The Second Serve // Rider Chicken

After we rumbled the “yoghurt commercial” code that film crews were using to disguise projects they were working on, it seems they’re now taking inspiration from elsewhere in the refrigerated dairy aisle.

A volunteer who was helping clean up the shore at West Wittering this past Friday arrived to find a load of filming vans and crew present. She was told they were making a margarine commercial. But it didn’t take long for her to discover what was actually up: that the filming of the Game of Thrones prequel was underway.

This year’s twattiest Glastonbury liggers? We expect it’ll be a close run thing as stories dribble in over the week – but taking an immediate lead are Noel Gallagher and Rita Ora.

Not content with VIP access, they (and some coke-fuelled mates) turned up to the John Peel stage and elbowed their way onto the disabled access platform to get a better view. Crowding out the wheelchair users it had been set up for.

Diana Ross’s set at Glastonbury this weekend reminded one reader of the time they worked a live open air show with the legendary diva. They were with Dame Shirley Bassey at the time when the two shared a bill at Capital Gold’s Picnic In the Park.

Backstage, Miss Ross was evidently irked that Dame Shirley (lower on the bill) appeared to have been given the more glamorous portacabin, so immediately started asking for more things to be brought to hers. Seeing this, Team Bassey thought it would be fun to play a game of Rider Chicken – asking for various things to be brought to their dressing room to see if Team Ross would notice and copy. Invariably, they did. After Dame Shirley asked for a fridge, Miss Ross wanted one too. The same with a huge bouquet of flowers. The same with a big TV.

For the final flourish, however, someone from Dame Shirley’s team went and found a full chauffeur outfit, complete with peaked cap, then borrowed one of the Hyde Park golf buggies. He then came to collect Dame Shirley (who was in on the joke) and drove her the full 20 yards from her portacabin to the stage – while Miss Ross looked on in awe.

Rumours that Paul Dacre is supposedly in line for a peerage have been met with outrage, uproar and calls of cronyism – but maybe Dacre is exactly what the House Of Lords needs? His infamous management style might be just the thing to blast a few of those crusty old cobwebs away.

One hack remembers the time they turned up for their first shift on the Mail newsdesk after a messy week’s holiday in Ibiza. Having not really slept for 24 hours, rolling straight into work, they accidentally misspelled Kylie Minogue’s name in a story.

A blooper that caused Dacre to come storming out of his office and over to the writer’s desk to yell that he was a “DOUBLE CUNT”.

Doing the publicity rounds for his new sitcom, Man V Bee, Rowan Atkinson has spoken about how little he enjoys the process of actually filming comedy – preferring the writing and the post-production instead.

Not everyone else on his shows feels the same joy about post. Rowan demands a second edit suite on any project he’s involved with so that he can create his own cut of the footage alongside the proper editor’s. Something which causes loads of problems every single time, but something he won’t ever back down on.

Ahead of his return to the West End – and with the end of Neighbours in sight – the Times had a fun profile of Jason Donovan in this weekend’s edition, which reeled off some of his greatest hits.

* After having sex with Kylie Minogue for the first time in a Sydney Travelodge, the pair of them had a celebratory milkshake.

* Kylie broke up with Jason over the phone from Tokyo. He’d later learn she had been with Michael Hutchence, Jason’s idol. Jason was the one who’d taken her to the INXS concert where the pair met.

* To get him through his original run on Joseph And His Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jason took up smoking weed and developed a coke habit that saw him sucking back 30 lines a day.

* He got so fucked up at one party, he collapsed on top of Jack Nicholson.

[Read the full profile]

Last week, we started a journey through the early 00s in musical form – giving you an audio quiz on 2000, ’01, ’02, ’03 and ’04. This week, we carry on with the second half of the decade.

Each day we’ll shred up ten songs and scrunch up the little snippets into one 2’30 mix. You’re in charge of marking your own work, but give yourself a point for every title you correctly guess and another one if you get the artist too. That’s 20 points for each quiz, a nice round 100 for the week.

Monday’s theme: 2005

[Play it here]

Best overheard things at Glastonbury
[Read on Vice]

The World’s Ugliest Dog 2022
[Meet Mr Happy Face]

Headline Of The Weekend: “I Am Sexually Attracted To A Fence And Love It As A Companion”
[Read on NYPost]

A collection of AI pictures of Neil Warnock
[God bless technology]