Pussycat Dolls in clothes loss rumpus

The latest pop sensations to emerge from America have issued a heartfelt, and some would say desperate, plea to a mysterious thief to return their clothes. "We've lost almost everythin," sobbed singer Nichole Schevziwger. "We're having to get around in any old charity shop rubbish we can find, or else slum it in our underwear. And the weather here in England is fuc*king freezing, man."

The Pussycat Dolls started their careers doing saucy Las Vegas cabaret turns and have included in their time a rotating line up of familiar and not so familiar faces. Amongst the more well known "guest" members have been such massive luminaries as Carmen Electra, Britney Spears and Bob Willis. Now the Dolls are beginning to get a reputation for taking the Vaudeville theme too far. "We appeared to collect a gong at the World Music Awards and everyone thought it was just part of our image," said Carmit Bachar drying her eyes and shivering. "But everything we had that we weren't already wearing was stolen from our dressing room ten minutes before we were due to go onstage." Bachar was last seen on CD:UK in a pair of trousers borrowed from a 28-stone friend in the US Marines. "She wants those trousers back by Saturday!"

Police have taken statements from the five girls and their management. They are looking for two suspects, one a white male in his fifties with a bald head, rimmed glasses and speaking with a quiet voice, possibly with a foreign accent. His accomplice is described as a white/orange female with black hair and malevolent disposition. They may have been spotted in a blue Smart car heading for Holyhead.

The Pussycat Dolls should have been celebrating the relative success of their first heavily promoted single in the UK, Dontcha (Wish Your Girlfriend was a Tramp Like Me), but the ecstasy of appearing alongside Phil Jupitus ("We've admired his writings for years now...") on Top Of The Pops has been dampened by the thefts and the threat of appearing on a Top Gear Christmas Special as "Stars in a Reasonably Priced Set of Clothes". Just when the problem seemed like it could not get any worse uproar engulfed the press conference when it was discovered that Melody Thornton's only thong was missing. She had been wearing it at the start of the proceedings.

"It's like their clothes just fall right off of them," said Mick "Square Head" Pishcanoley, the Dolls' manager. "Only last week, one of 'em, I think it was Kim, went into a phone booth to call her mom and when she came out she was butt naked. No idea where the hell her clothes had gawn."

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