The Second Serve // Yo, Kids!

Over the last few mailouts, we’ve featured some less-than-flattering Tess Daly/money stories. She’s hardly the biggest penny-pincher in showbiz though. In fact, she might not even be the biggest penny-pincher in her marriage.

A few years ago, the organisers of a massive Christmas party event in Blackpool for student farmers were searching around for a celebrity DJ. Vernon Kay was their preferred pick but he was too expensive (they got Scott Mills instead – for considerably less…)

The line they most remember from Kay’s management that put them off? “Vernon doesn’t come up north for less than 10K.”

Producer of The Traitors, Stephen Lambert, has been the subject of some very flattering media profiles over the last couple of weeks – not least a big interview in the weekend’s Times. The piece described him as a “master of reality TV” and “one of the most powerful and respected figures in British broadcasting… since the former BBC executive founded his own production house in 2008.”

They’re certainly fair descriptions but it was strange that the Times didn’t find any room to mention why Studio Lambert was created (Lambert launched it after he was forced to resign from his previous job over the scandal of misleadingly edited footage of the Queen in a BBC documentary in 2007).

Although it’s perhaps a little less strange when you know for which newspaper Mrs Lambert (aka Jenni Russell) is an influential columnist.

The death of Camila Batmanghelidjh brings an end to the story of Kids’ Company: the charity that entranced the showbiz and political world before media investigations into its chaotic management and finances brought it crashing down in 2015.

Some of the more memorable instances of Kids Company’s work:

* They sent one young client to celeb spa Champneys for a “chocolate massage”

* Camila B claimed she once saw a child throw himself off a bridge – and caught him (unhurt) in mid-air

* Counsellors took ecstasy with some of the kids

* Used bundles of cash to pay off drug dealer debts

* Camila B had her own chauffeur (and the charity paid for his daughter to go to an expensive private school run by the charity’s vice-chair)

* When one kid made sexual harassment allegations, he was sent to Costa Rica for a paid gap year

Celebs including Coldplay, JK Rowling and Sting’n’Trudi loved chucking money at the charity. Ruby Wax was a backer too but ran a mile when the media reports surfaced. Muse were asked for funding, but their accountants told them it wasn’t a good idea.

One of the most enduring legends behind the scenes at Kids Company (that a number of journalists looked into, but were never able to prove) was that there was a warehouse/lock-up in London chock-full of Kids Company branded yo-yos that they’d used donor money to produce but had never used.

The idea was apparently to teach friendly celebs how to yo-yo, in order to bring back the hobby for teens.

Staffers said Camila told them she was convinced she could get Omid Djalili to take up yo-yoing – which would, according to her, kickstart the trend.

Alan Yentob was the chair of Kids Company and his involvement in it brought about the end of his 47 year career at the BBC after it emerged he’d been intervening in the Beeb’s own reports on the charity.

There was a particularly awkward moment in the middle of the scandal when Yentob was at war with BBC News over their coverage of the story. One of the main reporters on it found themselves walking down a corridor at the Beeb behind Yentob, when they noticed Yentob pulling his hand from his pocket and accidentally dropping a £50 note.

Unsure whether to pick up the note and reveal himself to Yentob, or to knowingly watch Alan lose a lot of money – the reporter chose the former.

Their good samaritan routine was rewarded though, as they got to see Yentob’s obvious elation at being handed a £50 note turn to absolute dismay in a split second when he realised who was handing him it.

After some relatively gossip-free years at AppleTV, Jay Hunt has been announced as the new chair of the British Film Institute. Hopefully the streamer throws her a good leaving do.

When Jay left Channel 4, they got Blue to sing her a personalised version of All Rise to see her off. The boys were extremely giddy to be there. So giddy in fact that when a confetti cannon went off during the climax of their set, one of the boys mistook the bang for a terrorist attack and dived off the stage without warning. Leaving the rest of the group, and the crowd, looking slightly bewildered as confetti rained down.

Then a few days later, C4 staff held a second party that Jay wasn’t invited to – in order to properly celebrate her leaving.

Our favourite politics story over Xmas was on the Guido Fawkes site, and explained why Andrew Bridgen left the Reclaim party in late December after he released a statement citing a “difference in the direction of the Party”.

The story went that Bridgen borrowed the Reclaim Party’s company car before Christmas for a spot of constituency work. Party leader Laurence Fox then called him up asking for the car back to carry a Christmas tree home. Bridgen said no. Fox said he would report the car to the police as missing or stolen if Bridgen did not return it. Bridgen gave him a more resolute “no” and released his statement of resignation.

After setting you nearly 250 audio quizzes last year, we’re back on our bullshit with even more tenuous themes for 2024.

The set-up is simple. Each ~3min mix is made up of ten different songs – inelegantly splodged together. You get a point for every song you correctly identify in the wreckage, and a point for every artist too. Ten songs = twenty points. That means there’s 100 points on offer each week – and well over 10,000 points across the entire archive.

And not a single one of them worth a damn. Still, it’s a bit of fun, isn’t it?

Monday’s Theme: New Year’s Resolutions

[Play it here]

Kanye is selling his Malibu home
[$53m – and it’s in dire need of renovations]

A porcupine noisily demanding food
[See on Twitter]

Two raccoons trying to open a door
[Also on Twitter]

A long read on Carter-Ruck behaving badly
[VERY long read]

What it is like to own Jeffrey Dahmer’s house?
[Read on Observer]