The Second Serve // “Now That’s A Christmas Brunch!”

Stay Another Day is an enduring Xmas classic, but East 17 are struggling to drum up much of a crowd for their “Now That’s A Christmas Brunch!” event in Brentwood.

Possibly because there’s now only one remaining member of the original line-up left: Terry “Tewwy” Coldwell. He now shares the stage with two other goateed geezers in puffas: Robbie Craig (who did Woman Trouble with the Artful Dodger in 2000) and Joe Livermore (who appeared in the Harry Potter films as Cedric Diggory, before the character became essential to the plot and was consequently recast – with Robert Pattinson).

Whatever the case, they’re giving £20 tickets away for free now.

In PB673 we asked:
“Which popular presenter likes to talk up her charity work in interviews but, according to some of the charities for whom she is a patron, is actually pretty tricky to pin down to get to do anything? She recently refused to interview a child in a wheelchair for the camera because she “doesn’t look good crouching”.

In PB848 we asked:
“Which well-loved TV star didn’t do much to endear herself to one runner who brought a plate of biscuits to the set floor? The star picked up a handful and threw them at the poor messenger, screaming ‘I’M OFF GLUTEN!'”

The answer to both of these is… Tess Daly!

I’m A Celeb ended up being a pretty damp squib this year, with low viewing figures, tedious feuds and a winner who was pretty much odds-on since day one. Even the most cunning attempts to stir up a bit of media outrage didn’t pay off.

Team Farage tried desperately to push a narrative that “lefty TV types” had pulled “insane dirty tricks” to make sure Nigel didn’t get any airtime. But as it was well known those same “lefty TV types” had just spunked a record £1.5m to get Nige out to the jungle, even Daily Express readers found that one hard to credit.

Liberal outrage was later primed to explode when a story about Farage using a bizarre racial/homophobic slur on Cameo surfaced. But that story didn’t really catch fire either. The reason most media outlets didn’t want to touch that Farage/Cameo story with a ten-foot pole was because they noticed the people who were pushing hardest for it to break were… Team Farage.

So after weeks of playing both sides, attempting to instigate a nationwide “Love him or hate him” controversy, what is the harvest? The new Saviour of the Conservative Party ended up leaving the show… exactly as popular as Matt Hancock last year.

We braced you last Monday to expect a bit of news on Simon Boyle, the Sun’s recently departed showbiz hack.

Further to what we then told you on Thursday, Simon’s professional conduct has been ringing alarm bells for some time. As well as juggling a couple of office affairs, sexting sources and getting so bladdered at showbiz events that he couldn’t accurately recall what had happened (making his reporting of them a little patchy) he had some slightly more serious scrapes too.

After spending a weekend off his box at Glastonbury, staggering about the site in a pair of piss-soaked shorts, Simon tried to drive himself and his team home – and crashed his car. His fellow passengers got given the week off to recover.

No-one has yet managed to disprove last week’s bit of trivia that Florida-party rockers LMFAO are the closest relations of a US president to have had a No.1 single. The exercise has thrown up a couple of other interesting titbits though.

Our favourite so far? In Spain, LMFAO only ever peaked at No4 (with Sexy And I Know It). However, Redfoo’s older half-brother Rockwell got to No.1 there with Somebody’s Watching Me in 1984 – so he holds the crown in Spain.

RD writes:
“I used to frequent the Palace Bar off Westmoreland Street in Dublin. One of the joys of the locals was watching tourists walk up to Shane and ask to buy him a drink.

“It would always be a pint of Southern Comfort and brown lemonade and 40 John Player Blue”.

We’ve got another five cut’n’shut mixes lined up for you this week to test the outer reaches of your musical knowledge.

Each  is made up of ten songs, all smashed into chunks and clumped back together. All you have to do is identify the then songs. You get a point for each title you get correct and a point for every artist too.

Ten songs; twenty points. Easy as pie.

Monday’s theme: Autotune

[Play it here]

An unusual Xmas mix
[Listen on Soundcloud]

A supercut of Spock finding things fascinating
[Watch on YouTube]

Nick Cave performing A Rainy Night In Soho at Shane MacGowan’s funeral
[Watch on Twitter]