Loose lips trying to sink Cashley's ship

Ashley Cole's been called many things, several of them by us: tosser, over-paid underachiever, whore, adulterer, piece of shit.... the list could go on.

However, he's been called something recently that he didn't like, even though his name was not used outright, and he's taking legal action.

What has he taken offense to?

Being outed.

Apparently, the story goes that the News of the World published some rather salacious stories on Feb 12 claiming that two bisexual EPL stars had been engaged in some dirty phone calls over their cell phones, and that their reporter had seen recordings of the alleged incident.

Then, the story was passed like a leather-clad hot potato to sister tabloid the Sun, who referenced the story in the caption of a picture of Ashley Cole out with his fiancee Cheryl Tweedy, and the calls from the lawyers began shortly thereafter.

It's a weird bit of news; neither paper explicitly mentioned Cole in relation to the story itself, choosing instead to use a nudge nudge wink wink approach that hasn't made Cole particularly happy.

"Cole has decided to sue for harassment, breach of privacy and libel after rumours over his sexuality spread like wildfire on the internet, fuelled by a series of articles in the News of the World and the Sun that did not name him but contained broad hints at his identity.

Legal experts view the case as an important step in taking the temperature of libel and privacy law in cases where the aggrieved parties are not named but the public is able to build up a "jigsaw" identification via tabloid hints that spark gossip via email, blogs and chatrooms.

They said the privacy part of the claim was "unique" because it relied on an untested concept known as "false privacy" - even though Cole says he is not gay, he will argue his privacy has been invaded.

"It's not a clear-cut case," said Mark Stephens, media solicitor at Finers, Stephens, Innocent. "It's difficult for both sides. But ultimately it's going to be embarrassing for the newspaper unless they were publishing on strong grounds.""

This will be interesting to watch, and not just because we might know once and for all whether Cashley likes it up the jacksey. It'll be the first time that gossip blogs and email threads are used to prosecute to such an end, and it might mean that eventually blogs in general have to curb their rampant speculations about anything and everything.

In the meantime, I can confidently report that Ashley Cole loves dudes.* Really he does.**

*Not.
** No clue.