The Daily Tonic: Don’t I Know Who You Are?

It seems on every day of war memorial, there’s always some puffed-up gobshite complaining that the modern pampered generation simply couldn’t cope if there was a war today – but it’s not entirely true.

Despite being a fully paid-up member of the liberal Hollywood A-list, Bruce Willis has played so many hard men in films that he now genuinely believes he is good at war and could fight like some sort of super-soldier if he ever needed to.

Tom Hardy believes the same thing about himself too – but has gone one further. Hardy has been known to tell people that he’s actually been recruited by the SAS on a sort of ad hoc basis. Obviously they don’t need him for day-to-day duties, but he claims that they’ve got him on call if shit ever goes down.

We’ve had a few stories of this nature in already, but we’ve never actually formalised the question – so now seems as good a time as any to ask.

Today’s Question: Who is the tightest, stingiest, most penny-pinching celeb you’ve ever encountered?

Send your stories of skinflint stars to us at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dish out some goody bags to the best of them.

GC writes:
“Twenty years ago this week, Ioan Gruffudd (star of Hornblower; had recently been in Titanic) was up for Best Actor at the BAFTA Cymru awards in Cardiff. I was working the door, no-one was getting in without a ticket; he was running late and the ceremony had started.

“There was a look of abject panic as he realised he’d forgotten his ticket. Not a peep of DYKWIA, just him making urgent phone calls a few feet away. I finally (finally) recognised him and realised that he might actually be required up on stage to collect an award, so checked he was who I thought he was.

“He seemed shocked to be recognised but confirmed and I usher him in. Come the end of the shift, the bartender tells me a punter who looked like Hornblower had bought me a pint and a whisky chaser.”

Knickers writes:
“At the height of his fame in the 90s Britpop scene, I was queuing to get into The Barfly in Camden behind Graham Coxon. After a few minutes of waiting, he got increasingly agitated at having to wait and gave the bouncer the old ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ line.

“The bouncer looked him up and down and said ‘Listen mate, I don’t care if you’re Noel Gallagher, you’re waiting in line like everyone else.

“He was wrong though: GC stormed off in a huff.”

He already had his name in pencil on our ever-growing list of celebs who take their wine by the pint, but it’s always good to have these things confirmed.

NL writes:
“A few years ago I was standing with my mate at the bar of the Spice of Life in Soho. Shane McGowan arrived next to me.

Me: Hi Shane, alright?
Shane: Yeah, you wanna buy me a pint?
Me: Sure, what would you like?
Shane: A pint of white wine.

“He downed it in one.”

Here is is. The big five-oh. The ten songs that will take us up to 1,000 points.

We didn’t expect to have to churn out so many of these when we started, and it’s crazy to us that it’s taken this to long to include some of the tracks in today’s – so here you go.

A point for the song; a point for the artist. No theme. Just musical chaos.

[Play it here]

Someone built their local pub in VR
[An admirable dedication to pints]

Headline of the Year
[Another normal one in York]

Cute dog interrupting the weather
[See on YouTube]