Going Full Dolphin

Say what you want about Danny Dyer’s potty mouth, there’s no denying he’s a man of discernment.

When publicising his straight-to-video film The Devil’s Playground back in 2011, the film distributor managed to get Danny a slot on the Chris Moyles Radio 1 breakfast show to promote it.

Danny refused. Because he thinks Chris Moyles is “a twat”.

It probably won’t come as a huge surprise to learn that certain fashion houses insist that their female employees keep their armpits and legs shaved as a part of their professional uniform. Where Reiss is different however is that they ask the same of men too.

The arrangement with men is more informal than it is with women, although the same unwritten rule holds: an absence of body hair is required from them as well.

Or, as it’s known internally, “full dolphin”.

Which major TV grandee devised a rather nifty way of avoiding a paper trail for his dirty weekends? He’d turn up to his regular antiques dealer on a Friday afternoon with a ‘niece’ or ‘secretary’ in tow to buy the young lady a fancy piece of furniture. Then, when writing a cheque, he’d chuck an extra grand onto the total which he’d get the dealers to give him back in cash – along with a receipt for the full amount.

What did he use the extra cash for? Who knows. It’s as much of a mystery as how he came to have quite so many 20-something nieces…

Almost four years to the day that she married the immaculately bearded Jean-Bernard, Cheryl has split from her baby-making baby-boyfriend, Liam Payne.

We understand that the pressures of media attention can make it harder for a celebrity couple to stay together, but this is one rare occasion where the opposite was true. When the Sun declared that the couple were in crisis talks at the beginning of the year, Cheryl and Liam responded by making a very public appearance at the BRIT Awards together.

Not because they wanted to, particularly. Nor because they were blissfully happy. They stayed together simply to spite the Sun’s former showbiz editor Dan Wootton – whose story it was.

M writes:
“I worked as a runner on the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards. I was over the moon to be tasked with showing celebrities the best stage drapes to go through to get onto the stage. Beyoncé was performing Baby Boy with Sean Paul. She did a stretchy warm up routine right beside me while vigorously using a sore throat spray called Entertainers Secret as she wasn’t feeling too great.

“Her cue came and she went on stage. I realised she had left her Entertainers Secret on the chair beside me. Desperate for a souvenir of the evening, and something that Beyoncé had actually touched, I grabbed the spray and hid it down my trousers.

“Performance complete she came off stage to huge rounds of applause. Imagine my horror when I realised she was readying to do an encore. She was looking frantically around shouting “Where my throat spray at? WHERE MY THROAT SPRAY AT?” I pretended to help look. The show had to go on, so she vigorously coughed and ran back on stage.

“It still has pride of place on my mantelpiece.

“Sorry, Beyoncé.”

The uni girls that Jimmy Bullard was trying to persuade to join him in Marbs on the 27th didn’t end up going. Even though they say Mr Bullard very generously offered to “book flights, pay for hotel rooms, events and anything else [they] wanted” – for them and four of their female friends – they declined his very kind offer.

Why? Because one of their dads forwarded them the story we ran in Popbitch the week before last, and they decided better of it.

Oops. Sorry, Jimmy.

Davina McCall must have made some pretty good mates during her stint on that live NHS thing she did recently as she appears to have been inducted into some kind of executive club.

While many patients at her local A&E were warned of understaffing and extended waiting times last weekend, they noted with some interest that Davina was not only given the fast-track treatment, she was given a personal side-room to wait in – away from the regular rabble.

She was in and out before patients who had arrived hours earlier had had a chance to be seen. Luckily for them, there were plenty of complaint forms lying around, just waiting to be filled in – which helped kill some time.

Remember BBC News bigwig James Harding, who left to start his own company? Well, it’s called Tortoise Media and it appears to be off to a suitably slow start.

He’s been holed up in a Scandinavian-themed cafe near New Broadcasting House, trying to poach his former news colleagues. Numerous BBC staffers have found themselves taking calls in the middle of the day enquiring if they can spare a few minutes to pop downstairs for a “catch-up” with James…

The business pages are being very bullish about music investment fund, Hipgnosis, and their plans to raise $200m to “invest in songs by the likes of Beyoncé and Justin Bieber”. The story is that, after an aborted IPO last year, the fund set up by Merck Mercuriadis (“who ran Sanctuary Group before it was sold to Universal Music… and managed the likes of Sir Elton John”) has apparently lined up new brokers.

Sounds all well and good, but we’ll believe it when we see it. Hipgnosis Songs was only set up last summer, and has yet to file any accounts or anything. It seems to have been preceded by a company called Hipgnosis Music, which was based above what looks like a kebab shop in the north London suburbs and went into compulsory liquidation a few months ago.

As for Sanctuary Group, it was indeed sold to Universal in 2007 – but only because it had been (mis)run into the ground and needed saving. And Sir Elton John, who everyone is so keen to mention in the coverage? He and Merck parted ways rather quickly…

Ex-Sanctuary staff are scratching their heads at the idea of anyone wanting to hand over any more money.

Photos of DPRK
[See on 1843]

Former Eurovision entrant Daz Sampson has moved into football management
[Read on Liverpool Echo]

Unfortunately named Turkish children’s clothing line
[Browse Ufuk Bebe]

This Is America – shittyfluted
[Listen on YouTube]

Poor old Eric Dier
[See on Twitter]

Local news of the week
[Read on Romford Recorder]

Another nail in Silicon Valley’s coffin
[Read on NYT]

Top 40 biggest songs of 2018 so far
[See at Official Charts]

Elizabeth Shaw sent us some chocolates, and we can confirm their chocolate flutes make good stirrers for a gin and tonic
[See at Elizabeth Shaw]

* We stated last week Sweden and Senegal were the only World Cup squads with 0 players in their home league. We should have said Saudi Arabia and Senegal. (Thanks CM and PS)