The Second Serve // Cool Britannia 2.0

Madonna made headlines this weekend for chastising a concertgoer mid-gig for not getting up and dancing, before realising they were in a wheelchair. An unfortunate faux pas – and one that has happened to a great many before her.

When Twisted Sister played the Brighton Centre many years back, Dee Snider stitched himself up properly, riffing in between songs, telling the crowd “The balcony is where all the REAL sick motherfuckers are! They can’t even stand up by show time! Let’s have the house lights up to see them!”

Sure enough, the lights came up to reveal the front row of the balcony, lined with fans in wheelchairs.

Red Bull has all but ensured that the Christian Horner sexting story is going to trundle on for another few excruciating weeks by choosing to suspend his female accuser.

Formula 1 isn’t the only area of motorsport with a questionable track record towards women. The team in charge of booking drivers for the Goodwood Festival of Speed generally refers to the female racers as the “non-men”.

Kensington Palace is having the mother of all howlers today thanks to Kate Middleton’s photo editing. It’s not her first rodeo with image manipulation though.

There’s a story from Kate and Wills’ early dating days where – for a bit of fun – some friends of Kate’s decided to mock up a fake banknote, putting her face where Queen Elizabeth’s was.

A bit of harmless (if high-effort) banter between pals. But William’s snootier crowd failed to see the funny side when they caught wind of it. They dobbed her in to Wills, and that’s what caused their early break-up.

Kate Middleton isn’t the first person to fool credulous tabloids with fake photos, but it’s not as if the papers didn’t properly scour the pictures with a fine tooth comb before publishing. They did. And did so proudly.

On Sunday, the Mail Online brought in a body language expert to take readers through every last detail of the photo, including Louis’s “playful smile”, Kate’s “genuine smile” and the “protective arms” of George.

They’re taking readers on an entirely different tour of the same photo today though.

“The 16 ‘Photoshop Issues’ With Kate Middleton’s Mother’s Day Portrait: From an ’empty space’ where Charlotte’s sleeve should be, to the Princess of Wales’ ‘misplaced’ zip and the patterns on Louis’ jumper”

As everyone predicted, Oppenheimer walked away with all the big Oscars last night. Christopher Nolan will be happy with that, but he’ll be furious that so many publications are using this as an opportunity to run articles telling “The REAL story behind Oppenheimer”.

Back when he was making The Prestige, Nolan refused to collaborate with the original novel’s publisher on a reissued edition. Even when he was told that it would help boost sales and raise the profile of the author (Christopher Priest) Nolan continued to refuse because he “didn’t want people reading the book”.

That included one unfortunate extra he caught reading the novel on set. Nolan ripped it out of his hands and threw it away, because he felt any knowledge of the book would detract from his vision of Priest’s story.

Eurovision is forever tying itself in knots trying to keep itself apolitical. Banning Georgia from entering a song called “We Don’t Wanna Put In”, for example. Or getting the Armenian band Genealogy to retitle their song “Don’t Deny” – which the EBU considered too pointed a dig at those looking to minimise recognition of Armenian genocide.

This year they’ve had to grapple with Israel’s entry: a post-October 7th song originally called October Rain. The singer’s team has been trying to argue that the song isn’t political, saying “If you want to find a relation to any war – you can find it any song”.

And what example did they give in support of this argument? Baby Shark. Because the final verse (after “Grandma Shark, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo”) is “Let’s go hunt, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo”.

Last week saw quizzes on the topics of Derry Girls, Christian Horner, Live Aid, Dreams and Gregg Alexander.

This week, we’ve got another five lined up for you on various themes. All you have to do is listen to two-and-a-half minutes of music we mashed together, then identify the remains. You get a point for every correct artist you pick out of the mush, and a point for every song title too. There’s twenty available.

Monday’s Theme: Sad Bangers

[Play it here]

Does Taylor Swift deserve to be a billionaire?
[Scholars discuss]

Backdrops from the viral Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow are up for auction on eBay
[Own some history]

Information on the metadata for Kate Middleton’s photo
[A full weekend project]