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Get previous Second Serve issues [here]
The Popbitch Popquiz archive is [here]
The Daily Audio Quiz archive is [here] |
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“I don’t go anywhere near my DMs. I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t want to know.” – Tulisa |
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A second serving of scandal and slander Subscribe
Email stories to us club@popbitch.com
* Hans Zimmer’s Guts and Balls
* Party talk with Brian Eno
* PLUS: “An alleged horse” |
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>> 4K winks << |
The snooze that’s fit to print |
Here’s another little detail on Dominic Raab’s recent trip to see Barbie at the Everyman in Esher that we learned over the weekend.
Raab was asleep within 15 minutes of the film starting. An usher was tasked with delivering food to their seats and Raab’s wife, who was closer to the aisle, turned to ask ‘Dom’ if they’d ordered anything – only to find him completely conked out. |
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The answer to Thursday’s Big Question: The actor spotted inspecting all the pictures at Sheekey’s, looking for himself and roping in a waiter to help… Damian Lewis. |
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>> Hans on << |
Buttoned up |
With news that the BBC’s legendary Maida Vale studios have been sold to Hans Zimmer, Hans will soon be taking possession of some of the finest fake controls in the music business.
Engineers who worked at Maida Vale, recording Radio 1 sessions for John Peel back in the day, had a special piece of kit there called the “Guitarist’s Control Box”. It contained a bunch of knobs and faders that were labeled “Balls”, “Guts”, “Thrutch”, “Brown Sauce” and “Welly”.
Each and every one of them did absolutely nothing, but techies left them out on view so that meddlesome musos could come over and fiddle with them to make them feel like they were contributing to the mix. |
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>> Dark horse << |
Strictly Come Dressage |
The announcement of Les Dennis as the final celeb lined up for this year’s Strictly has come at a bit of an unfortunate time. Just as reporters will be scraping his Wikipedia for their customary clickbait articles, he has become the focus of targeted Wiki-vandalism.
Editors have had to be ceaselessly vigilant to catch recent rogue additions to his page like:
* “Leslie Dennis Heseltine (born 12 October 1953) is a purebred horse pretending to be an English television presenter, actor, and comedian”
* “Dennis is well known for his extraordinary racing ability for a horse measuring at 17 hands”
* “Recently it has been confirmed he is a horse which was before long denied“, and
* “He is most often associated with being a secret horse”
Things got so bad last Wednesday that his page was put on lockdown. Restrictions were lifted in the wee small hours of this morning – and some early riser had added the phrase “He is a horse and won the 2007 Grand National at odds of 33/1” by 5:24am.
[Follow the changes here] |
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Unfortunately Named Horse Of The Weekend: Getting pipped to the post in its race at Ascot on Saturday… Wootton’Sun! |
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>> Eno warrior << |
Party talk with Brian |
Brian Eno’s daughter Darla had a birthday party recently. For one of the party games, she insisted that her guests break up into pairs and strike up a discussion about what the other was thankful for.
The person who was paired with Brian got to find out that he is mostly grateful for “his large bank account”, but is also glad of the new record label he’s set up where, when people buy songs, they will “credit the earth”.
(Your guess is as good as ours…) |
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Mundane Celeb Spot Of The Week: Timothy Spall buying hummus in the Barbican Waitrose. Very friendly – and very glad to take compliments on The 6th Commandment. |
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>> The fraud four << |
Moody memorabilia |
Further to Thursday’s story of the Beatles forging one another’s signatures, this has been confirmed by veteran music journo Mark Ellen.
Mark once went to interview George Harrison and took along his vinyl copy of Revolver in the hopes of getting it signed. After the interview was complete, Mark politely put in his request. George took the album off his hands saying “Sure! Do you want them all?” – which is how Mark came to own a copy of Revolver signed by all four Beatles.
Die-hard collectors will even purposefully aim to get four of each item, where each Beatle signed for the other three (i.e. get an “All John” edition, as well as “All Paul”, “All Ringo” and “All George” editions – quadrupling the merch opportunities). It wasn’t just the band members doing it either. Brian Epstein, Mal Evans and even their secretary Freda Kelly used to put in shifts too. |
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Tina from S Club says the band was joined by the spirit of Paul Cattermole when they filmed the video for their first single in 20 years last month. He manifested as a butterfly, apparently. |
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>> Fully Loaded << |
Stripped for parts |
It’s been fun revisiting the story of Paul Baxendale-Walker: the lawyer turned pornstar whose former partner is now repping Dan Wootton.
The other big credit on Paul’s CV (after getting struck off as a lawyer) was his purchase of Loaded magazine. Impressively Paul managed to buy it, then drive it into the ground within 12 months. How did he manage to turn that around in such a short timeframe? Well, he had some help from a few friends.
The infamous event that lives on in Loaded lore is the one where Paul and his porn company execs went to one of London’s better known strip clubs for the night and managed to rack up a £70,000 bill on the company cards.
To show its gratitude, the club asked them back to enjoy another night “on the house”. Where they somehow managed to spend a further £35,000. |
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Paul Baxendale-Walker’s magnus opus? His seven-and-a-half hour, three-act pornographic retelling of Macbeth. (That, or his turn as Boycie in Only Fools And Arses.) |
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>> Popbits << |
This week’s audio quizzes |
Last week saw quizzes based around Metal Covers, Questions, Colours and Greta Gerwig. This week we have another five for you.
Monday’s Theme: Opposites – five pairs of songs that are the opposite of one another.
Give yourself a point for every title you get correct and every artist you identify. Ten songs; twenty points.
[Play it here] |
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If you’re after something a little lower-concept, you have well over 450 other music quizzes at your disposal to try. Have a look through the archive [here] |
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Thanks to: micester, AL, SS, AW, TF, mckeowj, AD, RM |
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Old Jokes Home
I’ve been trying to write a joke about restraining orders.
This was as close as I could get. |
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