I’ve Been Expectorating You…

News that Kit Harington has checked himself into rehab won’t surprise our more attentive readers – but fans of his shouldn’t worry. Kit has always been good at asking others for help with his addictions.

Between takes on Game Of Thrones, Kit would obsessively chain-smoke, sparking up the second that cameras stopped rolling. Shoot days were long though and he would inevitably run out of cigs pretty early on. Whenever that happened, he would summon an assistant and whisper into their ear.

The assistant would then turn to the hoards of extras, and shout “Anyone got a smoke for Jon Snow?” Kit’s popularity on set usually yielded more than enough to get him through the day.

Global made a significant U-turn today, announcing that Smooth Radio’s breakfast shows will now be staying local – and not, as previously announced, folded into the station’s national output.

The decision has proved to be quite a popular one, not least because it’s going to save a lot of local jobs around the country. But it might not be quite as strategic a move as it first appears.

Insiders are wondering if the decision maybe has something to do with the fact that Davina McCall was all lined up to take the Smooth Radio breakfast show national, but things fell through when she requested that she get all the school holidays off.

Which comedian with a squeaky-clean reputation has a porn collection that’s anything but? Backstage on tour he was heard gleefully chatting to a theatre technician about a shit-eating video that his mate had brought back for him from Amsterdam.

After an excruciating week spent watching his A-list ‘exes’ speak out about what an almighty creep he is, Moby has cancelled the string of in-person appearances he was due to make this summer. It’s a shame, because his personality really shines in a live setting.

Last October, Moby was signed up to appear with the LA Philharmonic for a special collaborative concert. Not only did he turn up late (a huge no-no for the classical crowd) he was dicking about so much backstage that he had to be collected personally and frogmarched out onto the stage by the conductor himself.

Moby tried to placate the disgruntled crowd with a bit of banter, asking if anyone had any requests. But when a fan responded to this gag with a genuine reply, Moby flipped out and shouted back at the guy “I DON’T COME TO BURGER KING AND YELL WHERE YOU’RE WORKING!”

Robbie Williams has always spoken candidly about the sexual adventures of his bachelor days and isn’t shy about discussing the many things he’s tried in the sack – even when he wasn’t necessarily the best at them.

For example, one former conquest of his liked to experiment a bit with domination and degradation in the bedroom. She asked, in the throes of passion, to be spat on. Sadly, Robbie is more accustomed to flobbing on the football pitch than he is to doing anything more intimate, so his oyster-like effort ended up being a little too phlegmy for her tastes.

After that disastrous Reddit AMA in which the world and his wife called him a dickhead, James Corden managed to claw back a bit of goodwill by announcing that he and Ruth Jones have got a new Gavin And Stacey Christmas special in the pipeline. But if you’ll allow us to gently lob the ball back over the net again…

The Old Vic used to run an annual event called ’24 Hour Plays’: a pricy charity gala where A-list actors, writers and directors would create and perform six short plays in just 24 hours. In 2008, Johnny Vaughan and James Corden were called upon to compere the event.

Taking to the stage between plays, the pair of them got steadily more drunk as the show went on, chatting about how much rum they’d been hammering backstage. As the night progressed, their patter got more and more aggressive and abusive towards the audience (who had all paid a pretty penny to be there). Eventually, the Old Vic’s artistic director decided to intervene and took over some of the duties himself.

It really comes to something when Kevin Spacey is your knight in shining armour.

Noughties punk rockers Towers Of London are the subject of an upcoming movie called Fuck It Up – and it looks like it could be the natural successor to that Bros documentary. The band are certainly giving the crew plenty to work with.

When the Towers played a recent gig in Rev’s hometown of Morecambe, he and Donny Tourette were planning on staying overnight at Rev’s mum’s house. Only they went out on such a huge bender after the show that they got back quite late and found themselves locked out. Too scared to wake her up, they ended up sleeping outside in the kennel usually reserved for her dogs.

Bless.

[The Fuck It Up trailer is here]

Who guitarist (and Operation Ore’s flagship name) Pete Townshend celebrated his 74th birthday last week. He’s pretty lucky to have made it this long, given his hard-living past.

A construction worker who helped install a swimming pool in Pete’s Thameside mansion back in the 80s remembers the roasting hot summer that he spent working in his garden. In the middle of the day, Pete came out to check on the parched men who were toiling away in the baking heat.

“You must be hot,” he called down into the pit. “Do you want a drink?”

They gratefully accepted – but were a bit surprised to find that the options he had on offer were gin, vodka or scotch.

The list of who we have to blame for Ed Sheehan is an ever-changing one. Damien Rice often gets it in the neck for encouraging his career early doors. Nizlopi once hired him as their guitar tech, giving him a first foot on the ladder. Example gave him a support slot on his tour after Ed kept turning up, singing and rapping backstage at his gigs.

But it looks like the blame can be traced back even further. All the way to Busted.

According to Charlie, Sheeran’s dad brought a 12-year-old Ed to one of their gigs. After getting to meet the band, Charlie remembers Ed walking off saying “I’m going to do that one day, Dad”.

Hopefully he’s planning to include the ten year hiatus.

For the last six months, there’s been a little bit of a mystery hanging over a Camden primary school. One of the parents announced to some of the other mums and dads that he and his family were going to be moving to Australia. They had no connections there. There was no job to go to. They just decided, on the spur of the moment, that they and their three kids would be moving down under, ASAP.

Given that these were the sorts of school spaces that people kill for (the place is crawling with the spawn of Oscar and BAFTA-types) the other parents found it very strange that they would forfeit their places on a whim like that.

The mystery was all cleared up last week though. The father who upped sticks and moved halfway across the world? He was the former Chief Finance Officer for Jamie Oliver.

Absolutely incredible casting for Prince Harry in the Harry and Meghan Lifetime TV movie
[See on YouTube]

Interactive map of US cities and the celebrities who get the most Wikipedia traffic in each
[Play around on The Pudding]

Leo DiCaprio’s under-25 dating habit in chart form
[See it here]

Alex Kapranos stars as ‘Barman’ in the new Meggie Brown video
[Watch on YouTube]

Local news of the week: Chichester doorway edition
[Read on Chichester Observer]

A baby Armadillo gets a wheelchair
[See on Laughing Squid]

Daz Sampson is making a Eurovision documentary that looks… interesting
[See a clip on Twitter]

POPBITCH POPQUIZ: June Dates!
Come and join us at Smiths Of Smithfield for more summertime fun with our host Tom Webb, as we take you through seven rounds of trivia, music, sculpture and good old fashioned guesswork…
[Tuesday 11th June]
[Tuesday 25th June]

Still Bored?
If you don’t watch The One Show but don’t want to miss out on schoolteachers yelling out “BUM AL-QAEDA!”, or seeing George Clooney react to kids reviewing their stepdad’s farts, may we recommend The The One Show Show? It’s the best way to catch up on BBC1’s weirdest programme…
[Listen to TTOSS on Acast]