The Daily Tonic: How Are Your Diddys?

Simon Cowell’s TV talent behemoth The X Factor started in 2004. The name comes from the well-known phrase to describe an indefinable star quality; the very essence of celebrity.

Or, as X Factor judge Louis Walsh had so memorably put it in an interview the previous November:

“The ‘X factor’ thing is all bullshit. It’s just something that these people use because they don’t know how to express themselves any better. If Michael Stipe or Mick Hucknall walked into Pop Idol, they wouldn’t get through because they’re too ugly.”

With a global pandemic raging, it’s easy enough to avoid shaking hands with strangers at the minute without coming off as rude or conceited. But back in 2004, it took a bit of planning.

Ashley Judd’s preferred trick? Carrying her pet dog around in her arms like a newborn and bringing it into press junkets to cradle, so that if anyone tried to shake her hand she had an excuse not to.

When Alfonso Cuarón signed up to direct the third Harry Potter film (2004’s Prisoner Of Azkaban) he had to sign a contract promising not to swear on set in front of the child actors. Instead he resorted to swearing only in Spanish.

Consequently, it turns out most of the Hogwarts pupils are now fluent in Spanish curses. They even gave the director the nickname “Pinche Pancho”.

He seemed well-liked on set though, so whether they knew that in certain Mexican dialects the phrase translates as “Fucking Cock” is uncertain.

Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys celebrated his 50th birthday in 2004 and threw a big fancy Andy Warhol themed party to celebrate. His good friend, the shoe designer Patrick Cox, came along and brought two boys from the Bel Ami porn stable with him as a “present”.

As the night went on, Patrick grew rather attached to the handsome lads himself though – so snuck away from the party with the boys in tow, whisking them off to Shadow Lounge instead.

He presumably thought he’d gotten away with it. Until Tennant, who arrived home at 4am, got in touch to say: “Ahem, I think I’m missing a present…”

* Playgirl launched in Russia in 2004. The number of large photographs of penises the magazine was legally permitted to show each issue? Six.

* Best-selling face masks at the 2004 Rio Carnival: Saddam Hussein and SpongeBob SquarePants.

* A schoolfriend of Alex James from Blur told us that when Alex was a kid he admitted that whenever he had a wank in bed he’d wipe the spunk on the frilly edge of the sheets as he thought his Mum wouldn’t be able to see what it was on there.

* The frilly edge is called a valance (like Holly).

* One woman in Manitoba collected 150 bras to throw at Nickelback when they played a gig in her hometown in 2004.

“If you think that you’ve got a nice booty, then you’ve got a nice booty” – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

“After all these years of worrying what I looked like, I never realised I had an outstandingly perfect pair of ears” – Victoria Beckham

“The Beach Boys didn’t curse. Cursing is a bunch of malarkey” – Brian Wilson

“There are many, many good people who have gone to prison… look at Nelson Mandela” – Martha Stewart, ahead of her five month sentence for dodgy stock dealings

How well do you remember the charts in 2004? We’ve taken ten snippets from songs that were Top Ten hits in the UK at some point in the year.

All you have to do for twenty utterly meaningless points is:
– Name the titles of the songs (one point each)
– Name the artist/s who recorded them (one point each)

[Play it here]

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