G-String Theory

How has Brad Pitt been coping with the divorce? Funny you should ask.

He and Angelina got matching ‘commitment’ tattoos shortly before they split, and it seems to have given Brad a bit of a taste for needlework. Someone who was fitting him for a suit recently caught a glimpse of his bare torso in the mirror and saw that it is absolutely covered in new tattoos.

If you need a more precise description, apparently he looks like a “white Lil Wayne”.

Excerpts of Russian Roulette, a new book about Trump and his ties to Russia, appeared in the press over the weekend – with a lot being made of a night in 2013 where Trump and his visiting pals, the Agalarovs, attended a notorious Vegas club, The Act, which is famous for its risqué acts of simulated bestiality, S&M and golden showers.

The authors of the book say they couldn’t confirm what acts Trump saw that night, but there’s some serious discussion being had in Washington newsrooms about the rumour that it’s precisely because Trump was so tickled by a routine he saw where two women urinated on one another – and kept bringing it up all night to his companions – that the infamous Russian piss-party ended up happening at all.

Seeing what a kick he’d got out of it in Vegas, his Russian pals apparently thought it would make for a nice welcome treat to give Trump a private encore performance when he arrived at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow.

Which reality TV star is using daddy’s money to stop tabloids running stories about their fairly unsubtle coke habit? Threats of a high court injunction have already been tabled, but their willingness to take selfies with ‘fans’ outside the very bogs that they’d just been hoofing gak in might blow a hole in their case…

Stephen Hawking loved Depeche Mode. During the 90s, he wrote to their management to see if he could meet them backstage after a gig. No-one replied.

So he wrote again saying he was a massive fan and would be honoured to meet them. Again, no reply.

He eventually asked his assistant to contact their record label, Mute, who then contacted Depeche Mode.

The reply came back that they “always get letters off this bloke trying to blag tickets, and who the fuck is he anyway?”

Peter Stringfellow took the gold yesterday for Most Surprising Tribute to Stephen Hawking, tweeting a picture of himself and the professor that had been taking after a dinner the pair had at his strip club in 2003.

Hawking was no stranger to Stringfellow’s Cabaret of Angels show in Covent Garden. In fact, he’d be treated to bespoke performances where the girls would come upstairs to see him because the wheelchair accessibility was so bad in the building. (His favourite girl was Tiger, if anyone can let her know how much he appreciated her attention?)

Anyway, it’s rare that we’d ever want to be a fly on any of Peter Stringfellow’s walls, but we’d have loved to have been present for the memorable night where Stringfellow was kind enough to introduce Professor Hawking to another of his regular VIP punters… Calum Best.

Stephen Hawking was a regular patron of the Royal Opera House for over twenty years, so he was a dab hand at opera etiquette. His assistant though? A little less so.

Clearly excited to be out at the opera, she was concentrating so intently when the house lights dimmed for the start of the show that they forgot a critical duty. In the quiet before the orchestra struck up, the distinctive voice of the venerable professor was heard calling out “Turn it off. Turn it off.”

He was referring to the monitor of his computer module, which – in the now darkened auditorium – was causing him to become notably illuminated.

Pitch invasions at the London Stadium topped off a week of stories about how West Ham fans were organising mass protests over what’s happened to all the club’s money since it was taken over by David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady.

There’s a million things that could have set off Saturday’s protesters but perhaps one of them was sat at home watching Sky Sports News on Friday. There was an interview with David Sullivan’s son, Jack, who’s been given his own column on the club’s website and the rather cushy role of “Ladies Managing Director”.

Sat very obviously in shot behind Jack throughout the interview? His helicopter.

Thirty years ago this month, the Writers Guild of America went on strike over a dispute regarding residuals. As an unintended consequence of the 1988 strike, reality TV as we know it today was born.

Ten years ago, the WGA were on strike again – in part to try to wrest some official control over the scripting of reality TV. As an unintended consequence of the 2007/08 strike, Donald Trump was given a second chance.

Together, these two strikes have had a profound effect on pop culture, the media and politics, and it’s only in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida that we are seeing the true extent of it.

This is a long story – one that takes in Fox TV, a crack-addicted baby, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, Kim Kardashian, Gordon Brown, the legend of Al Capone, InfoWars and, regrettably, Piers Fucking Morgan. We’ll be telling it in four parts, one a week for the next four weeks.

The introduction and the first part is here
[Read A Tale Of Two Strikes on Popbitch]

The Sun’s betting arm, SunBets, hasn’t quite been the success News UK were hoping for since Rebekah Brooks set it up – and now they’re even turning on their own.

One of the latest people to have their account limited on the platform? Charlie Brooks. Husband of Rebekah.

We’ve always strived to be very positive about Eurovision, but this year may have beaten us. There are a couple of things to look out for in the endless sea of sloppy dreck though.

* Norway: Alexander Rybak’s back and he’s entered a song that sounds like the sort of thing Jamie Oliver would have written if he’d wanted kids to take music lessons instead of eat salads.
[Listen]

* Czech Republic: Sadly, he’s going to have to cut the line about how “motherfuckers wanna eat my spaghetti” but it’s got an early-90s Have Fun Go Mad sort of vibe.
[Listen]

* Israel: Starts off weird, and doesn’t really get any less so, but those chicken noises are definitely going to capture people’s attention.
[Listen]

* Sweden: The only track in the competition that sounds vaguely contemporary. If, by contemporary, you mean a Nick Jonas single from around 2016.
[Listen]

H&M are up to some bad fuckery
[Read on PostersAndPrints]

A catalogue of vending machines in computer games
[The VGSM Project]

This week’s Africa by Toto hack: a car alert
[Hear on Crave]

Interesting profile of the female billiards scene
[Read on Topic]

Car chasing fish on a frozen pond
[Watch on Laughing Squid]

An insider’s take on how badly Vice is handling their sexual harassment culture
[Read on Medium]

Anyone in London wanting to go to the Gold Cup day tomorrow? One Popbitcher has a pair of tickets – £200ono for both. Email pophorse@popbitch.com

Want a special set of Popbitch tips for tomorrow’s Gold Cup? Sign up for a special email tomorrow morning here [Get tips tomorrow]

Plus these tips from the course: 2.10pm Glencoe; 2.50pm Un De Sceaux; 3.30pm Yanworth; 4.50pm Laurina. Good luck!