Lovely Manners, Apparently

“I guess be careful what you wish for” – Elon Musk, 2019

After Katie Price was declared bankrupt last week, the MailOnline wasted no time in rubbing it in – filing a quick piece comparing her plight (sad, in ruins, facing homelessness) to the relative good fortune of her ex, Peter Andre (happy, in work, on a plane).

They made a very big deal out of the fact that Peter was on his way to play a “fancy gig in Spain”, but they stopped short of telling readers exactly what that gig was.

The hifalutin engagement that Platinum Pete was booked for? The Jet2 travel agents’ conference in Benidorm.

What do you get the cast of your new musical for opening night? What’s a suitable gift to say “Thank you” to the group of actors, singers and dancers who have spent months rehearsing your songs, breathing life into your art and agreeing to make your music a massive part of their everyday life – not just now, but for the foreseeable future?

For Robbie Williams, the answer was easy. He got them all a copy of his new Christmas-themed double album so they could enjoy even more of the good stuff in their leisure time too.

Christmas party season got off with a bang at the BBC’s networking drinks this Tuesday – with which two revellers being politely asked to leave the venue after they were caught networking a little too passionately in the bogs?

Ratings for the current series of I’m A Celeb may be drooping lower than a kangaroo’s ballbag but some people are still doing pretty well out of it. “Professor” Jonathan Shalit, for example, whose InterTalent agency has no fewer than three clients placed in the camp this year (Nadine Coyle, Jacqueline Jossa and Kate Garraway) plus former contestant Emily Atack hosting the spin-off show, Extra Camp.

If that sounds like a cosy little set-up, it gets even cosier when you learn that Emily is repped at InterTalent by her own sister, Martha – who also looks after Coyle and Jossa.

Not only that, but Coyle, Atack and Garraway are all signed up with the same PR guy, Max Dundas, too (as is Roman Kemp).

One way to save on throwing your clients a holiday party, we suppose.

If Harry Styles notices that he’s one jacket down next time he takes stock of his wardrobe, we know where it’s gone. Jimmy Carr has it and he’s been wearing it out and about like it’s his own.

Jimmy won’t mind us telling you this. In fact, it’ll save him a job. Because every time he wears it, he grabs any opportunity to drop it into conversation. He’ll constantly be touching the jacket, tugging at it, brushing it down and jostling about until somebody mentions it.

Then he’ll launch into a casual “Oh, this old thing…?” routine where he’ll explain that the jacket once belonged to Harry Styles, but Harry Styles left it behind the time that Harry Styles came over to his house (etc).

There’s been a lot of discussion about David Pemsel’s professional conduct this week since it was announced he would no longer be taking the job as CEO at the Premier League. There will almost certainly be more over the next few weeks and months too. We don’t wish to prejudice any of that by telling you this, but there’s one important detail about David Pemsel that we feel shouldn’t get lost in all the turmoil.

In his previous job as Marketing Director for ITV, Pemsel was notorious among staff there for throwing a sulk if his name wasn’t the first one CC’d on any email – whether the email concerned him directly or not.

FYI: Pemsel’s nickname among Guardian staffers? “The Count of Cuntsville”

The Sun was happy to get on its high horse about David Pemsel’s inappropriate sexting of a former colleague, but its dedication to rooting out the sex pests in its own workplace is a little more slapdash.

In among the well-known sleazes on their payroll, one hack’s persistent creepiness with female colleagues is so legendary that it’s become something of a running joke at the Sun to attach the guy’s byline to any small-fry story they run that contains perverts, fondlers, gropers or pornography.

It’s one way to deal with the employee who once made so many dick jokes at a work experience girl that he made her cry – but maybe HR would be better?

Extinction Rebellion managed to successfully capture the news cycle this week by sending some human bees to superglue themselves to the Lib Dem battle bus – but XR’s earlier attempts at hijacking the headlines didn’t always go to plan.

Co-founder Roger Hallam has a long history of pulling attention-grabbing stunts for his cause. Like the time he stripped down to his underwear in a meeting with the Guardian to “disrupt” the way that meetings are usually run.

Or the time he tried to stage a hunger strike outside the Greenpeace office in London and invited the press down to cover it. As no-one came, the hunger strike ended up lasting from 10am to 4pm.

Which basically meant he skipped lunch.

Charlotte Edwardes was recently unveiled as the new columnist for the Sunday Times’ Style section – a signing that Style editor Lorraine Candy is obviously very chuffed with as she’s been trying to blackball Edwardes from getting any other commissions from Sunday Times Magazine editor, Eleanor Mills.

It’s led to something of a cold war behind the scenes between the two camps. Colleagues caught up in it have been trying to lighten the mood by sharing some recent articles with one another. One that appeared in Style earlier this year (“Lorraine Candy on the importance of women supporting women”) went down particularly well.

They’ve also been wondering whether someone should talk to the Women in Journalism organisation to try and mediate. The chair of which is… Eleanor Mills.

Last week we mentioned in passing that Jeff Rayner (of notorious celebrity photo agency Coleman-Rayner) had a fascination with John Travolta. To clarify, we don’t mean that he’s a bit curious about Travolta’s bad wigs, or massage parlour tugjobs, or the whole Scientology lark. Everyone’s a little bit curious about that.

Jeff Rayner’s fascination with John Travolta is a much darker thing – verging on pitch black.

Not long after John Travolta’s son Jett died, Rayner was heard telling employees at the agency how he had rented out the Travoltas’ family home in the Bahamas. Not just to case the joint for work purposes. He went to sleep in Jett’s room.

Post-punk pioneers, the legendary Tiger Lillies return to the West End with a spectacular concert celebrating their 30 year career on Monday 16th December at the London Coliseum.
[Get tickets from £20]

Shit pints of Guinness in London
[See on Instagram]

Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody with just the lyrics “Are you hanging up your stocking on your wall?”
[Hear on YouTube]

Myles Howell, the bassist from early 90s indie band Kingmaker, is now Director of Communications and Employee Engagement at Hull & East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
[See on LinkedIn]

A rare double-whammy Nominative Determinism: The man who stole 600K to fund his “lavish lifestyle”… Nick King!
[See on BBC]

The priest who gets arrested in the Father Ted Christmas special has been arrested IRL
[Father… Todd Unctious?]

Using data to decide if Die Hard is a Christmas film
[It’s that time of year again]

If you haven’t been suntanning your arsehole, sort it out
[See on Jezebel]

The Popbitch Popquiz will return to Smiths Of Smithfield in January 2020 with our host Tom Webb
[Tuesday 14th Jan]
[Tuesday 28th Jan]

Thank you to everyone who got in touch to tell us that it was Clive James who died, not Clive Anderson. To reassure you all, Clive Anderson is (at the time of writing, at least) fine.