The Daily Tonic: The Most Dejected Hamster

Alec Baldwin earned some easy plaudits for his portrayal of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live throughout 2016. Though it’s true he channels Trump pretty well, it’s really not the artistic stretch many assume it is.

Like Trump, Baldwin is also a keen dabbler in deep state conspiracy theories. One such theory that Baldwin’s been known to tell people is that he’s positive Osama Bin Laden is still alive, that American forces only pretended to kill him and that there’s a huge conspiracy in place to cover it all up.

It’s rare we feel much sympathy for any of the Murdoch family, but we had a slight pang of it in 2016 when we heard this story.

Wanting to check that her dear old dad was keeping fit, one of Murdoch’s daughters bought him one of those wristbands that track your activity. She started wearing one too so that the pair of them could check each other’s activity for the day – to keep each other motivated to stay healthy.

She eventually decided to turn off the sharing function when Rupes got himself a new girlfriend though as she kept being reminded, at around 9pm each night, that his ‘activity’ would shoot right up.

The Calvin Harris/Rihanna track This Is What You Came For was released in April 2016, but the music video didn’t debut until mid-June. Why the hold up? Well, it’s a miracle the thing even happened at all.

The production was set to start at 11am and they had a six-hour shooting schedule. At 11am, RiRi was still in her trailer. As she was at 12pm. And at 1pm. And 2pm.

She finally stumbled out of her trailer 13 hours late, ready to work but somewhat stoned. Luckily for everyone involved, she was such a pro that she managed to get all her shots wrapped in 90 minutes.

If you were scratching your head when you first saw Bob Geldof captaining a boat down the Thames in support of the EU a few days before the Brexit vote, we were too. But we may have since found an explanation.

Someone who was working on the Remain team told us about a different political campaign that they were previously involved in, and what happened when they tried to drum up a couple of celebs to support it.

The famous PR agency Freud Communications expressed an interest in helping them with their cause and said they’d bring Bob Geldof along with them. The campaigner said they weren’t quite sure Geldof was the right sort of fit for them, but was told in no uncertain terms that Geldof was a dealbreaker.

If they wanted the almighty PR weight of Freud, his involvement was “non-negotiable”.

“It’s amazing how a simple, brief phone call can pick up the spirits of the most dejected hamster, the most stressed goldfish and the most neurotic cat.” – Noel Edmonds

“I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t even think about fucking Eurovision.” – Simon Danczuk

“I do not have a 10 inch penis. I do not. Seriously. Terry Bollea’s penis is not 10 inches. Believe that.” – Hulk Hogan(/Terry Bollea)

“In my professional life, it was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I haven’t been a professional for that long. It was hard but it was actually an easy decision to make.” – Jamie Vardy

Because of the rise of streaming and changes in the way the charts were counted, 2016 saw the fewest number of top ten hits in a year since 1952 – which means there weren’t so many to pick from for this round.

The good news for you is that quite a few of these are very well-known, so you’ve got a good chance of getting some points. You get one point per correct title, one point per correct artist.

Ten songs, twenty points.

[Play it here]

A Steps x Princess Diana Musical?
[Please, Lucifer. Please.]

The 8-bit game of 2016: Can you get Leonardo Di Caprio his Oscar?
[Play Red Carpet Rampage]

Caity Weaver’s 2016 profile of Justin Bieber in GQ is still a peach
[Read on GQ]