Oh my God that Britney's shameless

With the new year still in its infancy, lots of people are still looking back at 2009 and making a mental audit of everything they experienced throughout the year. For instance, Lady GaGa had a great year, Michael Jackson and Jade Goody less so.

As far as Britney Spears is concerned, the jury's still out. She did manage to claw herself back from round-the-clock psychiatric supervision and popped out a couple more massive hit singles. But she also had to endure the ignominy of mass walkouts from her concerts when it emerged that she was lip-synching, rather than performing live. Although anyone genuinely shocked by the idea of Britney miming deserves to be fleeced out of a couple of hundred dollars. What next? Magazine readers shocked to find that Demi Moore pictures have been airbrushed?

Still, after an unprecedented year of intrusive press coverage, Britney is fighting back. In an unusual demonstration of self-awareness, Team Britney has created a fascinating countdown of bullshit called 'The Year in BS' that highlights all of their favourite made-up stories.

It turns out that over 13,000 stories were written about Britney in 2009, but the vast majority of them were about as believable as one of her live performances. The website claims "we ranked the ones we believe were the most ridiculous. Either because they were factually inaccurate, because they reported the patently absurd, or because we believe they are simply offensive to the sensibilities."

The list details all manner of misreported non-events, it's like a bumper annual of the News of the World showbiz pages. Knockbacks, new boyfriends, audience protests - all the most controversial and shocking stories are meticulously rehashed for Britney fans to bite their thumb at.

The problem is, there's no effort to set the story straight on any of the issues. Britney's dedicated fans are expected to believe the official version of events, without having an actual story to buy into. It's basically just 75 'no comments' one after the other.

Given that 2008 was a year when Britney's sanest moments included shaving her head, having a stand-off with the police, attacking a car with an umbrella and enjoying the company of Paris Hilton, it's no wonder that people were willing to believe pretty much anything about her.