Eggy Wafts And Davey Bockham

So much for 2021 ushering in a new era of calm and sense. A fortnight in and we’ve already seen an armed siege of the US Capitol led by a Jamiroquai lookalike, Armie Hammer stepping down from a film while denying he’s a cannibal, Azealia Banks digging up her cat’s remains and boiling them on Instagram, and the President of the United States getting permabanned from most of the internet.

Roll on 2022.

After having publicly shamed a long list of Covid rule-benders, it was pretty rich of the Sun to throw an in-person Christmas party in their office in late December – just days after London was placed in Tier 3.

True to form, there hasn’t been much of a rush to bring any disciplinary proceedings against the lecherous 50-something boss who, after several bottles were sunk, was seen fingering a drunken PA 30 years his junior in a glass-fronted office. HR has been too busy summoning the minimum wage graduate trainees who witnessed the incident – and threatening to sack them if they dared repeat what they saw.

It’s no surprise things are on high alert there though. Throughout the festive season, one of the Sun’s former star reporters was taking to Facebook late at night, threatening to spill everything he knows about the paper’s inner workings, before deleting them shortly after. NewsUK has always worried he’d be one to go rogue, even after they arranged a book deal for him to keep him sweet. Seems to have only bought his silence for so long…

Which British celeb threw a farewell party for a famous American friend and sent them back to the States with a suspected dose of the ‘rona? (A gift that was swiftly passed around to the guests in attendance at their subsequent welcome home bash.)

Holly Willoughby left her agents back in the autumn to set up her own management company, so this will have been the first time in 13 years that her James Grant/YMU team won’t have had an Xmas present from their star client. Not that they’d have noticed anyhow.

A few years back her then-management duo each received a gift from Holly: a tie from Tie Rack. Shortly after the present exchange, one of her handlers walked past the now-defunct store and noticed the ties had come from their “Two For A Fiver” selection.

News that Kim Cattrall isn’t returning for the Sex And The City revival has cracked open old wounds about her infamous feud with SJP – but crew on the set of the original series have always maintained that the one they really couldn’t bear was Kristin Davis.

So much so that, shortly after Kristin finished filming her final scene for the show, crew celebrated her departure with an impromptu chorus of Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.

CBBC has brought back its Celebrity Supply Teacher series to help kids keep learning at home during lockdown. One of the lessons this week came courtesy of Geri Horner (née Halliwell) who gave a class on creative writing.

Why Geri and not a more established kids writer? Well, Geri’s work is perfectly pitched for the playground. An early draft of her first Ugenia Lavender book contained a couple of recognisable characters that got snipped out of the final edition. One deleted section ran:

“In the middle of Musical Startroopers, Ugenia heard a noise that sounded like an over-excited army trumpet. It came from Posh Princess Vatoria’s bottom. ‘Ooh that was a good one!’ giggled Posh Princess Vatoria, as an eggy smell wafted through the tree house.”

The character “Davey Bockham” was also notably absent from the finished draft too.

Neil Young struck a $150m deal for a share of the rights to his back catalogue last week – but what is it actually worth?

The average adult human heart weighs somewhere between 250-350g. Gold is currently trading at $59.24 per gram (at time of writing). Which means that, at a price of $17,772 per unit, Neil Young’s deal was worth approximately 8,440 hearts of gold.

As the wheels really start rattling loose, how are things going with the final few lawyers still left aboard the Trump train?

CHARLES HARDER: Harder was the go-to attorney for America’s A-List in 2016 when he bankrupted Gawker in the Hulk Hogan sex tape case, so it was only a matter of time before the ascendant Trump hired his services. Where is Harder now? In court, trying to argue a libel action on behalf of Trump against the Washington Post – and being told by the judge that he’d actually made a better case for Robert Mueller.

LIN WOOD: Once a respected and formidable litigator, legal watchers in the States say Lin Wood really went off the deep end when he lost the “Pedo Guy” libel trial against Elon Musk. Now, when he’s not requesting the execution of Mike Pence by firing squad on social media, he’s supposed to be representing former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

RUDY GIULIANI: After jostling his balls in the Borat movie, staging a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, having his hair dye sweat down his face, then accidentally stirring up an insurrection, it’s only now that Trump has reportedly stopped paying Rudy for his ‘help’ – as they’ve recently had a falling out.

Good job Trump won’t have any need for legal representation beyond January 20th, eh?

Social media was ablaze this week with pictures of free school meals parcels that made Fyre Festival’s catering look positively gourmet in comparison. Even Richard Madeley would have balked at those meagre rations and he’s able to make meals out of the most unlikely ingredients.

Madeley has a signature tuna casserole recipe he likes to make which involves mixing a can of chicken soup, a can of mushroom soup, a can of tuna, some peas, mushrooms and boiled pasta, which he then tops off with two bags of crunched salt and vinegar crisps and bakes for 30 minutes.

One bright spot of 2021: nearly 30 years after they announced their retirement from the music business, the KLF saw in the new year by re-releasing some of their back catalogue to streaming services.

Famously they burned a million quid of their royalties, throwing the cash on to a bonfire and having the ashes pressed into a brick. The boys are still closely connected to the brick-manufacturing business as they are currently building The People’s Pyramid – where willing individuals agree to donate a few grams of their post-cremation ashes to be pressed into a brick and laid into a 34,592-brick pyramid in Toxteth.

From what we hear, Bill Drummond is still into the pyromania too. He owns a tower in the Glens of Antrim in which he hosts artists-in-residence throughout the year. One reader remembers attending the annual summer party there. After plying everyone with crates of wine and a massive pot of stew, Drummond proceeded to light a big bonfire – and then torched all of the art that had been left behind over the previous 12 months.

[Want to get Mumufied?]

22 years after former Mouseketeer Britney set the world alight with Baby One More Time, a new ex-Disney star called Olivia Rodrigo is doing much the same with her new single, Drivers License: the most streamed non-Xmas record on Spotify, beating its own record every day.
[Hear it here]

Interesting story about how celeb influencers are justifying their trips to Dubai as “essential”
[Read on Guardian]

Orangutans v Otters
[The best new animal feud]

Literary cockwatching: Hemingway & F Scott Fitzgerald
[Read on BoingBoing]

Seinfeld recut as a horror trailer
[Watch “The Nothing”]

Local News Of The Week: Potato Police Call Edition
[Read on Northern Echo]

100 years of Russian and Soviet movies to watch online
[See them here]