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| “I’ve been naked in the back yard of every house I’ve ever owned” – Walton Goggins |
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| 24.04.25 Free newsletter every Thursday subscribe
Issue #1231 Email stories hello@popbitch.com
Or WhatsApp us: +44 7923 619540
* Britain’s Poundshop SNL
* Heartstopper Romance UK
* PLUS: The Return of Toploader |
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| >> Bah, Humbug << |
| Making friends everywhere |
| Stingy Jim Ratcliffe’s desperate cost-cutting measures at Manchester United continue to reach new lows.
Not content with hundreds of redundancies, raising ticket prices and scrutinising every club purchase, from vegetables to sellotape, now he’s come, at long last, for the freebies.
Charities linked to the club, who previously received free tickets to home matches, were informed by email yesterday that the Man Utd Foundation would no longer be covering the expense.
Given that charity tickets are rather limited in the first place, it’s a particularly Scrooge move, even for Sir Jim. |
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| James Corden’s egg yolk omelette nemesis, restaurateur Keith McNally, is finding himself back in the gossip columns, thanks to a forthcoming memoir. Leaked bits suggest a youthful Gruesome Twosome with Alan Bennett. |
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>>
Jafaican Him Crazy << |
| Don’t read the comments |
| With the exception of pope-killer extraordinaire JD Vance, nobody has had a busier week than Peter Andre’s team, who spent most of their Easter weekend cleaning up the mess after the revelation of his bizarre turn in Jafaican, the movie where he pretends to be Jamaican.Desperately trying to play down criticism of cultural appropriation, Team Pandre dealt with the backlash by claiming that most of the reactions to the bizarre movie trailer in question were positive ones.
When that failed, Pete’s crew tried different tactics on enquiring journalists, including “Pete doesn’t manage his own social media, so he may not know about this” and “he’s not playing a black man, he’s just dressing like a black man”, meaning it could not therefore by racist.
Incidentally, there are at least some positive comments online about Jafaican.
It’s just that some of the positive comments in question seem to be posted by Pete’s own children. |
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| Wetherspoons Tim Martin’s PA writes all of her emails in comic sans. |
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| >> Big Questions << |
| Who’s asking what this week? |
| Which celebrity doctor gave his much younger girlfriend the delightful Christmas present of a 50ml vial of pure ketamine?
Nice to have friends in high places – although she did have to hide it from her housemates for fear of them turning it into their own side hustle. |
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,—–, Does anyone ACTUALLY win
/ \ the meter reading Wheel
( @ @ ) of Fortune? Or is it just
\ v / a ploy to get your numbers?
(())|(()) Octopus lifts the lid on
))|||(( this gritty exposé no-one
asked for – [Watch now] |
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| >> Live and Kicking << |
| Britain’s poundshop TV |
| The new UK version of SNL is off to a dubious start. The show promised to bring in a new wave of British comedy talent outside the usual circuit of ITV and BBC panel shows.And how are they going to do that?
Well, producers have been chirpily sending out requests for writers to send in unpaid samples to get a job on the show. |
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| Matty Healy once won a school talent show at which one of the judges was his mum, Denise Welch. |
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| >> On Brand << |
| Without fear or favour. Maybe |
| The UK’s equivalent to showrunner extraordinaire Lorne Michaels is Suzi Aplin. Aplin is a top-notch exec producer, and has been a staple of the British TV world since the 90s and 00s. Famous for TFI Friday and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, she also produced several of Russell Brand’s stand-up specials at the height of his fame.
Another of these shows was the first series of Roast Battle UK in 2018… which also starred Russell Brand as a judge.
Writers and comedians on Roast Battle were given a very specific brief: to go wild on the “no holds barred” production, with one notable exception:
“Absolutely no jokes about or mentioning Russell, okay? |
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| Perhaps we should take Ed Sheeran’s promise to retire after 10 albums with a pinch of salt. He once said he would quit music once he had a family. |
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| >> Romance UK << |
| Heartstopper? I barely know her! |
| While their millennial predecessors might have used Hinge to filter their romantic partners by height, tolerance to smoking and political allegiances, Gen Z have a more open-minded attitude to romance.
Their summer flings frequently reach across the aisle.
Take Heartstopper. for example. The stars of this very cutesy and progressive show are the darlings of the left-leaning stans who follow it (and them) incredibly closely.
They might be disappointed then, by the controversial love lives of their woke faves.
We won’t reveal all here, but we’re delighted to see one of the stars breaching the culture war divide by finding love with a TV personality turned up-and-coming star of Reform UK. |
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| Walton Goggins takes a one hour nap every day to the sound of a fan, and can wake himself up without an alarm. |
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| >> Topbiller << |
| Alone in the moonlight |
| Oasis have really set the standard for extremely lucrative 90s musical reunions, and given how much they’ve made from it, it’s little wonder everyone else wants to get in on the act.
The latest to join the fray are Toploader, who are marking the 25th anniversary of their Onkas Big Moka album with a special gig.
It’s in… the pub garden of Fox and Firkin in Lewisham.
Don’t worry, it’s not already sold out. |
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| >> Taking A Mr Tumble << |
| Gotta get him thru this |
| You Me Bum Bum’s beleaguered famous guests continue to cause trouble for another week (When will it end, we’re sure you’re all sighing…).
This time it was Daniel Bedingfield, dressed as Mr Tumble for a scene that was themed around a media scrum.
It’s supposed to be an immersive, theatrical event, but not everyone stayed in character. It took Mr Tumble precisely two minutes to tell everyone he was actually Daniel Bedingfield, and that given his extensive experience with the press he should be commandeering the direction of the scene.
The rest of the cast were unimpressed (“he ruined it for everyone involved”, to be exact).
Luckily he took off early, telling everyone he couldn’t miss his Karaoke slot at an afterparty.
(Sadly he wasn’t even the main event there – Madonna had sung Toxic earlier the same evening). |
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| Pope Francis had an honorary black belt in karate (as does Zlatan Ibrahimović and Donald Trump). |
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| >> Spectator Sport << |
| Envelopes SWALK |
| Can anyone tell the difference between the New Statesman and the Spectator these days? The couriers can’t.
It’s new issue day today, but by some quirk of fate and the postal system pranking, in deepest darkest Westminster 100 copies of their rival publication were delivered to the doorstop of the Spec.
Don’t worry though, over in Farringdon, the NS got… 100 copies of the Spectator. |
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| Nominative Determinism of the Week: Senior conservation adviser at the Woodland Trust – Dr Ed Pyne. |
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| >> Shipwrecked << |
| Leaks from the celebrity cruise |
| Mark Steyn might have advertised his Celebrity Apex cruise as a star-studded right wing luxury holiday for free thinkers, but the reality was a bit more Belgrano.
Along with Steyn’s travelling circus, there were plenty of regular passengers on the cruise through Spain and Portugal, who were pretty perplexed by the so-called “celebrity guests” on board.
They’ve been sounding off in a Facebook tour group on what became an extremely odd voyage. The main critiques were that the lanyard-wielding speakers were rude and had “bad elevator etiquette”.
“Everyone I met with the lanyard on was a huge prick”, said one poster. Another recalled turning to their blissfully unaware wife one night at the buffet and commenting: “That chap sitting alone over there looks a lot like Calvin Robinson”.
His wife, nonplussed, responded, “Who?” |
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| One of the must-see comedy events of the year, Natalie Palamides’ incredible one-person 90s rom com opens the new Soho Theatre Walthamstow next week. PB readers tickets for £15 using the code Y2K (subject to availability).
[Book here] |
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| Thanks to: TC, GD, Flo, JD, CM, LI, GD, Posh_Duckhunter, TM, SP, AR |
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Old Jokes Home
Q: What happens when the Pope dies?A: Another popes up.
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*** WhatsApp us some goss on +44 7923 619540. We’re also on Instagram and our DMs are open (@p0pb1tch) *** |
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