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“I haven’t had a kebab since I lived up north last year” – Kerry Katona
“I don’t like walking around with people thinking I’m doing uncool shit, because there’s nothing I’m doing that’s uncool” – Kanye West
POPBITCH _ _ _ _
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|_| |_| 31.07.14 ISSUE 701
Free every week: subscribe here
To send stories email: hello@popbitch.com
* Popbitch App – launches today!
* Is this Google or News UK?
* Charts: Magic! are new number one
>> Wrong Direction <<
The beginning of the end
Pretty much every boyband’s career hits a point when they lose their teenage fan base. Fresh-faced best friends who harmonise together suddenly look like tired, moody cokeheads experimenting with long hair and a solo project. Is it almost that time for One Direction?
The band are starting a US tour, set to play in New Jersey in the next few days. Yet ticket sites are advertising thousands and thousands of spare seats for as little as $20-30. And across Manhattan’s financial district this week increasingly desperate, home-made flyers have been flyposted – on lampposts, bins, even a portaloo. Perhaps some hapless banker took a punt on touting tickets?
Metro gossip columnist Neil Sean used to be a session singer for Stock, Aitken and Waterman.
>> Digger’s new digs <<
Geographical determinism
Hoping to draw a line under all the unpleasantness that may or may not have taken place at his offices/occasional crime-scenes, Rupert Murdoch is currently pulling his people out of Wapping and relocating News UK’s operations to London Bridge.
The new pad looks exactly as you’d expect: conversation pods, IKEA-coloured ‘breakout’ spots, a very noticeable lack of phones, etc… Every bit the modern media office.
But Rupes might want to think a little more about how they are billing this move, because the line their director of advertising strategy has been using is: “People can’t believe it’s News UK – they think it’s Google!”
Good thing nobody suspects Google of industrial scale intrusion and surveillance, isn’t it?
Fancy a quick tour?
https://popbitch.com/home/2014/07/31/diggers-new-digs/
Azerbaijan have been chosen as hosts of the first European Olympics. At a secret ballot where they were the only bidder. Eight countries still voted against.
>> Big Questions <<
Who wants to know what?
Which actor is the proud owner of a jacket that not only once had Angelina Jolie have a lesbian roll-around on top of it in the bedroom/cloakroom of a Hollywood party, but had Gazza humping away on top of it too?
Kieran Hayler has “withdrawn from Twitter, Facebook and the gym”. To avoid the temptation of shagging people other than Katie Price, apparently.
>> Tennant’s disagreement <<
It’s not Who you know…
Doctor Who fans will know that John Barrowman accepted an MBE from the Queen last month. What they might not know is that David Tennant is believed to have turned down an OBE last year.
Tennant is an outspoken anti-royalist. His wife? Erm, perhaps not so much. At least that’s what people gleaned from a rather heated overheard conversation the pair had on the subject.
No surprise Newcastle are back in for Loic Remy. Seems he and the club’s manager have a fair bit in common. A shared love of Grandmaster Flash songs, for instance.
>> 700 not out <<
And something new for 701!
Even though Issue 700 got us a rather stern-sounding legal threat, we’re still here, and happy to be irritating the rich and famous with stories they don’t want you to know.
And now we’re going to do it even more. We are delighted to announce that Popbitch: The Magazine is now available on smartphones and tablets, both Apple and Android.
Issue 4 is out today, only £1.49, featuring Kanye West on the cover and the inside scoop on:
* The downfall of lads mag, Loaded
* Internet’s most famous beggar, Jimmy Wales
* UKIP candidate vetting
* Aussies pissing in their own mouths
* The Edinburgh TV Festival
* And much, much more…
There is also a FREE, full-length sample edition to try, with some of the stories we’ve featured in the first run of issues, inc. celebrity tax dodging, the dark side of Katy Perry and the history of Nazi zombies.
The Sodd Off Sepp campaign didn’t unseat Blatter, but money raised is donated to Human Rights Watch, for the campaign to protect migrant World Cup workers in Qatar.
>> Smoked out <<
Fire still raging
Not only is there a “Celeb Bar” at the Chiltern Firehouse, but there’s also a secret smoking terrace, accessible through a hidden door behind the full length mirror in the ladies toilet. To get to it you must produce a special playing card.
But don’t leave the bar too fast. Those cool walnut boxes on the bar? Lift the lid and a packet of free cigarettes will slide out! (Marlboro Reds, only for the hardcore.)
FYI: Bradley Cooper was there the night our smoking terrace spy lay among the Caribbean Palms. “Nice chap.”
FYI2: It cost more to drink there than the meal in the restaurant. “Eye-wateringly expensive.”
Popbitch’s favourite trainer at the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind… Ms Nadine Ruff.
>> Crazy stupid dross <<
Not much on CHIM this week
You can see how celebrity pregnancy rumours start. The cover of Closer this week: ‘Cheryl Fernandez-Versini: “We’ll raise our baby in France”‘.
Which makes you think there’s a baby and Cheryl has made a decision about it, doesn’t it? Then you turn inside.
There’s no baby.
And no quote from Cheryl.
There is quote from an unnamed “pal” though. “She doesn’t see herself bringing up kids in London, she thinks it would be a nightmare. She says she’d be happy to move to the south of France to raise babies there.”
So there we are.
(Besides, as any fule kno, Kimberley is the one having the baby.)
How’s Jeremy Hunt’s local TV initiative doing? Well, London Live is asking for their local coverage to be cut as no-one is watching. Glad he’s not now in charge of anything important…
>> Mambo MI5 <<
A little bit of subterfuge
We’ve had some fun and games this week protecting our messageboard from an enormous cyber attack. Chinese IP addresses have been bombarding us with bot-generated fake posts. Which look a lot like the repeated delivery of one particular MP3, but we’re told is actually malware.
The theory goes that there’s a plan in place (not unlike the plot of Independence Day) to establish a huge international infrastructure of malware (rather than alien spaceships) ready to launch an enormous cyberattack on the West in the next year or so.
The MP3 that the Chinese are using to try to break us? Dance Like An African. By Lou Bega.
The NYT claims European governments have paid kidnap ransom of $125 million to Al Qaeda since 2008. $66 million of that just last year.
>> Glori Hole <<
More toilet tales
Deep_Stoat writes:
“A friend was using the toilets in the bar of an upmarket hotel in Canada. He was surprised to find they were unisex but he settled down in a cubicle for a posh piss when he was interrupted by elephantine farting from the next cubicle, followed by proper pebble dashing of the toilet. When he heard the bolt go back he had to peek round his door to see who could have made such an incredible noise. Surely it couldn’t be… Gloria Hunniford?”
Pedants’ Corner, D writes: “Loved the Roman joke. Except the Roman would have held up his thumb and little finger, that’s where the V for five comes from”.
>> Hmms <<
Cheese, sex dolls, pirates
See how shit your favourite TV programme has got over time with interactive IMDB graphs!
http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/
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Thanks: PR, car_snow_gin, deep_stoat, MJowen174, DS, PL, jez, garvan, JE, Stan Ogdens Nutgone Flake, JW, CB, FL,
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Old Maths Geeks Jokes Home
f(x)=2x+1 walks into a bar and asks for a drink.
The barman says “I’m sorry, we don’t cater for functions.”
Still Bored?
Seven years but the stories keep coming true. RIP Rev Goatboy:
https://www.popbitch.com/revgb/
