The Second Serve // Pinocchio’s Sexy Nose

Absolutely everyone who’s anyone seems to have attended one, but what actually goes on at these extravagant A-list parties that Evgeny Lebedev has been hosting for the cream of British society these last few decades?

Evgeny has a huge dressing up box in his house, and he forces guests to play with him when they’re round for dinner parties and the like.

Not even sex stuff. Just costumes.

Throughout his tenure at the Evening Standard, Evgeny Lebedev has always been keen to give off an aura of culture, of refinement, of appreciation for the finer things in life.

So what sort of art does a man like Evgeny enjoy? Visitors to his private office at the Evening Standard remember his collection containing not only a painting above his desk of a naked man wearing a pig mask holding a whip and standing over three decapitated pigs, but in a glass case elsewhere in the room he kept a statue of Pinocchio with an erect penis for a nose.

anon writes:
“I went to school and was in some of the same classes as Evgeny Lebedev. He always wore very sharp three-piece suits which I always thought was a little odd (since it was against school uniform rules) but he was never picked up on it and we used to joke that it was because his dad was in the KGB.

“Many (many) years later, I was on the train and picked up a copy of the Evening Standard’s ES Magazine which had a story on a Russian young man rising through the ranks of the British socialite hierarchy, whose dad just happened to be in the KGB. I’m sure you can work out who the article was about.”

There’s been a lot of speculation about Evgeny Lebedev and Boris Johnson’s relationship this weekend, after members of the British intelligence started speaking about MI6’s historic concerns about him.

The two have been thick as thieves for ages. As was widely reported a few years back, Boris tried to take a discreet trip to Perugia in 2018, slipping loose from his security in order to attend one of Lebedev’s parties. We might never have learned the details had Boris not caught the eye of fellow passengers on his way home, turning up to the airport absolutely hanging out of his arse, looking like he’d slept in his clothes and unable to walk in a straight line to the plane.

It wasn’t a one-off indulgence either. Back in October 2015 we told you a story about a Popbitch reader who found himself waiting to board a flight from Perugia to Stansted with Boris. In his characteristically disheveled fashion, Boris seemed flustered by the parade of people wanting to take selfies with him there. But whether that’s because he was hungover, or because they were interrupting the farewell he’d been trying to give a young Italian woman there, it’s impossible to know.

What about George Osbourne, the MP turned Evening Standard editor, who was hired to work at Evegny’s paper? What’s he up to these days?

Well, things haven’t been too rosy for him in his new life as an investment banker. George dropped his infamously eclectic portfolio of jobs to dedicate himself full-time to a gig at boutique investment firm Robey Warshaw last year, but things have been extremely slow there, with them suffering some of their least profitable months. George had been hoping that their fortunes would turn around with the new big client he’d roped in… Oleg Deripaska.

The Russian oligarch whose mansion is currently the site of a stand-off between riot police and squatters.

News broke over the weekend that Simon Cowell has been hired by former label rivals Universal to act as a talent scout for their roster. Reports have all mentioned that Cowell was the multimillionaire tastemaker responsible for breaking such acts as Leona Lewis, One Direction, JLS, Little Mix and other varied X Factor outfits.

Which is one way of putting it. The other is that he’s a format magpie, who nicked the basic concept of The X Factor and then let the British public do the work for him, deciding who they wanted to hear records from. Because what sort of records was Simon Cowell famous for producing when he was an A&R man without a public phone vote to consult?

Mr Blobby by Mr Blobby
Teletubbies Say Eh Oh by The Teletubbies
Them Girls Them Girls by Zig And Zag
Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll by The Woolpackers

Last week’s quiz themes included weird pop covers, jailbirds and Europop. This week will see another five rounds, each made up of snippets of ten songs all smooshed together for you to unpick.

You get a point for every song you correctly identify and another point for every artist too.

Monday’s theme: Simon Cowell’s Greatest Hits!

[Play it here]

Matt Goss gives another incredible interview
[Read on the Guardian]

LL Cool J explains what the hell he was doing in his videos
[See for yourself]

Alan Erasmus – co-founder of Factory Records – is in Ukraine. Peter Hook has donated £1,000 to his JustGiving drive
[See on JustGiving]

If you want to read the Mishcon De Reya Russia website we were talking about on Thursday
[The internet never forgets]