The Last Time I Saw Parises

Surreal as it was to hear Donald Trump mark the end of his presidency by blasting out YMCA (famously a song about trying to hook up with young men in the showers at a Christian hostel) another of his musical choices struck us as a bit unusual too.

One of the other songs Trump chose to play as he left the White House for the final time was Gloria by Laura Branigan. Originally an Italian song, Gloria was first brought to the attention of English-speaking audiences by a British hit-maker who gave it a translated set of English lyrics… Jonathan King.

Curious to see what QAnon makes of that.

Eagle-eared listeners might have noticed that the outro rap of The New Radicals’ You Get What You Give was missing from their inauguration performance yesterday. No mention of “Health insurance rip-off, lying / FDA, big bankers buying” (nor were there any White House-sanctioned threats to kick Hanson and Marilyn Manson’s asses – as per the original).

It’s not the first time frontman Gregg Alexander has had to tone down his lyrics. Back when he was writing for Ronan Keating he once handed in a song with the following verse:

“The World Bank lets all the black kids starve /

While journalists stalk all the pop stars /

And Hear’Say’s the new kings of rock ‘n’ roll /

But… you’re pickin’ me up”

Unsurprisingly, Ronan’s people asked for a rewrite.

As more details of the Sun’s finger-heavy Xmas party continue to emerge, how long can they keep the implicated Senior Exec in position? Especially now that more and more women are swapping stories between themselves about his seedy use of Google Messages?

Nothing makes a break-up official like having your brother dress up as a groundskeeper to toss a life-size cutout of your partner into the skip outside your house – a la Ben Affleck and Ana De Armas this week.

You might think it’s weird for Affleck to have a life-size cutout of his girlfriend – but, by Hollywood standards, having just the one is pretty small fry.

When Paris Hilton appeared on T4 back in the day, she demanded not one, not two, but seven life-size cut-outs of herself to adorn her dressing room, with her publicist going so far as to send the production team detailed instructions on where they should source them.

FYI: The cardboard cutouts probably could have done a better job too, as it took the human Paris 14 takes to nail the line “Hi, I’m Paris Hilton, catch me on T4 this weekend”.

We’ve told all sorts of stories over the years about fame-hungry stars tipping paps and hacks off to their own whereabouts in order to get their name in the paper. But one particularly desperate reality star down under has taken his pursuit of fame a step further.

Samuel Levi, a former groom on Married At First Sight Australia, is so keen to be featured in the Daily Mail Australia that he’s taken to writing entire articles about himself and submitting them for publication.

Apparently, his copy isn’t all that bad. If he ever gets bored of selling teeth-whitening kits on Instagram, a new career beckons.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s fanny candles made headlines again this week when one of them exploded in a woman’s house after she won it during her work’s Christmas Zoom quiz. The story made the Sun, the Mail, Vanity Fair, Grazia, Forbes, NME, Metro, Today, InTouch, the New York Post and many more.

One tiny detail that we enjoyed which wasn’t included in the reports: the quiz she won the candle in was a Popbitch Popquiz (specifically, our “Politician or Porn Star?” round…)

So if you want to curse your house with a similar energy, here’s some good news. Our first downloadable Play-At-Home Popbitch Popquiz of 2021 is here: The Coral Edition.

Eight new rounds, including a Trump Pardon wordsearch, an intergalactic audio round, and everyone’s favourite guessing game: Celebrity Scent or Old-Skool Sex Mag?

[Get it here]

The big news from the Palace this week is that Wills and Kate’s Comms Sec, Christian Jones, is leaving to join private equity behemoths Bridgepoint as a partner.

Sad news for the Duke and Duchess, but it’s probably even sadder for the Sun. Christian is BFFs with the paper’s associate editor Dan Wootton (who has – completely coincidently, we’re sure – been responsible for a number of big insider scoops about the Royals in recent times).

If Sun bosses need a new way of drumming up interesting stories, maybe they could sound out their ex-Royal Editor, Duncan Larcombe? He’s been rather active on Facebook these last few weeks, hinting that he’s got some pretty good tales to tell.

It should be easy to approach the subjects of them for comment too – as they mostly seem to revolve around NewsUK top bod, Rebekah Brooks.

The major record labels were called in front of a DCMS parliamentary committee earlier this week to answer questions about music streaming and royalties. Chairman Julian Knight admonished the group for providing even less clarity than the famously opaque Big Tech bosses – but which label gets the prize for worst performance?

WARNER: Staff at Warner were astonished that their boss Tony Harlow seemed to say it would take a billion streams for an artist to be able to pay back a singles advance – and then admit that the number of such artists they had globally was… 8.

SONY: Those watching at Sony thought their supremo, Jason Iley, might have topped that with his candid admission that if an artist wanted to earn more money, they didn’t have to sign for Sony…

UNIVERSAL: An internal WhatsApp group at Universal caught fire shortly after their chairman, David Joseph, gave an excruciating Harry Potter/Slytherin v Gryffindor analogy – from which staff learned he had spent more time choosing his outfit and Zoom backdrop than he had on getting anyone to brief him.

It was reported that there were 25,000 armed national guard troops defending Washington DC yesterday, owing to fears over gun-toting civilians attempting another siege on the Capitol. How times have changed.

At Bill Clinton’s inauguration, the Secret Service guys charged with looking after Kenny G found themselves with so much downtime between the oaths and the evening ball that they invited Kenny to visit the FBI building with them specifically to “shoot some guns”.

Kenny enthusiastically accepted. His particular highlight? Getting to shoot a 1930s-style Tommy Gun complete with 50-round drum magazine.

Last week, we included a cut paragraph from Geri Halliwell’s first kids book in which Geri detailed a big eggy fart that the Posh Princess Vattoria does. It was juvenile and immature – but Geri might actually be a much more subtle craftswoman than first thought.

One reader noticed that the protagonist’s unusual name, Ugenia Lavender, happens to be an anagram of Duane Graveline. Who’s he? One of the scientists selected in NASA’s fourth group of astronauts for the Apollo Program, who later became a writer of science fiction thrillers.

The plot of Halliwell’s final book? Ugenia has to save the planet from running out of energy, while also trying to safely return an alien to outer space.

Fun game: Can you guess the year from the headline?
[Morning papers or Music press]

Want to solve the mystery of Jeffrey Epstein’s death?
[There’s an app for that]

Local News Of The Week: Hand Sanitiser Super Glue Teens Edition
[Read on Examiner Live]

An interview with a drug ring call centre operator
[Read on Vice]

The Great Wikipedia Titty Scandal
[Read on MEL Magazine]

Badgers make the Viz letters page
[Read it here]

The etymology of ‘shitgibbon’
[Read on Slate]

Help save Soho institution the French House and buy vouchers for drinks to use when it reopens
[We’ll see you there]

Still Bored?
A complete list of President Trump’s Twitter insults
[Saved for posterity]