Keeping Up With The Klarksons

Elon Musk has been doubling down on calling a British rescue diver a paedophile, suggesting that because the diver didn’t try to sue him there must be some truth to his allegation (a legal argument that even we aren’t stupid enough to try…)

It’s easy to mock Musk, but it’s worth remembering that he isn’t the most articulate when it comes to explaining himself.

For example, when he and Talulah Riley split, rather than get into any long conversations about the break-up, or the heartache, or any of the emotional unpleasantness that such a separation inevitably involves, he simply told people that she was dead.

Including his kids.

Which famous sportsman’s kid realised they’d left their wallet at home when the bill came at a trendy London pub – so decided to do a rather fast runner?

Emily Clarkson had a feature in the Sunday Times Magazine this weekend, writing about why she was pleased that she didn’t get in to university six years ago and how it hasn’t held her back in her career of being Jeremy Clarkson’s daughter.

Many people felt her concerns about racking up £50,000 of debt rang a little hollow considering her family ties (although, in fairness to Emily, this happened a few years before daddy punched a producer in the mouth, thereby trading up his £1.5m BBC job for a £10m job at Amazon).

But surely she must have known she was always a shoo-in for a gig at the Sunday Times? News UK has always been happy to do favours for the Clarkson family. Not only has her dad been writing a column for the exact same paper for years, Rebekah Brooks bought up all those pictures of him getting explicitly frisky with a blonde colleague on a hotel balcony in New Zealand, just so she could spike them.

While he was filming Lost In Space, Gary Oldman had cause one day to pop his head into the technicians’ workshop to speak to the crew working on set. When he did, he noticed that the guys in there had an entire wall pasted with pin-up posters of lots of well-known Hollywood starlets.

With a visible wince, Oldman spotted his ex-wife Uma Thurman taking up quite a prominent space on the wall – but chose not to mention anything.

Instead, he came into work a few days later with a different photo for the crew to replace it with: a nice, big picture of his then-wife, Donya Fiorentino.

Even when she isn’t trying, Stormy Daniels can’t help but turf out sex pests. In cancelling her Big Brother appearance at the eleventh hour and forcing producers to rope in a last-minute replacement, she’s inadvertently managed to shine a pretty intense light on Hardeep Singh Kohli.

Unsurprisingly, our inbox has been heaving at the seams with Hardeep stories this week. Those of you who have crossed his path in recent years have noted that the sort of behaviour that got him suspended from The One Show remains largely unchecked. Whether it’s giving unrequested massages to radio colleagues while they’re on-air, sending inappropriate sexts to co-workers, calling out “Who wants to fuck for a doughnut?” across a kids TV set, or touching up both cast and crew backstage at the Edinburgh Festival, he is every bit the liability he ever was.

So a big hand for Channel 5, who have presumably put him on air specifically in order to “spark a debate”. Many broadcasters wouldn’t have dared in the current climate.

Even when he’s engaged in consensual romancing, it seems that Hardeep Singh Kohli still manages to make a nuisance of himself – as someone who used to live in the flat below him a few years back attests.

Whenever Hardeep brought a conquest home, they remember he would take great care to crank his stereo right up in an (unsuccessful) attempt to cover up the worst of the grunting and rutting.

The album he consistently picked to pump to? Back To Black by Amy Winehouse.

Paul Simon has spent a lot of time and energy on cultivating a reputation for being an irascible, grumpy old man – but he’s at risk of throwing that all away if he’s not careful.

Last weekend, locals in Montauk put on a small concert as a fundraiser for the upkeep of the historic Montauk Lighthouse. Simon, who has a house next door to the lighthouse, popped in unannounced and asked the local band who were going on stage if he could join them. Which he did, to the surprise of the few hundred people sitting around in deckchairs.

He was a little shaky to start off with but got totally into performing. Then finished the night off with You Can Call Me Al.

AMI chief David Pecker has been getting a lot of the attention recently in the unfolding National Enquirer scandal – but his second-in-command Dylan Howard also struck a deal for immunity, yet he seems to be getting off with much lighter scrutiny. So let’s put that right, shall we?

Dylan (‘Dildo’ to his friends) joined the American Media family in 2010, but left briefly in 2012 to work for Celebuzz. He left a year later amid allegations of sexual harassment (and one of throwing a cock ring at a colleague) and returned to the fold.

Clearly he felt much more at home at AMI, where he suffered no professional consequences for being thrown out of at least two Hollywood hotspots for pulling down his jeans and waving his willy about. Nor was he punished for using company time and resources to arrange his 30th birthday party in Vegas, where a call girl came to his hotel room and gave a blowjob to one of his guests in front of the entire party.

If he’s still got the feds’ number, it might be worth seeing if he can expand the scope of that immunity deal.

MM writes:
“Back in 1991 I was working in a Q8 filling station in Didsbury, Manchester. One day a Ford Escort XR3 came in and the driver got out and proceeded to put £5 into it. When he got to the kiosk I realised I was looking at Bez.

“At the time Happy Mondays were at the very height of their Madchester fame, so imagine my surprise when he mumbled ‘I an’t got nor moneh.’ Slightly starstruck, I said ‘Just give me an IOU then, pal’ which he did.

“Sadly I have since lost the IOU – but, adjusted for inflation, he now owes me £10.80”

It’s not Paul Danan’s account, but it absolutely motherfucking should be
[Paul Danan Official on Instagram]

Do you know how bubble wrap gets made?
[A three-minute video on YouTube]

Otters are over, and Cath Kidston killed them
[See on Cath Kidston]

Brexit: an 8-bit Choose Your Own Adventure
[Play on Bloomberg]

The Croydon Cat Killer is on holiday
[Read in NYT]

Jamie Oliver on his failing businesses in the FT
[Read on Financial Times]

Want to take your cat camping?
[Cat tents exist now]