The Second Serve // Textbook Portillo

It’s to be expected. If you will insist on whipping yourself up into a state every weekday from 10am-1pm, it’s only going to be a matter of time before you have a little accident.

Mike Graham had an impromptu five minute ad break in his TalkTV show today. The explanation that’s been leaking out of the studio is that Mike apparently needed a change of trousers (and a change of chair) after letting some wee loose under the desk, while on air.

So if he seemed a little less full of piss and vinegar in the latter part of the show, now you know why.

On Thursday, we asked: “Which cast member on a reality dating show got doubly lucky when filming one episode, getting to enjoy a not-so-private threesome with two of the contestants – in full view of one of the production cameras?”

It was Federico, a waiter from First Dates Hotel. He and two daters from the show ended up getting hot and heavy. Far from being embarrassed when the production crew informed him that the threesome had taken place in view of a camera, Federico asked if he could get a copy so that he could asses his own performance in it.

By now you might have seen that Robert Peston and Ed Balls have started a band together that played a gig at a street party in NW5 this weekend: Centrist Dads.

Fans in attendance were Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer – who introduced them. The setlist included I Wanna Be Sedated, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now (“for Rishi Sunak”), I Fought The Law (“dedicated to Suella”), The Man Who Sold The World, Teenage Kicks, One Way Or Another and Anarchy In The UK.

Inexplicably, the crowd requested an encore. As the band hadn’t prepared for one, they just did I Fought The Law again.

As well as being a horny old goat, scooping up any lovely young lady who crossed his path at Harrod’s, Mohamed Al-Fayed was also a bit of a hygiene nut. He wasn’t just fastidious about his own cleanliness (although he did have a flunky follow him around the shop with hand wipes, ready to start sanitising if Al-Fayed ever touched anything). He was very keen on ensuring all the women he plucked from his shop floor were squeaky clean too.

Any girl lucky enough to tickle his fancy and get herself “promoted” to the position of Personal PA would first be summoned to Occupational Health for a private check-up.

His interest in the health of others must have extended to the team at Fulham FC too as we hear that whenever he paid a visit to the grounds in his capacity as chairman, he would always try to cup the players’ balls.

Presumably just to check for hernias and the like…

One reader was surprised to learn from Thursday’s issue that Quentin Letts has been drawing a £350K salary for his output.

One week, a while back, when Quentin’s usual “help” wasn’t available, they were drafted in to feed ideas, lines and quips to make the column sparkle. Our reader was pleased to see their column published largely unedited, and they were tossed a couple of hundred quid for the afternoon’s work – which they always thought wasn’t too shabby.

Until they found out he’s paid thousands per column. Then they figured they maybe should have haggled terms a little harder.

Diners at a restaurant in Marseillan had their lunches disrupted last week by a Brit with an extremely carrying voice, loudly sharing his opinions with his friends. Among the more quotable ones were:

* “The NHS may save your life on the operating table but will kill you on the ward a week later with MRSA”

* “It doesn’t matter how much money you throw into the black hole of welfare, the problem will never go away” and

* “You run the risk of being called wicked if you support [the Tory immigration bill] but it’s just a difference of policy opinion”

Our source on the ground was trying to figure out who the familiar voice belonged to. The penny dropped when one of the loud guy’s friends described everything he’d just said as “textbook Portillo”.

Last week saw music quizzes on the themes of Breathing, Double Acts, The Wrecking Crew and another round of Opposite Songs.

This week, there’s no themes. Just five assorted grab-bags of ten random songs. All you have to do is figure out who performed each song (a point) and what it’s called (a second point).

With ten songs, that’s twenty points on offer; a hundred across the week.

[Play Monday’s quiz here]

Beatbox with famous speeches
[DJ Phonetic]

Inside Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show – sixteen staffers speak out
[Read on Rolling Stone]

Why is music getting sadder?
[Read on Honest Broker]