Cock Au Van

It’s been another awful, stressful week for everyone and it genuinely pains us to have to make it worse for you, but we heard something so utterly cursed this week that we just can’t sit and suffer in silence. We’ll understand if you never want to hear from us again, but:

Jim Davidson’s preferred chat-up line?

“I’d love to split your whiskers.”

The Hollywood whisper network hasn’t always been great at stopping the more serious offences from taking place, but we’re pleased to say it’s doing fine work with minor misdemeanours.

One A-list star has got a reputation at an LA frozen yoghurt place for going in with their hat pulled down low, asking for free taster samples of all the various flavours and then leaving without placing an order. The jig is up though and staff have figured out who the famous freeloader is.

Shia LaBeouf.

Which Star Wars legend was a bit of a fixture at his local GUM clinic? Rather than sneak in furtively to get his tackle checked, he’d turn up in a Rolls Royce, flop his chap out for inspection, then happily hand out signed photos to anyone in the waiting room.

The government’s bold new Brexit plan of annexing Kent feels like the sort of thing precision engineered to spark a UKIP resurgence, but they might have a bit of trouble getting the band back together.

A journalist who recently had cause to call a former UKIP top bod was surprised to find that the mobile number they had for them was out of date and now belonged to someone else.

Former Bucks Fizz member and current Conservative councillor for Thurrock, David Van Day.

Sean Bean is due to star in a new three-part series set in a British prison, and he’ll no doubt be glad to be filming on home turf.

It’s become part of Sean Bean lore that he would insist upon having Fray Bentos pies shipped out to him when he was filming episodes of Sharpe abroad – sometimes taking as many as 80-90 pies with him. But, according to someone who worked with him in those early years, the food wasn’t the only foreign muck he turned his nose up at.

As well as his pie order, he faxed his PA to see if he could get some good old British grot mags flown over too.

It didn’t come as a shock to learn than Van Morrison is one of the old rockers taking an anti-mask stance. He’s never really shown much consideration to others when it comes to matters of health and hygiene.

At the start of lockdown, we mentioned that Van keeps a small table in the wings at his concerts with a towel, a tumbler and a bottle of whiskey. Before the encore, a sweaty Van likes to nip off stage, pour himself a large measure, unbutton his keks and give his undercarriage a good towelling off before returning for the final song.

What we didn’t mention, but have since learned, is that the damp knacker towel would often join him on stage for the encore – and he’d toss it out to the crowd…

As well as swapping a few showbiz stories each day to help alleviate the tedium of pandemic work days, the Popbitch daily edition is also giving us a chance to cover some of the more topical stories that bubble up early in the week, but fizzle out before Thursday.

Boris Johnson’s phantom trip to Perugia, for example, gave us the opportunity to revisit the other times he’s been recognised at that airport. Yesterday’s Spitting Image trailer let us recall a skin-crawling Steve Coogan story from the show’s original run.

There’s lots to catch up on if you’ve been letting it slide, but we’ve been keeping an archive where you can also sign up and get it direct to your inbox.

[Sign up/catch up here]

Yesterday, we asked daily readers to tell us about the most outrageous celebrity autobiographies they’d ever read. We’ll cover more of them in tomorrow’s daily, but this one caught our eye…

AF writes:
“Bobby Womack’s autobiography is jaw dropping. The last person to see Janis Joplin alive other than her dealer; the only person who could go seven days without sleep with Sly Stone; nearly shot his own son through a bedroom door because he was so paranoid about burglars (only missed because little Bobby was three and the bullets went over his head); and pretended to be blind for a year just to avoid touring. Even in 1970 he was doing $500 of coke a day.

“But most amazing of all, it opens with Bobby being shot in the head by his wife (Sam Cooke’s widow) Barbara, who’s found him in bed with her and Sam’s daughter Linda, who later became Bobby’s sister-in-law. You’ve really GOT to read it.”

On Tuesday, we asked daily readers to tell us about the worst instances of celebrity seduction they’d ever been witness to.

anon writes:
“I was at a Nintendo party a few years back and all sorts of semi-celebs were there. I was at the bar next to Laura Whitmore when a man walks over with the immortal line ‘You fucking anyone at the moment?’

“Typical Lee Ryan charm.”

Last Friday we asked if anyone had any dangling bits of unconfirmed gossip that we could get investigating while we’re waiting for coronavirus to calm down – and it sounds like there might well be…

M writes:
“I was at the Beeb in 2001/2002 in the news dept. There was a file, occasionally anonymously updated, that had a list of ‘Can anyone confirm…’ requests. The earliest, dated just before the 1992 election: ‘Did John Major have an affair with Vanessa Feltz? I’ve heard this story again and again, can anyone confirm it?'”

Anyone know how this started? hello@popbitch.com

An oral history of Prince’s Sign O The Times
[Read on BBC]

Want to buy Billy Connolly’s old snooker table?
[See on eBay]

Someone asked a philosophy AI the Baboon v Badger question
[Its answer?]

Vic Reeves remembers 25 years of Shooting Stars
[Read on Telegraph]

Local News of the Week: Long Fork Edition
[Read on Bristol Post]

Van Halen’s Jump, arranged for cat and right hand
[See on Instagram]

Over on Tumblr, a discussion of which rocks can be dissolved by the vagina
[Join the debate!]

Still Bored?
Want ambient office noises for this next round of working from home?
[Listen on Spotify]