Tattle: Harry Styles Taylor-made for love?

IN WHAT could either turn out to be a romance that will rock the world of tweens or become a sappy, overdubbed, hook-laden song on Taylor Swift's next album, the 22-year-old country/pop queen may be dating One Direction's Harry Styles.

Styles, however, does not represent a new direction in one way - like former Swift boyfriend Conor Kennedy, he's only 18.

He's also exotic like a Kennedy.

He's British.

"I had to literally do a double-take," an onlooker told People upon seeing Styles with Swift on the set of "The X Factor" last week.

He was on hand to watch Taylor rehearse the debut of "State of Grace," which she performed Thursday night on the "Factor."

"He was smiling at her while she rehearsed. When she was done he jumped up onstage, picked her up, put her over his shoulder and carried her offstage," the onlooker said. "The whole crew was really surprised."

Co-host Mario Lopez said he later saw the two "hand-in-hand."

Aw, they were holding hands.

You know, if Taylor wasn't 22, you would swear she was 14.

But wherever this love affair is at the moment, you know from past history it's only going in one direction.

* Given her ability to go through boys like pledge week at a fraternity, Taylor doesn't seem like the ideal person to seek out for relationship advice.

But following BFF Selena Gomez' angry five-minute dinner date with off-again BF Justin Bieber on Friday, E! News reports that Selena hooked up with Taylor the next night for dinner and serious (yet giggling) girl talk at Osteria La Buca in Los Angeles.

Selena wore a shirt that said "You Make Me Happy When Skies Are Gray" and held Taylor's arm as they left the restaurant, so maybe they're the ones who are dating.

"Taylor's amazing," Selena recently told Glamour. "She's so smart and sweet and humble - and she's way more successful than I am! So when I see her after everything she's been through and she just wants to go home and bake cookies with me, that to me is awesome."

Kind of makes you want to toss those cookies.

* In Athens, Greece, a prosecutor

is pressing blasphemy charges over a troubled performance of an American play that portrays Jesus as gay.

Performances of Terrence McNally's "Corpus Christi" were cut short last month after protests by Christian activists and ultranationalists, who claimed it insulted their faith.

As Tattle has said previously, if a play can insult your faith, you need stronger faith.

Ironically, some of the faith-filled activists who protested at opening night, harassed cast members and theatergoers, screaming homophobic and racist obscenities.

* "Marfa Girl," a film by "Kids"

director Larry Clark set in a small Texas town and to be released online only, has taken the top award at Rome's film festival.

Clark, whose other credits include "Bully" and "Ken Park," said the new film will be available online later this month.

After the 2004 election, we wrote "Adopt us, Oh Canada," an incredibly amusing opinion piece for the front of the paper about how all the blue states contiguous with Canada (or contiguous with other blue states contiguous with Canada) should just become part of our neighbors to the north and leave the Confederacy (a/k/a the red states) to fend for themselves.

It was very tongue-in-cheek, with many amusing examples of what Canada would gain by annexing the blues, and afterward we got a lot of hate mail from angry patriots.

Now, however, the angry patriots are even angrier and seriously (at least among themselves) discussing secession - filing petitions, waging campaigns, all kinds of nonsense.

One such advocate for secession is Derrick Belcher of Alabama, who recently said, "If you look at a map of the red states, we have all of the oil and we produce all of the food. We're the ones that are carrying the rest of the nation."

That happens to be the opposite of true, Derrick, unless you're talking about lack of education.

There, you're winning.

The five states with the lowest percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree, are all red: Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia. The top five, by the way, are all blue. The average salary in the least-educated states is about $35K per year, more than $20,000 lower than in the five most educated states.

This lack of education thing explains Belcher's claim that the red states produce all of our food. Uh, dude, did you ever hear of California, Florida and Iowa?

Not to mention our beloved Pennsylvania. And Tattle is a big fan of New Jersey peaches and blueberries.

"All of the oil"? If you had all of the oil, sir, we wouldn't be fighting over the Mideast or a pipeline to Canada.

And based on the state gross domestic product of the Top 10 states, eight of them voted blue. And we're sure you realize that Louisiana gets more than $2,000 per resident from the feds.

Enjoy replacing that money. (Might have to raise taxes.)

So form your own country with all of its states leeching off the Texas economy. In a few years the governor there will be begging the blues to take the Lonestar State back. In the meantime, Broadway, Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Hawaii, Las Vegas and many more of our fine blue tourist destinations will be happy to give you a fair exchange rate on your worthless currency.

- Daily News wire services contributed to this report.