Blackballs And Blue Balls

It was clear that Michael Fallon wasn’t resigning over the simple touching of Julia Hartley-Brewer’s knee, but details of exactly how he failed to meet his self-imposed “high standards” haven’t been forthcoming.

He might want to clarify the matter sooner rather than later though because there’s one particular rumour that’s doing the rounds in the vacuum he’s left and it doesn’t seem to be dying down.

The current whisper around Westminster is that he has a touch of the Louis CKs about him – but he doesn’t need the women to be in the room with him.

Just their handbags.

However tough a week you’ve had, you can at least be thankful you aren’t Nancy Ashbrooke.

Nancy was, up until very recently, the Global HR Director at Vice Media. However, what with one thing and another (‘one thing’ being the Daily Beast’s excoriating exposé on how Vice ignored their company’s harassment culture; and ‘another’ being the New York Times poised to publish something in the same vein) she’s suddenly found herself in the market for a new job.

Now that ‘HR Director at Vice’ isn’t quite the glittering CV credit it once was, she’ll no doubt have to fall back on her previous experience. Like the time she was Vice President of Human Resources at Miramax – under… Harvey Weinstein.

Unsurprisingly, Nancy’s LinkedIn page has suddenly gone totally blank.

The video of Phil and Holly playing the kids game PieFace at Ant McPartlin’s house after the National Television Awards is well known – but which of ITV’s primetime personalities filmed some remarkably similar footage of themselves playing a version where the whipped cream was switched out for a hefty pile of cocaine?

Woody Allen. Roman Polanski. R Kelly. Louis CK. So many of showbiz’s biggest sex pests have left multiple clues in their art as to their private behaviour – so it probably behoves us to check up on some other prominent pieces of pop culture to see if there’s anyone else hiding in such plain sight.

This week: Craig David.

7 Days tells the story of a man who meets a woman and, within 48 hours, proceeds to pump her solid for four days straight. But does this mirror Craig David’s real sexual behaviour? Apparently not.

Word from one lady who entered the David boudoir is that:

1/ Craig’s place is littered with small bowls of sweets on every available surface, and

2/ He was so into cunnilingus that he didn’t seem too bothered about doing anything else. In fact, after an extensive round of it in the bedroom, she was treated to a quick encore in the lift on her way to the ground floor.

Then, as she was leaving the building, Craig handed her a fistful of sweets for the journey home.

Anyone else you’d like us to check up on? hello@popbitch.com

Steve Coogan will forever be synonymous with Alan Partridge, and it’s a legacy that he can be extremely proud of. Which is just as well – because…

Steve turned 50 a couple of years back and wanted to celebrate with a party, which he had his PA organise. Among the list of the things she ordered for the “do” was a huge bouquet of flowers.

On the night she handed him the flowers. He then got up on stage and asked her to join him – to present her with the flowers she’d ordered as a thank-you gift for arranging his party.

Actors have long had to deal with amorous co-stars chancing their arm on stage in the name of art, but imaginative tales of vigilante justice rarely come this delicious.

One theatre star who had to share a scripted kiss in a play with Charles Dance became very tired of his persistent habit of slipping her the tongue, so she hit upon a rather creative solution.

One night she gave her boyfriend a blowjob backstage before the curtain went up, and deliberately didn’t rinse her mouth out before stepping on stage.

There’s an old Private Eye legend that Peter Cook would regularly attend editorial meetings and put forward an item for possible inclusion in the next issue: a photo of a nude lookalike of Ted Heath.

Every fortnight the photo would be refused, but Cook would bring it back to the table at the next meeting regardless.

A similar sort of thing was happening at the Old Vic over the last ten years or so too. Kevin Spacey kept on suggesting the same plays season after season, only to continually have them vetoed. Quite why he had such an interest in productions that involved May-December romances is anyone’s guess – but then he’s never been great at taking no for an answer…

After a few years of lying low, Vernon Kay has managed to land himself a brand new presenting gig, hosting the Formula E coverage on Channel 5.

The prolific sexter isn’t fully out of the doghouse though. His iCloud account is now linked to his wife Tess Daly’s phone so that she can keep tabs on who he’s messaging.

FYI: In 2009 Vern received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton for his “outstanding contribution to the field of entertainment”.

The story of Michael Hutchence’s legacy is even more mysterious than it first appeared. Sources down under say that the INXS star’s executor, Colin Diamond, has supposedly been sending cheques to Sir Bob for Tiger Lily since Hutchence’s death, but that it needed to be done surreptitiously to bypass the singer’s family – which was (again, supposedly) Hutchence’s intent.

And what of the mysterious Diamond himself? It turns out he has lived the sort of domestic life that any rock star would be proud of. After having two sons with wife Robyn, he boldly skipped off with her daughter (ie, his own stepdaughter) Evie.

Two more sons with her followed at his new home in Bali, where the super-secretive moneyman spends his time surfing, kickboxing and meditating. However, Colin then found a newer, younger model (a local estate agent in her 20s) so Evie packed her bags and headed back to New Zealand.

We’ve seen a number of politicians going to extreme lengths to prove their patriotism in recent years, but none of them can hold a light to erstwhile Catalunyan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Puigdemont was so committed to his region’s independence that he chose to check into foreign hotels late at night, as tired night staff were less likely to question the fake Catalan passport he liked to use for his ID.

But better than that, whenever Carles needed to fly from Barcelona to Madrid, he used to go via Brussels – purely so that he could come through international arrivals when he landed.

Thanks to Pinatas London for making us a Jeremy Clarkson pinata for our Popbitch party last weekend
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If you fancy getting one yourself
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Popbitch made the Columbia Journalism Review
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Help out one of London’s nicest sound engineers
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World’s cutest rabbit?
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Wizard of Oz – remixed
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Almost all OZ magazines are now online
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Still Bored?
Our firm and bulging thanks to Tom Of Finland vodka for providing the drinks for our Popbitch gossip salon this month. As it’s made with pure arctic water and no added sugar, it was left to us to provide all the dirty bits – but we reckon we did dear old Tom justice…
[Try some for yourself!]