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| “Goths don’t have sex – we just stare into the black sun” – Billy Corgan |
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| 10.04.25 Free newsletter every Thursday subscribe
Issue #1229 Email stories: hello@popbitch.com
Or WhatsApp us: +44 7923 619540
* David Duchovny Is An Arrogant Idiot
• Location? Location? Location?
* PLUS: AI Karamba! |
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| >> Off The Rails << |
| You Me Hitting Bum Bum Note |
| You Me Bum Bum Train is a secretive theatre event with a cult following. Every night 77 lucky “passengers”, who triumphed in a £99 ticket ballot, get to experience it – whatever “it” is; it’s heavily NDA’d.
The whole thing is made possible by a team of 10,000+ volunteers, who are getting pretty pissed off at the sheer number of celebrities who have jumped the queue and paid out for “patron” tickets and private bookings.
Elite visitors have included Lord Lebedev, Wendy Murdoch, Dasha Zhukova, Josh Kushner and Karlie Kloss, some of the Bankman-Frieds, the Hess family and a host of Wall St bosses. Even the Azerbaijan ruling family popped in. Only The Sacklers, of opioid fame, sparked a staff protest big enough to be disinvited.
But dissent turned into all out mutiny last week when Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez showed up, complete with entourage. Producers tried to calm protests, but this policy of raking in cash to deliver “a lesson in compassion and empathy” to some of the world’s worst people, off the backs of an army of unpaid helpers, led to an open letter being sent to founders Morgan Lloyd and Kate Bond.
As well as complaining about the Bum Bum Train invite list, volunteers also enquired about a recent gift from one surprisingly thoughtful ultra-rich ticket holder. He loved the show so much he wanted to tip all the volunteers there £100 each, so left £50,000 to cover it.
None of the volunteers have seen a penny of it since. |
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| Cristiano Ronaldo and Matthew Vaughn have gone into business together to set up a new film studio – UR-Marv. (Suddenly checking calendar as to whether it’s still 1st April…) |
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| >> Casting Around << |
| Seagal becomes the trawler |
| Jean Claude Van Damme has been back in the news this week. Allegations surfaced that he was gifted five trafficked models by a Romanian crime lord at a party in Cannes.
Not sure what was in the manual given out to 90s action stars, but a casting agent told us something weird about working with Steven Seagal.
Seagal had flown into London on a scouting mission for a new movie. He met with the casting exec, and was asked what were the roles for which he needed to see actors. He said that he wanted to see Asian girls in their twenties.
The agent looked mystified, explaining to Seagal there were no such roles in the script. He replied “I SAID…I want to see Asian girls in their 20s”.
The exec left the meeting, then quit the production. |
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| Spotted in Tufnell Park north London, having lunch with his family in the cafe used to film Fleabag… Noel Fielding. In a cowboy hat, of course. |
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| >> Big Questions << |
| Who’s up to what this week? |
| Less than a year into the New New Labour regime, some backbenchers are already bristling about not being elevated to government positions.
But which one has been complaining about being overlooked, without revealing the reason they’re not getting promoted is that they’d been caught engaging in a sexual act with another MP in the library of the House of Commons?
Being too pushy can sometimes blow job prospects, we hear. |
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| 393,716,862. That’s the amount of £ spent switching off wind turbines and overpaying gas generators this year. And the amount of times you feel like you’ve heard Octopus banging on about zonal energy pricing in Popbitch. The founder of Octopus explains why this is so important.
[Watch Now] |
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| >> Computer Says No << |
| Turn it off and on again? |
| With the amount of redundancies pouring out of DMG Media’s 9 Derry St HQ (home of the Daily Mail, MailOnline, Metro, iNews etc.) these days, it’s little surprise that former employees are feeling bitter about giving back their office tech.
One laptop couriered back from a disgruntled ex-staffer caused a particular stir. HR had to be called in and photos were taken of the laptop in question – as it appeared to have been smeared in human shit.
Including in the ports and power sockets. |
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| Usher says he likes going to Davos, for the Economic Forum. |
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| >> Just The Bill, Please << |
| Playing the fame game |
| We’re not always David Walliams superfans, but we do give him loads of credit for how good he is at playing the fame game.
Dave’s never made a secret of the fact he enjoys the finer things in life so seeing him having lunch at Scotts in Mayfair with a very beautiful woman was not in itself a surprising turn of events. What made the tableau bizarre though, was that the couple didn’t really eat, nor did they look at each other or exchange more than a few words. Although they ordered starters, they quickly gave up on the meal and ordered the bill.
As they reached the front doors, though, there was a phalanx of paps. And, what a surprise, Mr Walliams and his virtual stranger dining companion were all over each other like a rash, hugging & mugging for the cameras.
After this show for the cameras, the couple strolled up Mount Street and parted with n’ere a glance of farewell. |
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| The NYT is obsessed! Top three TV section stories today: The White Lotus: Walton Goggins Knows It Had To End This Way; The White Lotus: Jason Isaacs Has Tricks Up His Sleeves: The White Lotus: Season 3 Finale Recap. |
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| >> NFI << |
| Location? Location? Location? |
| Channel 4 loves to talk about how much bosses care about the production companies, freelancers and staffers ploughing their trade for them in the nations and regions.
Sadly it doesn’t always translate IRL.
Invitations from C4 went out this week for a celebration to mark the 25th anniversary of Kirstie & Phil’s Location, Location, Location – made, for every one of those years, in Glasgow.
The location of the party? Er, London.
On a Wednesday night. Ensuring that very few of the people actually responsible for delivering one of C4’s most popular shows for quarter of a century would be able to make it. |
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David Duchovny’s thesis at Princeton was entitled “The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett’s Early Novels”. He suggests the alternative title could have been “David Duchovny Is An Arrogant Idiot”.
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>> Brand values
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| Russell Gathers No Moss |
| Now that the Met Police is throwing the booky wook at Russell Brand, there’s a lot of famous media and celebrity names anxiously hoping their own dalliances with him back in that era stay under wraps.
One A-lister with little cause for sleepless nights is Kate Moss. She got his number rather quickly.
Kate and Russell did have a quick thing, but as soon as she heard he was going round telling people how “dirty” she was in bed, she instantly canned him, blocked him and made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. |
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| It’s almost Eurovision time again. Get in the mood at the London Eurovision Party this Sunday! Catch a load of this year’s acts, plus host Paddy O’Connell and europop legends like Alcazar.
[Tickets / Info] |
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| >> Sock Puppets << |
| Twitter Trump card |
| The strong whiff of corruption from the MAGAsphere sycophants around the US President now makes us nostalgic for the entry-level grift of the first administration’s sidekicks.
One of the most consequential things jailbird ex-lawyer Michael Cohen did for Donald Trump in 2015 was pay a tech company to rig a series of online polls in his boss’s favour to make him seem like a more plausible candidate for high office.
As part of the same purchase, Cohen also got the company to pay for a bespoke Twitter account called @WomenForCohen, which would just post regular tweets dedicated to sparking online buzz about what a dreamy hunk Cohen was.
This was still pumping out almost a decade later; “This is the ideal male body”, “This is what peak performance looks like” and – our favourite – “Michael Cohen does not skip leg day, unlike Michael Avenatti”. |
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| Ange Postecoglou’s passport still bears the name Angelos Postekos. |
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| >> Two Jeer Keir << |
| Biffo takes a biffing |
| Westminster loves its nicknames, and even the PM isn’t exempt. Certain Whitehall wonks have been trying out a new one for Sir Keir: Biffo. Which may sound quite cool and down to earth at first. Until you realise it’s an acronym for Big Ignorant Fucker From Oxted.
Charming. |
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| Samantha Cameron is a paid-up member of the Cotswolds commuter set – she’s been spotted multiple times on the early train into Paddington. |
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| >> AI Caramba! << |
| Mullen it all over |
| Jim Mullen’s departure doesn’t mean the end of Reach journalists’ woes (although they definitely aren’t missing the endless stories about his dog Fanta and how his father was a socialist).
Churnalism lives on – staffers are now being told to use AI to rewrite stories from other websites on the Reach network of local sites.
The theory is that these articles can be rehashed but still look ‘different’ enough to indexing crawlers for SEO. And of course, they take no time at all to rewrite. |
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| Dispatch is the bold new magazine digging where others don’t. Quirky long reads, strange frontiers — and next week’s report might leave a certain frontline MP sweating bullets. It’s free (for now), but not for long.
[Subscribe before the doors close] |
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| >> Hmmms << |
| Don’t look there, look here |
| Hypnotically weird ode to Roy Hodgson set to Born Slippy
[Watch]
Clash between 5k race and Mass causes problems in Ireland
[Read on the Echo]
Boris Johnson attacked by Ostrich while at safari park
[Not fatal]
Got plans yet for November? Attend a symposium to explore the “surprisingly understudied nexus of music and cats”. (Apply to Professor of Musicology, Monica Schoop)
[No James Corden in sight]
American student boards wrong boat, becomes accidental Southend fan
[Read on The Guardian]
We’ve been chatting with rock journo Mick Wall for Club PB. You too can hear more about the glory days of rock
[On his podcast]
The Great Gatsby was published 100 years ago
[Things It Has Inspired]
Think you have a porn addiction?
[Blame God]
Revisiting a relic of the noughties: Crap Towns
[Scunthorpe Revisited]
Two women are attempting to row non-stop across the Pacific Ocean
[Including Jess Rowe!]
UBS Analyst commenting to BBC on how the price of Nike Air Jordans will rise post-tariffs
[Jay Sole] |
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| Thanks to: RLG, Jiz, RC, DJC, DM, EJ, AHH, AM, PD, D_S, KC |
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Old Jokes Home
The future, the present, and the past walked into a bar—things got a little tense.Still Bored?
Someone has written a PhD thesis about replying ‘haha so true’ to your friends
https://jabde.com/2024/11/17/haha-so-true-reply-in-text-theory/
*** WhatsApp us some goss on +44 7923 619540. We’re also on Instagram and our DMs are open (@p0pb1tch) *** |
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