The Second Serve: St Vincent’s Cherry

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* Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Mojito
* Maggie Smith’s pisco sour
* Tommy Tugendhat’s temp tattoos

>> Maggie Squared <<

The Irish for ‘cunt’

With the sad news that Maggie Smith passed away on Friday, we were reminded of an excellent anecdote from her heyday.

In 1981 Maggie was invited to Kensington Palace by Princess Margaret & Roddy Llewellyn after a performance of the Edna O’Brien play Virginia. During supper when Maggie Smith started talking about the Irish writer she sensed a frosty atmosphere in the room.
Roddy Llewellyn explained: “We don’t mention Miss O’Brien’s name Maggie, as she once referred to Her Royal Highness as a ‘fucking cunt!’”
“Yes!” confirmed Princess Margaret, “a FUCKING CUNT!”

Maggie Smith had a cocktail invented in her honour in 2011. The Maggie Smith contains pisco, white rum, honey and orange liqueur.

>> Jesus Christy <<

One way to say sorry

We always thought Patrick Christy was a bit of a non-entity at GB News, but now at last he’s finally done something interesting.

During a heated confrontation with two producers, we’re told Christy lost his temper and branded them both “cunts”, before throwing their personal possessions, including a laptop and shoes, out of the office.
The whole bust up has now led to an official warning from GB News head honchos.

St Vincent’s party trick is the ability to tie a cherry stem in a knot with her mouth in 10 minutes.

>> Outside the box <<

Smacks of desperation

When Phillip Schofield chose lip balm as his one luxury item on that ‘deserted island’ for his Channel 5 comeback, perhaps he was taking inspiration from fellow weirdo David Blaine.
Back in 2003, when Blaine was preparing to spend 44 days without food suspended in a perspex box above the Thames, he made sure he had packed lip balm as the thing to get him through it.
His other necessities included nappies and Wet Wipes.

Nepo baby of the week: Lennon Gallagher’s first ever London flat was above Rankin’s studio in Kentish Town.

>> Dick gag <<

Sent from my iPhone

Given Baby Reindeer is based on Richard Gadd’s real life it makes sense that he took his character’s flopping crowd-work skills from his own stand-up routines.
Back when Gadd was a gigging comedian, he asked his audience at a show in Hackney what they did and where they were from – the standard audience bants fare.
When one person said they were an ex-civil servant, he shot back with “you’re a piece of shit then, aren’t you”.
Cue squealing laughter from Fiona Harvey down the back?

The hashtag ‘queen consort’ has half-a-billion TikTok views.

>> Claws out <<

More of a dog person

The sinister Cats adaptation in which James Corden licks himself was hated by all – even its original creator.

“It was terrible”, Andrew Lloyd Webber told the Sunday Times this week. “Thank God I wasn’t closely involved”.
In fact he was so scarred by the whole thing that he even applied for his havanese, Mojito, to become a therapy dog, citing “trauma due to the Cats movie”.

The shop from Open All Hours is up for auction in Doncaster with a starting price of £150,000.

>> Big answers <<

Blue Peter badge for trying

On Thursday we asked: Which TV presenter went to such great lengths to hide his drinking from his on-screen off-screen partner that he took to polishing off a bottle of wine a night in their kitchen, then refilling them from the tap – leaving her with a wine rack full of water?
The answer was – Richard Bacon! Ex girlfriend Konnie Huq wasn’t much of a drinker, but she found out when she accidentally brought a bottle of his recanted water to a friend’s dinner party.
When it was poured everyone was shocked apart from Richard who put in an Oscar winning performance of equal bewilderment, so much so that Konnie subsequently called the wine company to complain.

Tom Tugendhat’s camp is giving out heart-shaped temporary tattoos of his initials at party conference.

>> Popbits <<

This week’s audio quizzes

We’ve now amassed a treasure chest of 700 audio rounds. Some good, some bad. Some difficult, some child’s play. We’re going to take a break from these daily audio rounds but come back with a new fun way to show off about your music knowledge and waste a bit of time.
Bear with us a couple weeks? In the meantime – here’s a link to try as many as you like
[Get them here]

Danny Dyer is now into meditating and breathwork practice

>> Hmmms <<

A few quick things

Robbie Williams’ art
[Amsterdam]
Is culture dying?
[Maybe]
What London’s sex clubs think of Labour
[Not a lot]

Thanks to: RL, BM, CW

Old 80s Jokes Home

Q. What do you call a vegan popstar?
A. Soya Wilcox
 

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