The Second Serve // A Dangerous Number Of Grapes

On account of this being Issue 111 of Club Popbitch, we’re giving it over to tales of celebrity accident and emergency.

Medical mishaps, personal calamities, the occasional bit of testicular damage. Nothing that requires the full 999 treatment, but incidents of note all the same…

A is for… Ariana Grande
Ariana had one of the all-time great celebrity accidents – breaking three toes by kicking her kitchen sideboard after slipping in a puddle of her dog’s piss.

B is for… Bronchitis
Jonah Hill snorted so much fake cocaine during the filming of Wolf Of Wall Street that he developed bronchitis.

C is for… Chiltern Firehouse
Once upon a time, all a members’ club would offer you was a late license and a flat surface to snort your gak off. But there’s one high-profile venue that really pulled out all the stops for a VIP at a star-studded fashion party when things started turning a little Pulp Fiction: an ultra-discreet private ambulance to get the model to safety unspotted – and an expensive PR contract that kept the story out of the press.

KC writes:
“When I was at uni at Imperial College in the late 90s, a group of us were gleefully downing pints and smoking in the union when someone decided to dance on the table. The inevitable happened, he face-planted into the adjacent table full of empties – so I, being the most sober of the group, offered to take him to Chelsea and Westminster hospital.

“Outside the union no cabs would stop for us (there was a lot of blood). Just when we thought we’d have to walk, a sleek black Range Rover pulled over and a beautiful blonde woman asked if she could help. I explained our predicament and she offered to drive. I spied white leather interiors and started to decline but she insisted she take us to A&E. We sat on my jacket in the back and after the 10 min ride I was grateful to see we hadn’t stained the seats.

“She was lovely throughout the ride and genuinely concerned for my idiot friend. It was only when she dropped us off and I thanked her yet again did I realise we’d been graciously chauffeured by Elle Macpherson.”

G is for… Goalkeeping Injuries
Despite once getting his scrotum punctured mid-game, the funniest injury England and Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman ever sustained was pulling a muscle in his back while reaching for the remote in order to tape Coronation Street.

H is for… Harley Street
The same Harley St doctor that did Paul McCartney’s and Anne Robinson’s botox also did Katie Price’s early boob jobs.

I is for… Internal Decapitation
a.k.a. Atlanto-occipital dislocation. The term for when a skull snaps away from the spine, but the head remains attached to the body by skin and neck muscles. It’s what Jason “Jason Derulo” Derulo supposedly did to himself in 2012 rehearsing for his tour.

When Amanda Holden was starring in the West End production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, she missed a few shows after being struck down with a serious kidney infection, getting rushed to hospital in agony.

Things maybe wouldn’t have been quite so dramatic had she caught the tell-tale signs of her kidney infection earlier. However castmates remember her missing the early warnings, candidly telling them all that the pain she was experiencing was probably just down to the vigorous bouts of bum-sex she’d been having.

M is for… Missing Fingers
Terry Nutkins lost two of his to an otter; Dustin Hoffman lost the tip of one in a deckchair accident; Gal Gadot sliced the tip off hers chopping cabbage while pissed on mimosas (then lost it forever when her husband threw the severed bit into their garbage disposal).

N is for… Nipplectomy
Lorne Greene from Bonanza had his nipple bitten off by an alligator.

O is for… Onanism
Alex James from Blur popped something in his nethers when he was at home enjoying the women’s Wimbledom final a little too energetically one year. He felt something snap in his knob, it started turning very dark and he had to go to A&E to get it fixed.

P is for… Pancreatitis
Ashton Kutcher gave himself the condition preparing for the role of Steve Jobs by trying to follow Jobs’ diet. He was hospitalised twice – once for eating too many grapes, once for drinking too much carrot juice.

T is for… Toboggan v Tree
Arnold Schwarzenegger once went tobogganing with President George HW Bush. Unfortunately, Arnie did not know how to toboggan and accidentally slammed into First Lady Barbara Bush. She was rushed to hospital with a broken leg and a White House spokesperson blamed the breakage on “a tree”.

U is for… Urinary Expression
“Fruitbowling” is a pissing technique adopted by men of a certain age which involves cradling the testicles in the palm of hand while using a thumb to guide the penis. The fingers can then be used to manually work the last few drips out through the pipes to prevent urine spotting soaking through the pants/trousers later. Hugh Grant and Hugh Laurie are both practitioners.

V is for… Vitamin B Shots
Once used (to no avail) on a Top Gear shoot when Jeremy Clarkson and his two gimps turned up on set after a heavy night’s drinking, over the legal limit and unable to drive. A doctor gave them shots, but the day’s filming was wasted.

Obviously the greatest celebrity medical mishap was Brian Harvey from East 17 running himself over in his own car after overdoing it on the tuna jacket potatoes.

It’s a story we all know and love, but here’s a lesser remembered detail from the hospital. In order that the paramedics and technicians could move him safely from place to place without fear of causing any further damage, Brian was placed into a full-torso body brace.

He had some X-rays taken wearing this brace, but his girlfriend at the time didn’t appear to understand how it all worked. When she saw the images she cried out “OH MY GOD! What are all those bars sticking in him…?”

Celebrities who have been hospitalised by animal attacks include:

* Ben Stiller, who had his chin bitten by a ferret on the set of Along Came Polly

* Susan Sarandon, who got her arm broken by a horny female dolphin

* Gordon Ramsay who had his face gouged by a puffin, requiring stitches

Rashida Jones takes the crown though as she was attacked by a celebrity animal. When she was young and her dad (Quincy Jones) was working with Michael Jackson, Rashida got mauled by Bubbles the chimp. According to Quincy, Bubbles bit a hole in Rashida’s hand.

Last week saw quizzes on the themes of Drag Race Lip Syncs, 2Pac Samples, AI Frank Sinatra covers and more.

This week, we have another set ready for you. All you need to do is correctly guess the titles and artists of the ten songs that make up each three minute mix.

Monday’s Theme: Opposites – five pairs of songs, that are the opposite of one another.

[Play it here]

A fun way to generate secure passwords
[Password Basket]

Rebuilding Daft Punk classics with more up-to-date samples
[Fascinating remix]

A live tracker of the debts Trump owes
[$464,900,000 and rising]