Minogues Don’t Sweat

He may not be making a huge amount of headway with his bold new Brexit agenda, but there’s one area of negotiation where Boris has quietly been making some progress: his divorce.

Johnson turned up to his estranged wife’s chambers last Friday lunchtime for an hour-long meeting. Clearly he was keen to get matters sorted discreetly before Parliament reconvened so that it’s not an unwelcome distraction on the inevitable campaign trail – but we wonder if he’s missing an opportunity here.

If he’s been spending his recess negotiating his way out of a once-fruitful, now-soured relationship in order to be free to strike up deals with a bunch of exciting new partners, surely he’ll be match fit for Brussels?

Ahead of her stint as a judge on the hotly anticipated Australian series of The Masked Singer (the one with Lindsay Lohan) we’ve managed to confirm a long-standing story about Dannii Minogue.

A few years back, Dannii attended a Sydney Pride/Mardi Gras event where things got roasting hot in the dance tent. Before too long everyone on the dancefloor was absolutely drenched in sweat, all except for Dannii. Somehow in this salty sea of bodies, she’d managed to remain cool, dry and perfectly composed.

One sodden reveller approached her, desperate to know how she’d managed to avoid getting soaked, whereupon she turned to him, fixed him with a stare and uttered the immortal line:

“Minogues don’t sweat.”

Who has been getting their day off to a roaring start at the Daily Mail offices by chugging a can of Amstel in the men’s toilets each morning, then hiding the crunched remains behind the cistern?

Lucie Donlan from Love Island made a lot of headlines over the summer when it was announced she’d signed a £200,000 contract to be the face of Peng Hair. Seems like an awful lot of money for a hair company with five followers on Twitter to be shelling out for an ITV2 celeb who wears extensions. So what’s the deal here?

Well, if you go to the Peng Hair website, it lists the address you can return items to as 35 Chequers Court, Salisbury. By some remarkable coincidence, 35 Chequers Court also happens to be the registered business address of Neon Management: the talent agency that represents Lucie.

Even more remarkable, 35 Chequers Court is also the address of the accountancy firm that files Neon Management’s financial reports, Hugh Davies & Co.

A huge, headline-generating deal sorted between three companies that are all registered at the same address! What are the chances?

On paper, the Baby Shard seems like a perfect idea. A single building that houses all of News UK’s interests. A one-stop shop. An all-purpose media node where news meets radio meets TV meets books. The height of efficiency and corporate synergy.

In practice though, things are a little less smooth. For example, the Times Literary Supplement has just had to lodge a complaint with TalkRadio because they keep hearing Julia Hartley-Brewer shouting at people through the supposedly soundproof walls.

Britain might feel it isn’t possible to be more embarrassed by a Prime Minister than it currently is, but Australia might not agree.

In the southern suburbs of Sydney there’s a McDonald’s with a piece of street art depicting current PM Scott Morrison and the number “1997”.

What’s it there to commemorate? The story goes that, back in 1997, while Morrison was out commiserating his team’s loss in the rugby league cup final (the Cronulla Sharks) he stopped off at the Macca’s in Engadine – and suddenly had to make a rather urgent trip to the toilet.

Sadly, he didn’t quite make it in time. And ended up defacating in his pants.

We weren’t sure that Des’ree could ever top Life, the song that features the iconic lyrics: “I don’t want to see a ghost / It’s a sight that I fear most / I’d rather have a piece of toast / And watch the evening news”

But she might have gone and done it.

Des’ree is releasing her first album in 15 years next month and, according to her people, the new material is inspired by her “chronic stage fright”, “fear of flying” and “underactive thyroid”.

Can’t wait.

Last week, we mentioned that Keeley Hawes was overheard using the word “wee-wee” at Cliveden House over the Bank Holiday weekend. It seems as if she isn’t the only grown adult going around talking like a toddler.

Sir Anthony Gormley has also been known to adopt a cutesy, little-boy voice to ask perfect strangers if they can direct him to ‘the wee-wee’.

Know any other celebs who talk in baby talk? hello@popbitch.com

By repeating the fact that he was once fined £50 for having a wank at the passing public from his bathroom window, it’s possible that we fell into the same trap as the Times last week, giving a bit of an incomplete picture of Tim Bell. For as well as being a publicly indecent masturbator, he was also capable of being an extremely generous host.

Back in 1984, one of our readers was going out with an account executive at Saatchis. During the company’s Christmas party that year, the pair of them accidentally stumbled into Tim Bell’s office where they saw he had chopped out four tracks of coke on his desk.

At the sound of the interruption, Tim simply looked up nonchalantly and said, “Oh well, as you’re here you might as well have one.”

Adding to the weirdness of Westminster this week, Labour MP Stephen Pound has been selling off his CD collection in Portcullis House today, warning potential customers that he has terrible taste in music.

It can’t be any worse than his taste in chat-up lines though. He once asked the mum of a Popbitch reader: “Would you like to get your gums around my plums?”

An oral history of Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)
[Read on Guardian]

The official Jeremy Renner app has closed down because of Renner impersonators
[Probably for the best]

Want to be in the new Stereophonics video? It is VERY specific…
[Read the casting call]

The Human Centipede – but for Furbies
[Want to build your own?]

Absolutely outstanding Sophie Ellis-Bextor slogan for Organ Donation Week
[See on Twitter]

A whole load of new Popbitch Popquizzes are on sale. Come and join us for one – they’re fun!
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[Check out Lino Ritchie]

Still Bored?
This week’s Media Masters podcast is an interview with Adrian Lovett, the CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation. In it, he reflects on the web’s recent 30th birthday, the “digital divide” and the benefits and risks the internet poses to privacy, democracy and freedom.
[Listen/Download at Media Masters]