Disrupting The Baby Shower

Offering Boris Johnson “technology lessons” wasn’t the only peculiar length Jennifer Arcuri went to in order to secure funding for her business ventures. The baby shower she threw for her daughter has since become a bit of a legend in the tech scene too.

As well as inviting the traditional slew of gal pals to the shower, there was also a curious selection of older gentlemen present (guests Arcuri blithely referred to as her ‘admirers’). There, she treated everyone to a rousing speech about the bold, ambitious future she had planned for her baby: a child she said was destined to become a world famous tech investor and discover the next Uber.

To achieve these dreams though, Arcuri Jr would need some seed money. So she suggested all her guests write the foetus a cheque (“starting at a thousand”) to put aside for the day it finally stormed Silicon Valley. And those who had forgotten their chequebooks? They would get follow-up emails about it.

The whole thing was mapped out to the very last detail – all except for one. Jen hadn’t set the baby up with its own bank account yet. So she had to use her own.

Popbitch untouchable Lembit Öpik has been busy this last month, giving speeches in his official role as Chairman of the Asgardian parliament.

Asgardia, if you don’t know, is a proposed space nation that will be composed of a fleet of ark-style spaceships which will float in orbit around the Earth, and eventually play host to millions of human Asgardian citizens. Ruled, at least in part, by Lembit Öpik.

What first sparked Lem’s passion for clambering aboard such an impressive sounding space vessel? We can’t know for sure – but we do know that he used to lovingly compare his former Cheeky Girl fiancée’s breasts to the International Space Station (because “whatever angle you’re at, they look the same”).

So his motives are definitely pure.

Which former England footballer might want to keep a slightly lower profile in his local on a Saturday night? Either he didn’t mind fellow pub-goers taking loads of pictures of him with a woman who very much wasn’t his wife – or he was way too smashed to notice.

Preparations are getting underway at the Evening Standard for their 2019 Theatre Awards and organisers are hoping that boss Evgeny Lebedev suggests a more suitable guest of honour to accompany him this year.

Last time, Lebedev’s first choice of +1 was Saudi Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Until it was suggested that perhaps a ruler whose men had recently murdered a journalist, and whose country can punish homosexuality by death, wasn’t a great choice for a newspaper awards ceremony that celebrates the pride of the UK’s theatre scene.

One of the big safety ropes holding the reality TV industry in place is a clause in the participants’ contracts that effectively states “You aren’t our employee, so you can’t sue us for any of this.”

For decades now, this has meant that disgruntled stars who get cast as the ‘villain’ in the edit have had no real recourse. But there’s an interesting development afoot in Australia which could start to fray that rope.

This week, a woman who appeared on the renovation show House Rules in 2017 brought a case against Channel Seven saying that she had suffered a ‘psychological injury’ as a result of her portrayal on the show. Despite having signed a contract agreeing that she wasn’t an employee of the channel, the Workers Compensation Commission has ruled that she essentially was – and is therefore entitled to a pay-out.

The ruling has potentially opened the floodgates for any reality star down under – past, present or future – who wants to kick up a fuss. And it might not be long before that format gets picked up abroad.

Hollywood’s reputation for sexism is well-earned, but are things slowly starting to change?

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the latest developments in onscreen de-ageing technology. The go-to examples have usually been Michael Douglas in Ant-Man, Samuel L Jackson in Captain Marvel, and now it’s De Niro, Pesci and Pacino in The Irishman.

Yet, for all the personal and physical scrutiny the female stars of Big Little Lies have been subjected to elsewhere in the press, you barely hear a peep about the fact that the bill for digital face-ironing on Season 2 came in at about $500,000.

For the last few weeks we’ve been likening David Walliams’ behaviour on planes to that of Cilla Black – but another flight attendant tells us that he’s actually much more like Benny Hill.

On a transatlantic BA flight back when he was with Lara Stone, David insisted that the two of them be allowed to get changed into their pyjamas in the loo together. The cabin crew were braced for them to get up to some funny business – but they weren’t prepared for what ended up happening next.

Instead of getting changed into their pyjamas, David and Lara stripped down to their undies, then burst out of the toilet and started play-chasing each other around the first class cabin.

TalkSport’s football editor David Walker and exec editor Tom Hughes are two of the latest big names to join the general media exodus to the new cash-rich subscription service The Athletic.

Both gave their notice to TalkSport management some time ago, so they could leave to head up The Athletic’s new audio output, but it was only when Private Eye reported on it last week that the pair got put on gardening leave.

With TalkSport being such an obvious place for a rival start-up to poach talent, it’s a bit of a mystery why it didn’t dawn on bosses to do it sooner. Was it a smart idea to let two high-profile defectors have continued access to the rest of their staff while they worked out their notice period? Only time will tell…

Next week’s Popbitch Popquiz is all sold out, which means there’s only one chance left this year to join us for London’s most mischievous trivia night. Our last quiz of 2019 will be happening on Tuesday 12th November at Smiths Of Smithfield, Farringdon – so round up the filthiest minds you know and put in a team…

[Book in for Nov 12th]

If you can’t make it along, we will be putting together another play-at-home version for the Christmas holidays again, as so many of you took us up on it last year – and we’re hopefully going to be announcing a bunch of new quiz events for next year (including some outside of London). So if you want to get early notice on those, we have a designated Popquiz list that sends out dates and little bonus puzzle rounds once a month.

[Sign up here, if you’re interested]

This week’s Media Masters podcast is with Justine Picardie, Editor-in-Chief, Harpers Bazaar
[Listen on Media Masters]

Keith Flint’s auction lots are now available to view
[See on The Saleroom]

A great piece on Coleen Rooney and the wider Wagileaks scandal
[Read on Tortoise]

Can you kick the ball back?
[Infuriating web game on Vole]

Competitive pillow fighting in Japan
[Sounds like fun]

Interesting story on the misconceptions about YouTube’s algorithm and online radicalism
[Read on Wired]

Penis shaped skate park in South Australia
[See on ABC News]

The Secret Service started investigating Eminem after TMZ approached them for a comment on his lyrics
[Read on BuzzFeed]

The Doctor Who theme in spaghetti western style
[Oddly soothing]