Fanny Holster

Obviously not put off by Jesy’s disastrous solo launch, Leigh-Anne is the next Little Mix out of the traps. Tomorrow’s garage-tinged debut single promises good things for the forthcoming album, so that just leaves Jade and Perrie – which is surprising as we’ve been hearing about both their projects for a while now.

The stuff Jade’s put down on tape is, by all accounts, genuinely great – including collaborations with the white-hot team behind the Sam Smith/Kim Petras smash Unholy; while Perrie has been experimenting with industry favourite, Fred Again.

So what’s the hold up in getting these singles out? Word in the industry is that petty internal label politics are to blame. Changes at the top of the two labels that signed both Jade and Perrie mean that the new suits running things now would prefer to keep both singers’ debuts gathering dust in a vault rather than watch their predecessors get even a crumb of credit.

The criticism that’s always levelled at LIV Golf is that it’s a massive exercise in sportswashing, more concerned with money, power and reputation than it is with any real love of the game.

But if that’s true, how to explain the fact that LIV President Yasir Al-Rumayyan has reportedly managed to get his golf handicap down significantly lately?

Maybe the credit lies with golf Instagram superstar, Paige Spirinac, who has been seen with him recently, helping him practice his swing.

Which former minister once caused havoc in a high-level meeting when they tried to surreptitiously flash the SpAd they’d been shagging on the sly, and accidentally gave one of the most highly decorated members of the Navy an inadvertent eyeful?

Unexpected celebrity spot at Download Festival: Frank Skinner. He was in the normal camping area rather than opting for an off-site hotel like posher celebs often do, and a very pleasant campmate – saying hello to people and happily having his photo taken.

He was shit at putting away his pop-up tent though. “Like watching Mr Bean trying to post a letter” was how it was described to us. A good job he made friends with his camping neighbours then, as they had to step in and sort it out for him in the end.

Much has been written in the last few days about Cormac McCarthy, who died this week. Not nearly enough has been written about his ex-wife, Jennifer – who arguably made just as important a contribution to the Western literary canon, by providing us with one of the greatest headlines of all time: “Cormac McCarthy’s Ex-Wife Pulled A Gun Out Of Her Vagina During An Argument About Aliens”.

If you’re the type of person who likes details, you can read the arrest report here.

If you’re more the broad strokes sort: Jennifer and her new partner got into a fight about space aliens. She stormed off and returned later dressed in lingerie with a silver Smith and Wesson slipped up inside her. She then proceeded to have sex with the gun in front of her boyfriend, before pulling it out and pointing the barrel at his head, asking “Who is crazy, you or me?”

Presumably rhetorically.

We were a bit disappointed when we first found out Lee Ryan wouldn’t be joining the rest of Blue on the promo rounds for their last album, as he’s always been good for a quote or two. When it later transpired his absence was due to him getting arrested for drunkenly assaulting a black flight attendant and telling her he wanted to have her “chocolate children”, we figured it was probably for the best.

Still, Lee isn’t the type to let a little court case get in the way of giving his public what they want. Up in the dock this week, appealing a related charge about biting an arresting officer on the nose during that same arrest, Lee took the stand and read out his oath:

“I swear by Almighty God insert deity here…”

Insider editor Nich Carlson made himself a bit of a story this week, after he was caught cycling around Brooklyn, ripping down the pro-union posters put up by his striking unionised reporters. But then he’s never really shown much regard for his staff.

Last year, Nich told staff at the Insider UK offices he’d be dropping by on his way back from Davos and wanted to make himself available to anyone who’d like to meet. The politics desk thought they’d make the most of this opportunity, so arranged a breakfast meeting with him at Portcullis House to show him around Westminster, give him a guided tour around the House of Commons and let him see just how well-immersed his UK politics team was.

On the day, 9am came and went. Then 10am. They tried calling him and calling him and finally got a response from him on Slack at 10:30am offering his apologies. He’d taken the chance to have a lie-in instead.

Then two weeks later, made them all redundant.

Maybe you thought we were a little hard on Coldplay last week, regarding their efforts at eco-touring. They are, after all, trying – and that can’t be said for every band embarking on a world tour at the moment.

Metallica’s latest live show uses the biggest PA system ever designed for a tour, made up of over 500 speakers and 192 audio inputs. The steel tower formation for their stage is so heavy and complicated that they need two sets of them: one to use in one venue, while the other is sent ahead to the next venue so work can begin on the load-in before the previous gig is over.

Each of the two steel stages requires 21 trucks to transport it from city to city, meaning 42 trucks for the staging alone. The band and the rest of their set-up require a further 45, making 87 trucks in total.

So maybe the odd train ticket isn’t to be scoffed at.

Getting a female deputy editor in at the Times doesn’t appear to have done much to improve the paper of record’s well-reported “women problem”.

Yesterday’s big headlines naturally concerned the tragic and highly sensitive story of the murder of two Nottingham university students: a keen cricketer for his university and an England international hockey player for the Womens’ Under 18s.

This was illustrated by the Times with one photo of the cricketer in a sports shirt and one selfie of the hockey player in a revealing white dress, with the headline: “Keen sportsman and young woman died on way home”.

Someone obviously spotted this dissonance, as it was later amended to “Keen sportsman and rising female hockey star died on way home”. The photos stayed the same though.

Want to buy a load of King Charles’s childhood drawings?
[Lots 264-272]

John Paul Jones’ old mansion (and former Led Zep rehearsal space) is on the market
[Kate Winslet almost bought it once]

Wikipedia’s list of hobbies includes ‘Butchering’, ‘Pornography’ and ‘Robot Combat’
[Read on Wikipedia]

Is Beyoncé to blame for Swedish inflation?
[Read on BBC]

Why are a bunch of beloved shows and films not on any streaming services?
[LA Times investigates]

Succession x The Royal Tenenbaums
[Watch on YouTube]

The Partygate report
[Read it here]

Still Bored?
Turn any YouTube video into a drinking game with BoozeTube
[Cheers!]