Haunted By Cabbage

With Succession back on our screens, those who enjoy a gruff bit of swearing have all they could ever hope for. But if you’d like a little more…

A few years ago, Brian Cox was recording a voice part for a children’s animated show. Making conversation, the producer idly asked Cox if he had seen any previous episodes of the series.

“Don’t be fucking stupid!” was his Logan-esque reply.

Chris Martin from Coldplay has been busy detailing the band’s plans for an “eco-friendly” new world tour, while bracing himself for a potential backlash.

But why would he be worried about backlash? It’s not like he’s the same Chris Martin from Coldplay who took a private jet from LA to London earlier this year, just to play one song at the Brit Awards.

Oh, wait…

Which media pundit is actively trying to get himself ‘cancelled’ by pushing a weird social media campaign – not because he’s invested in the cause, but because he’s making a documentary about cancel culture and is hoping to bait the press into flaming him?

Usually co-workers wait until the Xmas party to get pissed, shag each other and get hauled in for a chat with the boss for scandalising the office with their unprofessional conduct. But not at GBNews.

Two of the channel’s stars decided to get a headstart on party season recently by having lunch together at the nearby Pizza Express. The pair got on so famously that, before they knew it, they were two bottles deep. From there it was just a hop, skip and a hump to the nearby Paddington Hilton for a late afternoon check-in – and an early evening check-out.

It’s caused something of a moral panic among the channel elders, so the two have been told to knock it on the head. Otherwise the only horizontal movement they’ll be seeing is into different jobs.

Our inbox has been overflowing this week with further stories about Sony Australia executive Denis Handlin.

A number of years ago, Sony executives gathered together for their internal showcase conference in the South of France, where Sade and Ben Folds were the headline talent due to perform.

Word got around that afternoon that Sade was sunbathing topless somewhere in the compound; a rumour which had 99% of the male execs there scaling fences trying to catch a glimpse of her. But the one who managed to totally disgrace himself was Handlin. At the talent showcase later that evening, the curtain raised to reveal Ben Folds’ grand piano – and passed out underneath it was Denis: pissed, sunburnt and stripped to the waist, wearing only his suit trousers.

Such was Handlin’s power at the time, the rest of the team decided it would be better all round if they simply pretended he wasn’t there. So Ben just carried on.

Michael Wolff’s new book makes some pretty big claims about Jeffrey Epstein’s proximity to the Trump White House and the plans to rehabilitate his public image with interviews on 60 Minutes and Rachel Maddow.

Epstein’s attempts to use the media to launder his reputation is something of a specialist subject for Wolff, because back in 2003 Wolff was one of a consortium of investors who banded together to try to buy New York Magazine. Among his co-investors were Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein – both of whom were looking to buy a stake (weirdly, not long after critical profiles of the pair of them had appeared in… New York Magazine!)

It’s a shame Michael Wolff’s separate offer to buy Popbitch a decade or so ago was unsuccessful. Maybe he’d have been able to stop us from reminding you of that.

[Read more on The Daily Beast]

Prompted by Popbitch readers who enjoyed our 2020 pandemic mini-issues, today we’re launching a new membership programme: Club Popbitch. For those of you who’d like a little more Popbitch in your week, we’re bringing back our daily music quizzes, a second weekly newsletter filled with more of the stories we can’t fit into this one – plus a bunch of other exclusive stuff, for a small monthly subscription fee.

The classic Thursday issue will remain free to read – and we’ll continue to cram it with all the sorts of insider gossip, celebrity trivia and weird stories that you won’t find anywhere else. But if you like what we do and want to support us with a hassle-free monthly subscription (in exchange for some special PB stuff) now you can.

We’ll be sending out our first Club Popbitch issue on Monday, so find out more and get yourself signed up.

[Join Club Popbitch]

“It has been very, very tough… to read people constantly saying [I was] a stupid, tactically inept cabbage-head”

Poor Steve Bruce. The line that keeps being pulled out of his exit interview shows just how much the constant veg-baiting got to him. It could have been so much worse too were it not for some kind-hearted cleaners at St James’ Park.

Cabbages have been a standard way to heckle Steve Bruce ever since an angry fan chucked one at him shortly before he was let go from Aston Villa. But earlier this year, the cabbage connection made quite a bit of extra work for cleaning staff at the Newcastle ground. After a particularly volatile week of headlines in March – following bust-ups with players and leaks to the media – cleaners arrived early that Friday morning to find 100 cabbages strewn all over the place: some stuck on spikes of the perimeter fences; the rest generally rolling around.

Luckily, they managed to remove all traces before Steve arrived.

There’s a battle afoot at the Baby Shard as to who will succeed John Witherow in the editor’s chair at the Times. At the minute, it’s between Witherow’s current deputy editor (Tony Gallagher) and his former one (Emma Tucker; currently editor of the Sunday Times).

If they’re after someone digitally-minded and well-liked, then Emma is the obvious choice. The Sunday Times drives a lot of traffic and subscriptions, and her weekend stewardship of the website is something she’s proud (and fiercely protective) of.

If, on the other hand, they’re after someone who isn’t digitally-minded and well-liked, then Tony is filling that niche admirably. After conference one day last week, he was overheard griping about Emma’s habit of jealously guarding the site and suggesting that something needed to be done about her.

In fact, he was overheard by everyone who had been on the recent Google Hangout, as it was still running and he didn’t realise they were all able to hear him.

Congratulations to the mailonline for coining the incredible new tabloid euphemism: “Drink-Related Pub Fracas” – which is how they described the incident we alluded to in last week’s Big Question (Oisin Murphy getting pissed and attempting to glass someone with a plastic pint pot.)

Bullying culture in the jockey world has made the sports pages a fair bit this last week, and it’s a story that could run and run as there’s plenty of examples of jockeys being mercilessly picked on.

Oisin himself has regularly been the butt of practical jokes. One video that does the rounds among his peers is of him in the back of a car going across the Severn Bridge, and Oisin being duped into getting out of the car to go and show his passport at the barriers – while everyone else collapses laughing at him.

Plymouth Argyle score one of the world’s most viral goals
[See on Give Me Sport]

Interesting long read on Netflix viewing figures
[Read on The Guardian]

Footage of Kate Bush’s 1979 tour has made it to YouTube
[Watch here]

The saga of that multi-million dollar Wu-Tang album continues
[Now with added NFTs]

Daniel O’Donnell’s latest video is… something
[Watch on YouTube]

Hear the sounds of Mars
[Perserverance on the 1s and 2s]

Still Bored?
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