The Daily Tonic: Vigilanty

Today is a significant day in pop history. Wednesday 27th May 1998 was the day that the Spice Girls first performed on national TV as a foursome without Geri, sparking rumours that Ginger Spice had left the band.

Of course, it was always bound to happen. Geri has always marched to the beat of her own drum and it was foolish to think a free spirit like hers could ever be tamed by management or bandmates. Even Nelson Mandela couldn’t get her to follow a simple instruction.

At Mandela’s 90th birthday party, guests were asked to make a donation to his chosen charity instead of buying him a present. However, despite protestations from Mandela’s aides, Geri would not be swayed and insisted on getting him a proper gift.

Which would have made sense if she’d had something highly personal or sentimental in mind to give one of the most beloved statesmen in history. But the gift Geri was so adamant on giving him?

A George Foreman grill.

Thank you to everyone who got in touch with great celebrity excuses, reminding us that it was Paul Ross’s financial worries that led him to take up dogging, Ariana Grande’s concerns about child obesity that made her lick donuts in a bakery, and (of course) that Brian Harvey accidentally ran himself over with his own car after gorging on too many baked potatoes.

Today’s Question: A Popbitch classic – does a famous person owe you money? How much, what for, and how long has the debt been owed?

Send your stories of outstanding celebrity loans to hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dish out some goodies to our favourites.

Deep Moat writes:
“More on Lee Ryan’s excuses: My friend worked on a Channel 5 celebrity talk show and on the day of the 2010 election Lee Ryan was a celebrity guest. In the green room, the guests were discussing whether they had voted yet. Lee clearly didn’t know there was an election on, or how to vote, and said to the room: ‘I’ll do it online later, innit.'”

O writes:
“I interviewed 90s rock band Skid Row at a gig they were doing in Berlin back in 2003. The support band was on stage when the tour manager (who I’d met earlier that day) came running out and asked me if I could look after the merch stand as the bassist Rachel Bolan had been rushed to hospital with ‘food poisoning from dodgy food they had eaten in Denmark the day before’ and the gig was cancelled.

“I later found out that the food poisoning was a ketamine overdose.”

M writes:
“I used to work at a TV company with Jacques Peretti, who once called in with the excuse that he couldn’t come to work because exterminators had been in to get rid of the ants from his flat, and now he had to stay home to make sure that the ants didn’t come back.”

It seemed like it would be fitting to compile a mix of sexy songs for this, the 69th daily audio round. But then it seemed like it would funnier to do unsexy songs instead. So now we’ve ended up with this.

You get a point for correctly guessing the artist, a point for correctly guessing the song – and a long, cold shower as your prize.

[Here you go]

Brazen puffins
[See on Twitter]

Birds taking public transport
[A dedicated subreddit]

A former NASA engineer has built an assault course for squirrels to protect his birdfeeder
[Lockdown’s been tough, OK?]