The Second Serve // Alicia Teas

Piers Morgan revealed in his recent column that Katy Perry’s nickname for  Russell Brand was “Rasputin”.

As we’re swapping stories of wives’ nicknames for their husbands, Celia Walden (a.k.a. Mrs Morgan) has been known to call her beloved “Chins”.

We might have an explanation of sorts as to why Russell Brand developed his habit of pissing in bottles in the Radio 2 studio. It didn’t come from any aversion for using standard toilets as we suspected. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Brand had apparently been making too many trips to the toilet during his show – constantly nipping out between links – and it was driving producers mad. When one of them finally took him to task on it and told him he really should stay in the studio for the duration of the whole programme, that’s when he started pissing in cups and bottles in front of everyone.

He did it for three weeks’ worth of shows before someone complained.

Further to Thursday’s story of Sean Lock slagging off David Walliams…

Sean Lock was at a family Christmas do with his nephews and nieces. A fair amount of whisky had been consumed before the young people started asking Sean about the famous people he knew, so he was pretty loose when the following question got asked: “Uncle Sean, do you know Peter Kay?”

To which a tipsy Sean replied “Oh yes. He’s an absolute cunt.”

The adults were absolutely mortified. Sean just laughed.

Chris Packham’s new documentary on C4 last week was well received and it was smart of him to branch out to a different channel as his time at the BBC may be in doubt.

Though he’s been a long-time fixture on the Beeb’s seasonal Spring/Autumn/Winterwatch and an outspoken environmentalist on Twitter, the recent social media rules review at the Beeb (the one prompted by Gary Lineker) is due – and Packham’s online output is unlikely to align with the BBC’s stricter guidelines.

So there’s talk among production execs that he might not make this upcoming Winterwatch.

There’s a new biography out about West Country Britpop hopefuls Electrasy which looks fun. One good story we heard from it involves the time they met music industry legend, Clive Davis.

Clive had shown a bit of interest in the band, so the guitarists summoned their singer Ali McKinnell down from Glasgow to attend a secret meeting with him at the penthouse of the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair.

Ali had to take an early morning flight down to make it, but that didn’t stop him getting stuck right into all the free hospitality en route. By the time Ali made it to the Dorchester, he was steaming drunk and barely able to string a proper sentence together.

He then sat down with Clive (the man who discovered Whitney Houston) and proceeded to call him “Mike” for the entire meeting because he thought he was talking to Mike Reid – i.e. Frank Butcher.

Clive was so tickled by the young singer’s antics (and his ability to drain a minibar) that he signed the band and took them over to America where they released an album on his label.

And Ali continued to call Clive “Mike” for the duration of their working relationship.

S writes:
“Some years ago, a tour manager mate was looking after a US act who were booked for an interview with ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris. As luck would have it, they had a night off in a pub near Bob’s house – where the interview was to happen the next morning.

“On the night off, the act were treated to dinner at the pub by Bob and his wife Trudy, who was previously employed as Mohammad Al-Fayed’s PA.

“Everyone had a lovely evening, spiced up by Mrs Harris getting to the fat end of her second bottle of red, telling ribald (and very actionable) stories of Dodi, Mohammed and their many adventures. Until a visibly – and audibly – embarrassed Bob dragged her home.”

Last week, we had music quizzes on the themes of Vocoders, Sexy Songs, Lip Syncs and September No.1s.

This week, we have another five mixes for you – each made up of ten songs all spliced together. All you have to do is correctly identify the songs’ titles (ten possible points) and the songs’ artists (a further ten).

Today’s theme is Opposites – five pairs of songs which are the opposites of one another.

[Play it here]

Great stories of managing Vernie from Eternal – inc. one of the finest resignation letters of all time
[Read on Twitter]

An explainer on Mixie and Munchie – a.k.a. 2girls1bottl3
[Read on The Face – SFW]

The issue was put together to this mix today
[Listen On YouTube]