The Daily Tonic: Shane Richie’s Website Expenses

It’s A-Level results day next week, so the British papers will no doubt be gearing up to print a bunch of photos of pretty private schoolgirls clutching their certificates and jumping for joy.

It may seem like grotty old editors are the ones driving this lurid little tradition, but that’s not strictly accurate. Certain schools have been known to start phoning newspapers early in the summer to make a pitch for their inclusion, explaining in detail to journalists just how attractive their female A-Level pupils are.

One FT reporter was even offered an invite to a school sports day in 2011 to do some reconnaissance and scope out which girls they might want pictures of come results day.

2011 was the year of the celebrity ‘superinjunction’ with all sorts of famous, rich men using the courts to help hide their sister-in-law shagging indiscretions. But, strangely, the story might never have become such a massive scandal if it wasn’t for one deeply insecure actor.

A lot of the national discussion surrounding celebrity injunctions began with speculation about one “world famous actor” who had taken out an injunction to stop Helen Wood from telling tales about the time he once hired her to stick a sex toy up his arse.

The irony is, he’s not actually all that famous. She only found out he was an actor because he supposedly got in a huff when she didn’t recognise him.

Something he probably rather regrets now…

A great many tabloid editors and journalists pleaded ignorance when the extent of phone-hacking was uncovered in 2011’s Leveson Inquiry, but it wasn’t hugely convincing.

As Popbitch had been reporting for almost a decade, phone-hacking was so commonplace in Fleet Street that one showbiz desk used to make it the focal point of their regular Friday afternoon competitions. After a boozy lunch and a few refreshing lines, they’d race to see who could hack the best story from a celebrity phone.

And then there was the infamous hacking black-list: the ledger of names that journalists knew to avoid hacking. Not because they were high-risk; just because their answerphones were usually jammed full of boring messages from the dry-cleaners or their kids’ nursery.

(Top of that particular black-list? Noel Gallagher.)

Madonna’s bomb of a movie, W.E., premiered at Venice in 2011 to the kind of reviews that would make any actor grateful they sidestepped the project.

Ewan McGregor was supposed to play Edward at one point, as was Benedict Cumberbatch, who apparently went round to Madge’s London house one afternoon. While there he was asked to give a curious semi-audition, where he was made to walk around the living room with an aspirant Wallis, while Madonna kept shrieking “How would he drink his TEA?” at him.

We were saddened about the passing of cricketer Basil D’Oliveira in 2011. One Popbitch reader remembers having a drink with Dolly. He apparently had fond memories of a certain orange-skinned holiday show presenter:

His words? “Judith Chalmers. God, she could fuck.”

“Get some chocolate, wipe it on a wooden floor, and then try to get it up with some dry towels. You’re going to get chocolate in the cracks. That’s why you gotta get them baby wipes.” – will.i.am

“When you start out being on magazine covers, there’s so much politics. You’re like, ‘Wait, I don’t wear lavender, that’s not what I do.'” – Gwen Stefani

“Even though we’re from Ireland, sex between us is a taboo” – Jedward

“I actually don’t like music that much” – Phil Collins

Ten songs, all taken from the UK Top Ten in 2011, spliced and stitched back together into one 2’30 mix. All you have to do is figure out what the ten songs are (one point each) and who did them (one point each).

That’s twenty points in total.

[Play it here]

Someone spent five years making a feature length Harry Potter edit, replacing all the wands in the film with guns. Warner Brothers are stamping it down wherever they find it, but it keeps reappearing.
[There’s a trailer here]

How the Blues Brothers got made
[Read on the Guardian]

An otter escaping from an orca
[Watch on YouTube]