The one playable character looks like an angry potato, and you only get to shoot four people - one of whom is yourself. The rest of your time is sat in a tent or drain writing letters.

And it's also a fucking disgusting thing to do to sell your piss-poor "newspaper". All of those involved should be absolutely fucking ashamed. That is Jerry Lawton, who wrote the article. Editor Dawn Neesom. And owner Richard Desmond. Take a round of applause all of you, in a theatre named simply 'cunts'.

Desmond, of course, has been in the news for other reasons recently. The porn , magazine and newspaper baron has gone the whole media hog and bought out terrestrial UK tv station, Channel 5. Whilst such centralised media ownership can never be a good thing, I'm not sure how Channel 5 could become any more low-brow and sensational. I await Mr Desmond's attempts with some interest.

At the very least we can expect some top quality video game coverage.