The legendary Xmas edition of the Popbitch Popquiz – everything you need to enliven the holidays, including trivia, audio round, picture round, puzzles, scandal and 2024 review plus full questions and answer sheets
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“I am a cerebral person. I’m multidimensional” – Matt Goss |
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19.12.24 Email stories: hello@popbitch.com
* Miquita’s Christmas Strop
* Legal and Media Loo-sers
* PLUS: Remembering 2024 |
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>> PopFlop << |
Turbulence down under |
Nicole Kidman certainly showed she’s got quite the catty side to her on the Babygirl red carpet this week, as she had a good go at humiliating a reporter from social media outlet Popcrave.Doesn’t sound like it’s that out of character.
Observers in the Qantas first class lounge in Sydney recently saw Kidman employing those same skills on the lounge staff and her own PA.
What caused these poor folk to bear the brunt of her ire on this occasion? Staff had the temerity to tell her she wasn’t allowed to take her own fruit on an international flight. |
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Talk TV’s erstwhile international editor Isabel Oakeshott seems to have taken her job title to heart, as people are saying she’s moved to Dubai. |
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>> Huwge Year << |
Errors of judgement |
As the year draws to a close, it’s natural to reflect on what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong in our lives.
One of the year’s biggest celeb losers must be Huw Edwards, who lost his cushy beeb job, reputation, family and six bedroom Dulwich mansion.And no huwge surprise that Scarlett Howes and the Sun, whose story kickstarted all this, walked away with a number of prizes.
They picked up Scoop of the Year and Investigation of the Year at the British Journalism Awards last week, and Investigation of the Year and Journalist of the Year at the Media Freedom Awards the previous week.
But not everyone at those awards was pleased. Podcast host Jon Sopel, for example, looked to be absolutely fuming.
When the Media Freedom winners were announced he went beetroot. The reason for the hissy fit? Sopes, along with his fellow podcast hosts Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall, spent much of the past year telling anyone who would listen that the Sun’s huge exclusive wasn’t really a story and that it was nothing more than a tacky tabloid attack on his BBC bestie Huw.
To be fair The News Agents did also cover the Huw Edwards scandal.
Last summer they titled an episode: “Could Huw Edwards have a case for libel?” |
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A motley crew spotted at the Merry Hitchmass lecture (celebrating the work of Christopher Hitchens); Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, Douglas Murray, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Gove, Bob Geldof and Roger Taylor. |
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>> Big Questions << |
Who’s sniffing what this week? |
Which celebrity chef, at the wrap party for their own show, turned to a female guest (and crew member) next to them at the bar and asked quite matter-of-factly: “Are you leaving? I wanted to snort coke off your snatch”. |
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Want to read juicy scoops and satisfying long reads about your city? Then you need the Mill Media newsletters, which now cover London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield.
[Sign up for free] |
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>> Selfishfridges << |
Bonding with mummy |
BJ writes:
“Miquita Oliver has made a speedy recovery from her surgery which is great news to all podcast fans, but probably not for the private shopping team at Selfridges.
“I saw her in the VIP lounge getting irate at a member of staff who wasn’t able to book her and her mum Andi a car home. She got into a strop in front of said staff member and the rest of the people in the room.
“Her mum stepped in, telling Miquita to ‘leave it’ and go sit in the corner with her numerous bags of shopping. Classic mum and daughter argument, lovely to see it at Christmas time.” |
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More on diva Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Apparently there’s a long list of Addison Lee drivers who weren’t allowed to drive him home from Channel 4 news because they were over-familiar and tried too hard to chat to him. |
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>> Out of Order << |
Legal and media loos-ers |
It was a year for toilet humour.
Rita Ora entertained her fellow judges (and the in-studio audience) on The Masked Singer with insight into her friendship with Ellie Goulding. Between takes, she told them all a charming story about the time Ellie once popped over to her house just to have a poo – and then left immediately after.
Still, this sounded better than Bauer’s new Euston HQ. No sooner did it open than one of the toilets was taken out of action due to a very large poo that wouldn’t flush.
And on TV, BBC’s Morning Live got a bad rep as a filth-fest. HR complained that: “The loos by the production office (both male and female) have been filthy during studio and office hours again”.
In radio, Heart staff were terrorised by a phantom farter in the newsroom. Things got so bad that staff in the Leicester Square office received an all-office email addressing the culprit. It read: “Hello everyone, very quickly and feel bad to be saying this, but people need to stop passing wind on the floor, it’s becoming unbearable and unkind. USE THE TOILET!”
Which all sounds bad for the London media, but you know things are serious when lawyers get in on the action. Posh law firm Withers has been admonishing staff for leaving the bogs in “a despicable and unusable state”. Can’t imagine their clients like Idris Elba and Mary Portas would approve.
[More] |
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Andy Coulson’s PR venture didn’t just add Gina (Matt Hancock) Colodangelo to the staff roster this year, it got The Sunaks family office as a client too. |
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>> No Chef! << |
Find out who is naughty or nice |
We’ve had a lot of stories about badly behaving celebrity chefs this year (can’t think why). So, for Christmas, as a special present, two more quick kitchen stories.
Nice? At a Christmas performance at Bristol Cathedral, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson’s started to introduce a special guest as a former host of Masterchef. There was a moment of worried silence… until Loyd Grossman walked out. (His band has played Glastonbury a lot, apparently).
Naughty! And from our inbox, it seems perhaps nobody has ever been hornier than 1990s Ainsley Harriott. At a taping of Ready Steady Cook in the 1990s, he winked at one autograph-hunter, looked them straight in the eye and said, unprompted, “imagine my tongue in your mouth”. |
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Fascinating Aïda’s inimitable wish for us to behave toward family and friends with kindness and respect over the festive period feels even more pertinent as we enter 2025 See them live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall 2nd, 3rd & 5th January 2025.
[Get tickets here |
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************ BEST OF 2024 ***********Stories You May Have Forgotten This Year
>> Another Vine mess <<
Edits for me, but not for thee |
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Remember when Kate Middleton’s photoshopping fails were the world’s biggest scandal?
The only person to have had a more embarrassing time out of the whole fiasco than the Royal Family was Sarah Vine of the Daily Mail. Her tweets on the topic and the 24 hour evolution of the headline on her column about it were exquisite.
Headline – Sunday, 12:36: “The Picture Of Smiling Kate Couldn’t Be More Welcome. The Truth Is The Country Needs Her And William More Than Ever – Even If They May Not Realise It”.
Headline – Sunday, 13:39: “The Picture Of Smiling Kate Kills The Absurd Conspiracy Theories. The Truth Is The Country Needs Her And William More Than Ever… Despite What The Montecito Moaners Say”.
Tweet – Sunday, 23:00: “Kensington Palace has a lot of questions to answer”.
Headline – Monday, 09:54: “Kate’s On The Mend, So What A Pity This Image Is Fuelling Yet More Rumour”. |
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Marisa Abela (Amy Winehouse in Back to Black) is the daughter of Caroline Gruber – who played Hitler’s Jewish neighbour in the infamous sitcom Heil Honey, I’m Home. |
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>> Gin&what? << |
Dogghouse |
Snoop Dogg made a big splash at the Paris Olympics but one almost as big with the excellently-named Gin&Juice canned drinks line he launched with Dr Dre.But he had a little secret. Like the celebrity who admits to not even reading their autobiography, sounds like Snoop hadn’t really even tried them.
Why? Snoop doesn’t like alcohol. Dre was the drinks guru in this partnership as he is a gin aficionado.
“Now, if this was a smoking contest or a smoking brand” he added, “I would be the sampling motherfucker”. |
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Charli XCX said her dad told her to be more like Tom Hanks as he has “a reputation for being nice”. |
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>> Tittle Tattle << |
One hell of a lunch order |
When Conde Nast moved out of Vogue House this year, the company got a few fun write-ups of their fancy farewell party at Claridge’s.Less was said about the little afterparty that took place in the Tatler office.
Someone decided they wanted to leave a slightly more permanent parting gift so – a few bottles down – snuck back into the building and daubed the same words on every single pillar in Tatler’s office.
TWAT MINGE HAM FLAPS CUNT TURKEY SANDWICH. |
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Michael Barrymore (still) has a raging Fortnite obsession. |
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>> With Friends Like These << |
All about the Fergusons |
With Prince Andrew back in the news once again, it’s important to remember he’s not the only unsavoury character in the York family environs.Back when he was trying to rebrand himself from rapper-producer to full-service corporate power player, P Diddy liked to pepper his company literature with equally bizarre name-drops.
Among the people he was keen that potential investors knew he was tight with were Sting, Michael Bolton and… Sarah Ferguson! |
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Family fortunes – Vic Reeves’ son-in-law works at an Audi garage with one of the Cheeky Girls; Sinead O’Connor’s nephew is the registrar of the Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society. |
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>> A J-Lo Point << |
Annus Horribilis |
First, a flop album. Then a tour cancelled off the back of poor ticket sales. Then a bizarre documentary – “Greatest Love Story Never Told” – bombed and put the nail in the coffin of her marriage with Ben Affleck.But perhaps the most embarrassing slight for J-Lo this year was when dozens of news outlets reported that among her Bridgerton-themed birthday party guests was Sarah Jessica Parker.
A fact that caused SJP’s flack to spend all the day after ringing and mailing journalists to demand a correction as Parker wasn’t at the party and definitely didn’t want anyone to think she was. |
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Nominative Determinism of the Year – Winner: working on ambulance policy at the Department Of Health… Joe Neanor. Runners up: Ms I Testi, an ocular consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Swim England’s new CEO, Andy Salmon. |
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>> Pulling Paul << |
The latest technique |
Paul Mescal might not have quite broken through to superstar status in Gladiator 2 but he’ll always be the darling of East London.
Paul was at the Dalston Superstore this summer where he bumped into a group of speed-daters who had decamped there for an after-event drink. They all got chatting and Paul invited them back to his for an after-after-party, where he suggested they play a kissing game.
His prompt was “Kiss the person who you think has kissed the most people”.
No prizes for guessing who everyone picked. |
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Thanks to: CL, BC, BJ, AB, GH, Woman of a Certain Rage, Modthryth, JB, RS, JR, RM, BGA, SK, J, HB, |
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Old Jokes Home
Q/ What do you call people who are afraid of Father Christmas?A/ Claustrophobic.
Still Bored?
The Keith Haring Foundation has made a playlist of the mixtapes Keith used to paint to.
[They’re brilliant]
*** WhatsApp us some goss on +44 7923 619540. We’re also on Instagram and our DMs are open (@p0pb1tch)*** |
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