A Thermos Of Car Wine

Try as he might, Piers Morgan just can’t seem to clinch himself a proper #cancellation. After all, he was the one who chose to walk from GMB. He was the one who asked for his Columnist Of The Year nomination to be withdrawn. So far, the only person to successfully no-platform Piers Morgan has been… Piers Morgan.

He can’t even get charities – usually the first to flinch – to drop him. Bristol cat shelter The Moggery issued a short statement this week explaining why they’ll be keeping Piers on as one of their patrons.

To quote their ringing endorsement: “He hasn’t stood on any kittens’ heads or anything like that.”

As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you’d expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.

Her experience? Over in seconds and “like having sex with a boulder”.

Which TV host had a bit of a panic when their car broke down driving home after a show one night – as they accidentally spilled the two glasses of wine that they’d stolen from the studio green room all over the rented car’s gearbox?

(They later told colleagues the incident had taught them a very important lesson. From then on, they always kept their car wine in a Thermos-style flask…)

It’s weird that Sharon Osbourne, of all people, should have taken it upon herself to catch a bullet for Piers Morgan. Those who saw them during their America’s Got Talent stint didn’t see much evidence of any loyalty between the two.

In fact, while out for dinner one night at Gordon Ramsay’s old restaurant in Manhattan, Piers spotted Sharon across the room so went over to her table with his then-girlfriend to say hello. After a bit of chummy showbiz small talk, Piers and Celia left to take their table – while Sharon barely waited until they were out of earshot before cracking snide asides about his “new bimbo” to cackles of laughter from her friends.

Now that her own talk show job is in jeopardy after a number of colleagues complained about her alleged use of racially and sexually offensive nicknames, Sharon Osbourne’s local post office can expect to do some roaring trade.

Sharon’s trademark approach to conflict resolution has generally seen her doing one of three things to take revenge on her enemies:

1/ Pissing in a whisky bottle and sending it to them.

2/ Shitting in a Tiffany box and sending it to them.

3/ Popping an unwrapped Wine Gum up her vaj and sending it to them.

Our thoughts to all of those in the CBS mailroom at this difficult time.

Even though the hunt for the Mystery Royal Racist is unlikely to come to anything, one disgruntled Wikipedia editor has turned the situation to their own advantage. Since the Oprah interview, someone has put a message at the top of Kuldip Singh Dhillon’s Wikipedia entry – presumably expecting the page to see a spike in traffic when people remembered that Prince Charles used to call his British Indian friend “Sooty”.

And what is this bit of guerrilla internet vandalism in aid of? A call to dismantle the monarchy? To blow the lid off Andrew’s links to Jeffrey Epstein? Definitive proof that Morrissey killed Diana?

Sadly, no. They appear to be firing shots in a very localised beef with Cirencester Park Polo Club, who they accuse of being “corrupt developers who are bullying local people to get their way”. (Boo.)

One last bit of Anne Robinson advice for her new colleagues at Countdown. Don’t expect her to turn up to the studio ready to chat. She’ll need to get dressed first.

At The Weakest Link, Anne got very used to being picked up by her driver and taken from home to studio in her dressing gown. This generally wasn’t much of a problem – until the day her usual car didn’t arrive to collect her and a motorcycle taxi had to be sent out instead.

Unsurprisingly, Anne arrived in an especially dour mood. Nothing quite like whipping through traffic at high speeds in just a gown and helmet to set you up for the day.

Ah, Eurovision. The only music contest in the world where a country that recently sent a Robin Thicke lookalike to sing about getting lost in a lady’s “sweet cheesecake” is now facing disqualification for trying to enter suspected pro-nationalist government propaganda to clamp down on political protest at home. (No, not us. Belarus.)

How is the rest of this year’s contest shaping up?

* ICELAND: Last year’s nailed-on favourites have entered another quirky indie bedroom funk number. Fun, but doesn’t pack quite the same punch as 2020.
[We blame the kids choir]

* MALTA: Quietly crept up to become the bookies’ favourite, Destiny (a former Junior Eurovision winner and Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist) has a very catchy Lizzo-meets-electroswing song.
[Not a daft bet]

* ITALY: Like Belarus, Italy were also told they’d have to make changes to their song to comply with Eurovision rules. Specifically, removing a lyric that translates in English as “You’d better touch your nuts!”
[Sounds like Italian Terrorvision]

As Jonah Peretti’s plan gathers pace to reverse-engineer BuzzFeed into a shell company that aggressively buys up other media companies, strips them for parts and builds towards a public sale that would net him and his investors a multi-million dollar payday while laying waste to absolutely everybody underneath him – it’s nice to see the ruthless corporate machine hasn’t lost its sense of humour.

When the staff of BuzzFeed-owned HuffPost was called to a virtual meeting at which surprise mass lay-offs were announced, the cheery password unsuspecting employees had to type in to join the call was ‘spr!ngisH3r3’ (‘spring is here’).

Almost as rib-tickling as the time BuzzFeed management called UK staff into one of the meeting rooms in their London office (rooms which took their names from popular TV shows) to let them know a huge raft of redundancies was coming.

The room bosses chose to tell them in? ‘Black Mirror’.

JW writes:
“I have a Piers Morgan story from the Nordoff Robbins charity banger race at Wimbledon Stadium in 1992. I remember the KLF had their ‘tank’ in the car park, but the celebs I mainly remember from that night were Madness and Piers. And here’s why.

“Madness had a car on the starting line alongside Piers. Just as the race was about to start, Madness poured out of their car and tipped Morgan’s onto its roof, getting the biggest cheer of the night. The race promptly started while Piers was stuck turtle-like, upside down, with cars going either side and no chance to escape.

“What’s more, the other cars started deliberately clipping the front and back of the car, sending it spinning every time they caught it. Lap after lap. Glorious.”

Missing the real-life Popbitch Popquiz? Us too, but we have the next best thing. Full-length, downloadable, play-at-home editions. Perfect for making dull lockdown evenings a little funnier and a lot filthier…
[Four new quizzes for 2021]

The number one song in 3000 cities across the world
[Great infographic]

Liza Minelli’s friends share memories for her 75th
[Read on Daily Beast]

“I look back on it and think, ‘I shouldn’t really have done the drugs, if I’m honest.'”
[Interview with Alan McGee]

An animated guide to Trump’s post-presidential business empire
[Read on Bloomberg]

RIP Steven Spurrier, one of the giants of wine
[A 2016 profile from TIME]

Open the cinemas! This looks awful…
[…we want to see it]

Still Bored?
As Hunter from Gladiators is starring on The Circle, a reminder of his short-lived pop career…
[Shakaboom!]