The Second Serve: Georgian Nightmare

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The Popbitch Popquiz archive is [here]

The Daily Audio Quiz archive is [here]

On one side – Billi Mucklow, the current and soon to be ex Mrs Andy Carroll. On the other, Lou Teasdale, 1D stylist and current girlfriend.

But a war? Well, it’s definitely a stretch. Lou’s sister Sam lives in Essex near the Carroll family – but that’s hardly Rooney v Vardy.

We can’t blame the papers for stirring, though. A couple years back photos emerged of Andy on his Dubai stag do lying asleep in bed with a pretty blonde. “It was all just a bit of entirely innocent fun” was the bedmate’s comment, and the one the tabloids all went with.

The journalists who’d seen the full set of photos said, however, it would have been rather easy to have an entirely different take than “entirely innocent”.

FYI: Billi and Andy’s kids are called Arlo, Wolf and Marvel. Lou has a daughter, Lux. Sounds like they could make a perfect blended family eventually…

There’s a lot of briefing going on from various parties about that weekend in Stockholm and we can’t delve too deeply right now, but there has been some interesting reporting in the Swedish media.

Marco Djelevic, the fixer credited with arranging Mbappe’s night out, was Mr Sweden 2011. He’s said to have arranged package in which specially invited individuals joined Mbappe’s group at a nightclub. Some were then invited on to the footballers’ penthouse hotel suite, at which the events in question are said to have occurred.

As well as the ubiqitous “Tik Tok influencers”, it’s reported that Djelevic picked his invites largely from the cast of Paradise Hotel Sweden, which ran from 2010 for a few seasons.

In case you don’t know it, Paradise Hotel is a reality show in which beautiful singles have to pair up in a swanky resort. You have to find someone to share your hotel room or you get evicted.

Which is weirdly ironic, under the circumstances.

“The ‘otters eating koi carp’ link last week in Popbitch reminded me of a story my colleague got in the late 80s early 90s working on a local paper in Buckinghamshire.

Expensive koi carp were being found dead in ponds, it was a mystery. Finally people think they worked out what had happened. There was a dearth of female frogs that year so male frogs were getting their kicks where they could. They were shagging the fish, but, when wrapping their legs around them, blocked their gills and suffocated them.

The paper has long since gone but unsurprisingly, every time I hear anyone talk of koi carp I remember this story. And now you will too.”

Over the past six years Katie annnounced the death of seven dogs, one horse, a chameleon and an £8k prized sphinx kitten. Five of which were hit by cars, one was crushed under an armchair and the chameleon apparently pined for Junior Andre, who went of to live with his dad.

Jodie set up Fripps Farm Animal Rescue Centre, but seems to have left her village neighbours unimpressed. One sent us a video of a goose being chucked in a pond by its neck; another told of a terrapin going walkabout, which resulted in Jodie trying to issue us with some legal threats. Anyway, the council rejected her application to keep eight ring-tailed lemurs after pub-goers told tales of her bring a meerkat and an owl to their local.

Then again, the billionaire behind the misnamed Georgian Dream party appointed the heads of government, central bank, electoral commission, state audit office and judiciary. And whose personal assets are worth more than 25% of the whole country’s GDP.

So who was/is going to say no?

Bidzina’s glass mega-castle overlooking Tblisi features an aquarium filled with sharks and a field full of zebras.

The wildlife is not a new affectation either. 20 years ago he built a private zoo in his home village Chorvila. He even invited the villagers to come and have a look around, saying “Lemurs roam free in my yard like cats”.

The most Telegraphy named Telegraph deputy editor, Catherine Bentley-Gouldstone, got very excited indeed about featuring it in “her majesties” newspaper. Paper underlings shuffling into work for another day in paradise were leapt upon by BG, forcing the passing wind anecdote on anyone who would listen. In morning conference, it took up no less than 20 minutes, featuring very droll corkers such as: “SHOULD WE HAVE USED THE WORD TRUMP” and “MAYBE THATS A NORTHERN THING”

Sadly the enthusiasm was not matched by anyone else at conference, so the excitement eventually died down.

Halloween

A very 2024 drum and bass take on the Rockwell Halloween classic Somebody’s Watching Me.

Early 80s Mixtape

Musixmic, who was behind a lot of the market leading compilation albums when they were a thing, has put together a leftfield early 80s mixtape for us.

[Didn’t respond well to dieting]

The man behind the tech bros’ newsletter

[And Peter Thiel’s protege]

Japanese Mundane Halloween Costumes

[2024 version]

Have you heard the one about the 12 inch Queen?She was a terrible monarch but an excellent ruler.