Oh No

Did you hear Orlando Bloom on Radio 1 yesterday, describing himself as “just a pikey from Kent”? It caused a bit of head scratching in Canterbury, as people from the area seem to remember him as having lived in Virgilia House on the edge of the leafy campus of the University of Kent – where Tory garden parties were held in his mum’s vast back garden.

He must’ve been selling a hell of a lot of pegs and heather to his classmates at St Edmund’s Public School to afford the upkeep on such swish digs.

The producers of the upcoming sequel to Mary Poppins thought it might be a fun idea to ask Julie Andrews to appear at the end of the movie in a cameo as a balloon seller.

Julie was initially interested but wanted to know how much she would be paid. Fee discussions rose and rose until producers finally suggested a whopping $8 million. Not good enough, Ms Andrews said. It had to be $10 million or she wouldn’t do it.

So they asked Angela Lansbury instead, who was very happy to accept the role. For $200,000.

Idris Elba has starred in huge-rated shows for HBO and the BBC, award-winning indie films for Netflix and huge blockbusters for major Hollywood studios. He is an unfailingly bankable star. So how on earth did Sky manage to fuck up the handling of his new show so badly that it only drew 23,000 viewers for its second episode – figures that make The Young Pope look like the moon landing?

Our congratulations to Lembit Opik, who has just officially confirmed that he is due to become a father.

When we first saw his girlfriend announce the pregnancy on Twitter we were a little surprised that a wild animal like Lem would put his flirtatious ways behind him, settle down and start a family.

Not half as surprised as Lem himself though. His baby mama recalls the moment she told him the joyous news:

“When I told Lembit, I think he was shocked as his first reaction was, ‘Oh no’.”

They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. So who has been rallying around the obstinate arsehole Kelvin MacKenzie in his hour of need?

Erm.

Kelv says “a number” of MPs got in touch to tell him that his contentious comments about Ross Barkley were absolutely fine. While that isn’t a lie as such, the “number” that Kelv alludes to in his Spectator column this week appears to be “one”. And not one of the good ones either.

The MP who came rushing to Kelv’s side? Andrew Mitchell. A man you may remember who positively drowned himself in glory during the shitstorm of his own creation: Plebgate.

Last week we reported that renowned cocaine fancier Frankie Dettori was looking to ride the rather aptly-named Escobar for the 2000 Guineas.

We found out this week how the horse got its name.

Escobar has a ring of white hair around one nostril.

Bananarama dropped a pretty big bomb in the Guardian this week. According to Keren Woodward, the song Robert De Niro’s Waiting is about date rape. (“You’ll listen to it with new ears now,” says Keren.)

We had no idea that Bananarama tackled such weighty subjects in their songs. Especially as Malcolm McLaren always used to claim that he wrote a song for them called Don’t Touch Me Down There, Daddy – and that they refused to sing it.

And it’s not as if they’d turn a song down on the grounds of quality. Look what they did to Careless Whisper.

Listen:
https://youtu.be/ta4GB4VsWr8

Newcastle and West Ham fans weren’t that surprised yesterday to see the club owners they despise caught up in a spate of mismanagement and tax dodging headlines.

It’s not even the first time this has happened to West Ham supremo Karren Brady. She was arrested back in 2009 while at Birmingham City, in a City of London investigation into possible tax offences and agent payments (the charges were dropped later in the year).

These investigations have been aided by the info provided by Football Leaks’ hacking – but this public service journalism hasn’t gone down too well everywhere. The investigation into Cristiano Ronaldo’s image rights by El Mundo has landed their editors in some pretty hot water. Yesterday, a Spanish judge threatened them with jail for breaching Ronaldo’s privacy.

Privacy to hide an alleged €150m of payments offshore in a tax haven, they claim.

The relationship between African American communities and the US police force seems like a ripe subject for a documentary movie. It’s a sensitive topic though, so you’d need to make absolutely certain that the project was put in the right hands.

The hands of the famous, white, gun-owning Hollywood Republican Vince Vaughn? Sure! Why not?

Vince Vaughn is making this documentary for AT&T’s Audience Network, whose boss Chris Long said they were “interested in something that’s happening in the media, but that part of the story’s not being told”.

And how has Vince been warming up to tell this vital story? By filming a police crime thriller with… Mel Gibson! One called ‘Dragged Across Concrete’.

How soon until we bid farewell to iTunes? There’s word doing the rounds in tech circles that Apple is looking to shake the iconic brand loose as they try to coax people into signing up to their persistently stagnant Apple Music brand instead.

This week they started the rebrand of podcasts, with all new podcast material dropping the word “iTunes” in favour of “Apple Podcasts”.

Some think they’re so hellbent on pushing people on to their subscription-based service that the whole iTunes store might be on the chopping block. If so, be ready to say goodbye to downloaded music.

Kermit x R Kelly:
http://bit.ly/2pCGLSf

RIP Beano comic god, Leo Baxendale:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=37617

Local news of the week, South Africa edition:
http://bit.ly/2plwCqg

The Revolution talk Prince:
http://bit.ly/2p7hLkK

World leaders as hipsters:
http://bit.ly/2qib6C9

Chicago Cubs’ Addison Russell has a nerdy hobby:
http://es.pn/2ozNf4l

The excellent Bananarama interview in the Guardian:
http://bit.ly/2qiDjZw

Still Bored?
Episode 8 of sci-fi podcast To The Manor Borne By Robots. “Marketing 4 Marketers” – marketing, branding, crowdfunding and sex with demons:
http://bit.ly/1M33ryN