“It’s Either Us Or The Monkey”

A brief search of the guestbook showed no Kevin Spaceys signed in. Nor, for that matter, any Keyser Sozes. So he’s obviously got a devilish new pseudonym he’s using to avoid leaving a paper trail. But there’s always something that gives these undercover stars away. A little signature tell.

In Spacey’s case: surrounding himself once again with a gaggle of much younger hangers-on.

A group of authors are currently refusing to appear alongside him at literary festivals and one crime writer who was recently asked to profile him for a “Writers on Writers” style interview declined the commission after his editor requested that they “not concentrate too much on Rob’s writing process”.

What’s everyone’s problem? Aside from a general resentment of a wave of celebs horning in on their hard won patch, they’re mostly of the opinion that if he wants to spend so much time with ghosts, he should try his hand at horror – not crime.

Seeing as the horror story of the lost Titan submersible has gripped the news cycle this week, a little story from history.

In the early 1980s, an eccentric Texan oil tycoon called Jack Grimm became obsessed with trying to track down the wreck of the Titanic. A self-made billionaire, he was a man of unconventional ideas, having funded expeditions to seek out Noah’s Ark, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

Trying to locate the Titanic was one of his more sensible goals, but the secret weapon he thought would give him the edge in finding it? A monkey. Specifically, a monkey that had been trained to point at a map where it thought the wreck was located.

Unfortunately, the monkey didn’t end up joining the expedition when it set sail, as the spoilsport human scientists Grimm had hired gave him the incredible ultimatum “It’s either us or the monkey”.

They were probably right to not bring him. Because the monkey’s name was… Titan.

We mentioned Metallica’s highly intricate, record-breaking touring set-up last week, with its 500 speakers and 42 trucks’ worth of building materials, but it turns out that it’s all totally unnecessary.

The band had to leave their regular tour staging behind and use a stripped back set-up to play at Download Festival earlier this month. Despite being dialled down, their set on the Thursday night managed to draw noise complaints from residents who lived 15 miles away.

Even more impressive, those same residents live underneath the flight path for East Midlands Airport, which has regularly has flights coming and going up until 3am. Yet Metallica’s gig was still too much for them.

PJ Harvey was booked to appear at last year’s Edinburgh Book Festival to promote her book, Orlam, and her rider caused a couple of headaches. One of her demands was for a very specific brand of fancy organic wine which organisers dutifully managed to track down and supply for her at great effort.

Sadly, she never ended up getting to drink it. One of the other things causing complications was PJ’s very particular stage lighting requirements. While she was busy delaying the event, refusing to go on until the lights were just so and taking forever to sign them off – someone backstage snaffled her wine.

The actor Brian Cox, on the hunt backstage for something to slake his growing thirst, came across PJ’s fancy wine and got stuck right in.

Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport stepped on pretty much every possible landmine as a guest on Jimmy’s Jobs Of The Future podcast today.

The government’s head of the creative industries: hasn’t used ChatGPT, hasn’t experienced VR, struggled to name a single comedian, doesn’t read books, doesn’t have a favourite fashion designer, has only this week joined Instagram, hasn’t ever worked in the creative industries (though tried to spin her career as a commercial law barrister as ‘creative’) and hasn’t taken a magazine since Whizzer & Chips.

But good news for gamers, the minister holding the UK’s entertainment industry in her hands does have a favourite game… 1972 Atari hit Pong.

It’s been announced today that the giant mechanical bull that was a centrepiece of last year’s Commonwealth Games will be named Ozzy, in honour of hometown hero Ozzy Osbourne – who played the closing ceremony.

In his acknowledgement statement Ozzy said “When I was asked last year to close the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, they didn’t have to ask me twice” – but Popbitch readers will know that isn’t quite true.

As we mentioned, Ozzy initially turned down the request to be involved – so Ozzy’s old bandmate Tony Iommi was dispatched to LA to make one final plea with him. During this meeting, Iommi let slip that if Ozzy wouldn’t do it the organisers’ back-up plan was to draft Robbie Williams in to sing Paranoid instead.

To which Ozzy shot back: “I ain’t letting that fucker sing my song. I’ll do it!”

Much to the dismay of his viewer, Tom Newton Dunn has just been put on leave from his TalkTV show owing to complaints being lodged about his “inappropriate behaviour”.

That phrase has been used to cover a multitude of sins in the past – so what exactly has Tom Newton done?

Well, his habit of ripping strips out of colleagues has not gone unnoticed over the years but word is that his card finally got marked this time for picking on the wrong producer. Someone he must have forgotten was the nepo baby of a close friend of Rebekah Brooks.

Way back in January we asked “Which podcast millionaire is more ghost than host? Despite being paid a fortune to create an audio series, a number of the interviews in it were actually conducted by the show’s producer – with the star host dropping by later to overdub them asking the questions.”

Subscribers to our premium edition, Club Popbitch, were given the answer the following Monday, so have known this for nearly six months now. But seeing that Spotify have handed them their hats, and this story is starting to bubble up in the industry press now, we might as well tell you all that the answer was… Meghan Markle!

Metallica’s …And Justice For All remade with Mario 64 sounds
[Listen on YouTube]

Best new Twitter account of the month
[Great British Getty Images]

Eric Cantona’s new single is out
[Listen on Spotify]

Local News Of The Week: Seagull Shagger Update
[Read on The Northern Echo]

An otter playing basketball to ease arthritis
[Watch here]

One of the Hatton Garden Heist guys’ houses is on the market
[View the listing]

Legend Of The Week: An Ohio man has been listening to Move Your Body by Marshall Jefferson on repeat for a month – much to the annoyance of his neighbour
[Read on Mixmag]

Want to feel ancient? CDs are back, and people are writing how-to guides on how to listen to them…
[Read on Popsci]

Still Bored?
New York comic powerhouse Peter Smith is coming to Soho Theatre with a one-person musical spectacular, inspired by a certain blonde British woman named Diana – and the time she bared her soul on TV. Want to access £15 tickets? Use the code DIANA at checkout before the end of June.
[Info and tickets at Soho Theatre]