Contemporary Insanity

As Delta variant cases continue to rise around the UK, the latest Covid hotspot appears to be the Baby Shard. Word is that the NewsUK offices are awash with cases after Rupert Murdoch paid a visit to town. Because Rupert doesn’t like people working from home, the call went up for as many staff to make their way into the office as possible.

The result? Now almost everyone is isolating, including the editors of the Times and Sunday Times.

(An unexpectedly fitting time to unveil the trailer for S3 of Succession…)

Netflix’s new drama Sex/Life has generated a lot of column inches over the last fortnight. About eleven-and-a-half of those come from Adam Demos’ jawbreaker of a cock – which gets a prominent showing in a much-discussed shower scene in episode three.

While some are convinced it has to be prosthetic or digitally enhanced, people who grew up with Adam in Wollongong can vouch that it’s very much real. In fact, a party wasn’t a party back then if Adam hadn’t got it out to do the ‘windmill’ (for a consenting and approving audience, of course).

Is the Royal Horticultural Society actively trolling us now? Not content with hiring Keith Weed, Gerald Clover and Dr Suzanne Moss – who have they gone and given an award to at their most recent flower show?

Amelia Bouquet.

Obviously we can appreciate how tricky it would be to get anyone who knew Ghislaine Maxwell to talk about it on camera now. Even though she helpfully compiled all their names and contact details into a little black book, it’s no surprise the people listed in it aren’t lining up to tell their stories.

Maybe that’s why Sky’s new documentary “Epstein’s Shadow” relies so heavily on accounts from talking head Anna Pasternak, who gets described in the doc as an “Oxford Contemporary”.

That’ll be the 54 year old journalist, Anna Pasternak, who started at Oxford (Christ Church) in October 1985, will it? Talking about her 59 year old contemporary, Ghislaine Maxwell, who left Oxford (Balliol) the previous summer?

If you think we’re going to use the news of the Gove/Vine divorce to do some sort of victory lap; a paper-thin excuse to trot out all our old stories of Gove’s habit of giving a running commentary while he’s shagging; his longstanding nickname “Donkey”; his unnerving habit of getting his knob out a long way away from the urinal in the gents and proudly parading up to the trough with it on full display – we won’t.

They asked for privacy and we can’t think of any good reason why a cabinet minister who was instrumental in writing up our social distancing rules and a journalist who makes a decent chunk of her living opining on the lives of others shouldn’t get it.

There’s a lot of speculation that the Gove/Vine divorce has come about because of some sexual infidelity – but it’s entirely possible that the magic between them was lost for other reasons.

john_lewis_partnership writes:
“Not my story, but impeccably sourced. Sarah Vine tells of returning home one evening to hear the noise of the hoover upstairs. Puzzled, she went up to discover the sound was coming from the bathroom, accompanied by grunts and moans.

“Fearing deviancy, vaseline and amyl-soaked satsumas, she swung the door open to reveal the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, forlornly trying to slurp up an enormous, unflushable turd with the crevice wand.”

The Gove/Vine statement insisted that no one else was involved in their divorce, but you can’t blame people for wondering. Gove has previous form with love triangles (and at least one love pentagon, if his university newspaper got its facts right).

Back in his Oxford days, Gove was locked in a romantic rivalry with none other than former health sec Jeremy Hunt, the pair of them fighting for the attention of one woman – who (for reasons we hope she has addressed and overcome) had chosen to sleep with both of them.

Neither of them won out in the end as the woman in question ended up finding love elsewhere. But she’s managed to give them both a life-long reminder of the rivalry. She asked them both to be godfathers to her twins. One each.

Aside from a few vocal pant-pissers, the current England squad have been highly praised from almost all quarters this year – not just for their performance, but for generally being a lovely bunch of kind, sweet-natured boys who are holding themselves with refreshing dignity on the global stage.

It might be the long shadow cast by copper-bottomed cunts like John Terry that makes us forget, but there have always been England players out there trying to do our international reputation some good.

For example, a few years ago on a promo trip to Vietnam, Rio Ferdinand took it upon himself to buy everyone in the VIP club afterparty rounds of Whisky Sours. Why? Because it was his new favourite drink and he wanted everyone to try it.

Aled Jones has been awfully touchy about people not believing that it was a ‘hacker’ who posted bulge pics to his Twitter account on Sunday – but surely there’s an easy way to prove it?

Jones appeared in a national production of Joseph And His Technicolor Dreamcoat, and we’ve heard from a number of former cast members that it used to be something of a tradition for the star of that show to try to pop their willy out during a big number while their back was to the audience.

Given the very defined outline in the crotch shot that appeared on Jones’s Twitter account, it shouldn’t be too hard for his old cast mates to give a positive ID.

For a big interview with Shoot! magazine back in the 80s, Gary Lineker was given a one-page piece of paper to fill out with loads of simple questions like “What’s your favourite food?” “What’s your favourite foreign country?” etc.

One of the questions was “Who’s your favourite singer?” Gary’s never really been a big pop fan, and didn’t really have a favourite. He quite liked Sade though so, for the sake of writing something, he wrote – by hand – “Sade”.

Whoever picked up his response at Shoot! didn’t read his handwriting properly and they ended up printing the answer wrong. As a result, for years whenever he turned up somewhere for an appearance, the hosts would play songs by Slade especially for him, because they thought he loved them.

Sick of celebrity mansions for sale? Why not buy Norman Wisdom’s old yacht?
[€1.5million]

The Seinfeld slap bass mixed with a hit song from every year it was on the air
[A masterpiece]

Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino take on the Britney story
[Read on The New Yorker]

Team Trump’s new social media site is getting overrun with Sonic The Hedgehog erotica
[Read on Kotaku]

Interesting story on how deepfake vocals are creating ‘fan fiction’ music
[Read on Billboard]

Michael Flatley’s self-funded spy film Blackbird is opening the Monaco streaming festival
[Read on Variety]

The Avalanches’ favourite samples
[Watch on YouTube]

Still Bored?
Michael Gove dinosaur erotica
[Have a nice weekend…]