The Second Serve // Bowled Over

“He didn’t break the rules. He perhaps applied the rules slightly differently in that circumstance” – Christian Horner

The bad luck just keeps on coming for Dua Lipa. Barely two weeks since she ditched her management company in a disagreement over songwriting credits and now she’s suddenly facing a second plagiarism suit over Levitating.

The latest claimants are the writers of Cory Daye’s 1979 track Wiggle And Giggle All Night. While this one falls a little more on the Blurred Lines side of the spectrum (as opposed to the pretty stark similarity to Artikal Sound System’s Live Your Life) it creates yet more headaches and headlines for her.

It’s all been a bit of a baptism of fire for Dua’s new manager: her dad. Former manager, Ben Mawson, must be thanking his lucky stars that he lost his prized client just moments before this unexpected, deeply unfortunate legal shitstorm hit. Such incredible timing…

The sudden death of Shane Warne this weekend has had many people paying tribute to one of the all-time great shaggers of our era. While many are still astonished that a guy as coarse as Warney could bag a refined beauty like Liz Hurley, that wasn’t the most audacious feat he ever pulled off.

Such was Shane’s legendary charm, he once managed to cop off with Ridley Scott’s girlfriend in the bogs at Russell Crowe’s wedding.

FYI: A brief reminder of the mural painted in Shane Warne’s Melbourne home.

As predicted, Rob Rinder’s joke about fisting Vladimir Putin didn’t make it to air for Channel 4’s National Comedy Awards show on Saturday night – but the bit that followed it did.

When he and Al Murray finally got their envelope open, they presented an award to Katherine Ryan. Ryan then used her acceptance speech to stage a light defence of Jimmy Carr (who, unsurprisingly, wasn’t present) saying that the type of “roast jokes” Carr is best known for is something that comedians should protect and defend – even if they do offend some people.

Though the general sentiment was no doubt shared by many in the room, there was a bit of nervousness backstage from fellow comics who wished Katherine had chosen her words a little more tactfully. Knowing the speech would generate headlines, none of them much fancied having to defend her description of Carr’s contentious Holocaust gag as a “roast joke”.

In a bid to be a more transparent and less heinous company, Facebook has just released a report revealing which pages were most widely viewed on its platform in the final quarter of 2021.

Daily Mail Video made the Top 20 with 69.5 million views. The Dodo went Top 10 with 86.2 million. LADBible Australia got 94.1 million. But the most viewed page – reaching a whopping audience of nearly 122 million? Erm, they don’t say.

Facebook’s own ‘Transparency Center’ simply lists the most widely viewed page in Q4 as “This Page Was Removed By Facebook For Violating Community Standards”.

Presumably so people don’t end up googling “That Ain’t Right” (the title of the page that once lived at the now-dead URL) to discover that the page was removed, suspected of being a data-mining scam. Oops!

Good old Carter-Ruck. Whatever else you care to say about them, they’re nothing if not reliable. How did they respond when media outlets reported their partner Nigel Tait had been named in the House Of Commons as one of the four “amoral” lawyers acting on behalf of Russian billionaires against the interests of a free British press?

Why, by sending threatening legal letters to the media instructing them not to write stories about how Carter-Ruck threatens the media into not writing stories about their powerful Russian clients. Of course!

FYI: People asked why we held back on Geraldine Prouder last Thursday: the fourth lawyer Bob Seely named in the Commons. The reason is that Geraldine (unlike the other three) hasn’t ever tried to shut Popbitch up. But if you want to complete the set, the Mail did quite a comprehensive job this weekend.

[Read it here]

Everyone has been flocking to read and support the excellent Kyiv Independent, which has been doing an impressive job reporting on the ground situation in Ukraine. Even more impressive, it’s only been in existence since November.

It was born out of the ashes of the Kyiv Post when the Post’s current owner (Adnan Kivan) shut it down last November in a fit of pique after falling out with his entire newsroom. Most of the journalists left to set up the Independent instead.

Before Kivan bought it in 2018, the Post had previously been owned by Mohammed Zahoor, whose name may not be familiar to you. His wife’s might ring a few bells to Popbitch readers though: the Ukrainian wannabe popstar, Kamaliya.

After dropping a load of cash to not quite make it as a pop star, Kamaliya became a British reality TV star instead. In the now somewhat unfortunately titled show “Meet The Russians”.

Last week saw audio quizzes on the themes of Siblings, Copyright Disputes and Cats And Dogs. This week brings another five: each lovingly (but badly) mixed-together collections of ten song snippets. All you have to do is identify the ten songs.

You get a point for every title you correctly guess and a point for every artist too. Ten songs; twenty points.

Monday’s Theme: Cover Versions

[Play it here]

New Kids On The Block have a new single with Salt’n’Pepa, En Vogue and Rick Astley
[Listen here]

Betty Boo is making a comeback too
[Read on Guardian]

Wired reviews the sex toy that turns your balls into a dildo
[It’s a thing]

Ryan from The OC remains the only anti-crypto celeb in Hollywood
[Interview in The Cut]

How is Team Putin’s social media game?
[Watch on Instagram]