Party Poopers

And so Theresa May’s cabinet loses another inappropriately upstanding member. Damian Green is out on his ear, yet we’re still not really any the wiser as to what actually happened.

As we mentioned last month, the story of Green’s mucky laptop has been shopped around journalists since at least 2014 – but details of his supposed preferences weren’t particularly consistent between reports, so we’ve been left wondering what on earth this mystery material could have been.

When you throw in the fact that Green himself somehow seemed to be both aware and unaware of its presence, it began to feel like we were dealing with Schrodinger’s pornography: smut in quantum superpositions of legality, extremity and existence.

Anyway, now that he’s resigned he’ll have plenty more time to spend with all his throat-fucking videos.

Seems that the hot new trend for 2018 will be shitting on the floor.

Since we mentioned the party pooper who shat on the dancefloor at one record company’s party this year, we’ve been told of similar incidents at both Polydor and VEVO’s end of year bashes (though at least those mystery ploppers made it to the toilet; they just left a large one on the toilet floor).

We’re told that dirty protests are fairly common at Christmas parties, but they’re especially popular whenever a company has announced a big round of redundancies. Which perhaps makes BuzzFeed’s decision not to have a Christmas party their shrewdest business move of the year.

Which boring TV football pundit, when complimented on his technique by a conquest, replied with the memorable phrase “Yes, my cock IS magnificent.”

It’s not shaping up to be a particularly merry Christmas at BuzzFeed’s opulent London offices. Staff are currently waiting to learn who will be caught up in the sweeping redundancies, with a third of the workforce facing the chop – including a number of excellent reporters.

Given that the top bods are hoping to save the business by concentrating on cutting-edge journalism, you’d think they’d be doing everything possible to find the budget to keep their newsdesk staff, but management seems more concerned about ways to save their twice-weekly free lunches.

The company’s catering budget is thought to be running at about 15k a month. How can they be spending so much? Well, just yesterday they served up salmon tartlets with caviar as a starter. Free. For everyone.

So, quite easily.

Smiley Joe McFadden may have won this year’s Strictly, but it was little-known comedian Susan Calman who became the unexpected breakout star, getting a huge response in the public vote.

Behind the scenes? Erm… a little less so.

The tabloids all picked up on the fact that Calman unfollowed the official Strictly account on Twitter right after she was canned. Susan put out the excuse that she was so sad to leave Strictly that she needed to be alone for a few days.

The real reason? All the dancers – celeb and pro – share a WhatsApp group, and when somebody left there was always lots of traffic (the usual “Good luck babes”, “You wuz robbed babes” etc)

Calman was so disliked that her axing didn’t cause a ripple. So lashed out the only way she could.

Remember Dylan Howard? The editor of the National Enquirer who was named as one of Harvey Weinstein’s spy network in November? Then was accused of several counts of his own sexual misconduct in December?

There’s plenty more to tell you about Dylan (“Dildo” to his friends) in the New Year. For now though:

When Dylan was working at Star magazine, he arranged for one of his friends to fly in from Australia to attend the mag’s lavish Christmas party. In return, he had the friend deliver a “cringe-worthy” and “mortifying” speech to all of the staff, all about how amazing Dylan is.

It lasted 40 minutes and touched on how talented and smart he was, how he’s the best boss ever, how he’s the best friend you could wish for and how everyone should be grateful to be working for him.

Towards the end of this speech, some people started talking among themselves – which caused Dylan The Wonderboss to fly into a rage, grab the microphone from his friend, and scream “SHUT THE FUCK UP OR GET OUT NOW AND FUCK OFF HOME”.

The Oriel College provost who was slated for her handling of the Cecil Rhodes statue furore last year, Moira Wallace, is being replaced when her term ends in 2018.

The college recently sent a request out to donors and benefactors for suggestions of who to approach to fill the position. One name that kept cropping up was that of Conservative MEP and illustrious Brexit windbag, Daniel Hannan (who studied PPE there).

Such is the esteem in which Dan is held at Oriel, the suggestion was totally ignored.

It’s been a bleak old year. Politics is in turmoil, the economy is a pile of old shit, the Grim Reaper is still indiscriminately swinging his scythe around without a care in the world.

And now even pop music – the one thing that could usually be relied upon to provide a little light relief – has gone and got all sad and depressing on us too.

Music is measurably getting more miserable, and the 2017 charts had the inglorious distinction of having the most songs in a minor key in living memory – most likely since charts began.

How do we know? Because we worked it all out.

[Read ‘Whine Of The Times’ on Popbitch]

Donald Trump took a fair bit of flak when it was discovered that he’d been hanging fancy portraits of himself up at his golf clubs – but it seems to be the done thing in golfing circles.

When Colin Montgomerie was playing at a Ryder Cup he requested that the hotel he was staying in change the photos they had on the wall to ones of him in impressive looking action shots.

Which is strange, because we’d always been under the impression that Monty kept quite a tight lid on photos of him swinging.

Being big mates with a number of celebrities (and Simon Cowell) you’d expect Max Clifford to be able to land some pretty big names to perform at his birthday parties.

For his 70th, no expense was spared. He got the virtuoso of his favourite instrument brought in to perform, a musician who Max had watched religiously on TV for decades.

Once the main course had been served, the musical guest emerged from the kitchen (where he’d been ensconced for three hours): the leader of Shep’s Banjo Boys. Shep managed to strum his banjo for 20 minutes, before having to set off on his 200-mile return journey to his native Manchester.

We have no idea what this is. None.
[Gaze and gawp at Bathe In My Milk]

We talked gossip with London’s best-named podcast and ended up drunk on cherry wine discussing filthy MPs and more
[Listen to The Shit Show]

Paul Daniels eBay transactions
[Read on Blogspot]

What Disney’s Space Mountain ride looks like with the house lights on
[Watch on YouTube]

Cockatiel singing an Apple ringtone
[See on Laughing Squid]

Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Spencer Jones is at Soho Theatre until 6th Jan – a mad mix of music, prop and character comedy. Popbitch readers can get £10 tickets with promo code AUDITIONPB.
[Book at Soho Theatre]