Nail Soup

You might think Amanda Holden has lucked out landing herself a husband with a knob so big that he needs a “special oil” to get it in, but you don’t know the half of it. Amanda has had some incredible fortune with the opposite sex over the years.

Take Neil Morrissey, for example. Holden once told friends and colleagues that his snogging was so intense that it alone brought her to orgasm.

When James Corden recorded his Carpool Karaoke episode with Adam Levine, the pair were driving around, quite visibly, in a Porsche. As something of a thank you, Porsche offered Corden a brand new $100,000 car.

A pretty plum perk that most people would be over the moon with, you’d think. Not James Corden though. When the car was delivered, he had a sudden panic that the shade of red was “too gay” – so returned it, asking for it to be resprayed.

As Porsche’s paintjobs are such an extreme hassle, however, it was easier for them just to send him a whole new car.

Which football pundit is an expert on Japanese sex robots? He gave a 10 minute lecture to the rest of his table at a poker tournament this week on how he studies them.

Back when the freshly-single Noel Edmonds was enjoying a bit of a career revival with Deal Or No Deal, he realised that he was getting to meet a lot of new (and very telegenic) people as part of his job.

Rather than let any of these charming beauties pass him by, Noel would periodically get the phone numbers of contestants that took his fancy so that he could stay in touch.

And then send them the killer text: “Date or no date?”

Since her resignation from the cabinet last week, headlines about Esther McVey have tended to focus on how vicious her attacks have been on Theresa May’s Brexit plans. She’s been ‘slamming’ proposals, launching ‘furious tirades’ on Twitter, ‘hitting back’ at critics. However, it should be noted that Esther is capable of much more honeyed words.

Back when she was working on GMTV, she took a bit of a shine to one of the attached cameramen who often worked on the show’s location shoots. It was on one such away trip that Esther decided to chance her arm with him.

The line she used to tempt him? “I’ve got such a large hotel bed. It’d be a shame for it to go to waste…”

He declined.

To round out this trilogy of celebrity seduction techniques: back in his Sunderland days, Jermain Defoe met someone at a Premier League football charity dinner. The pair of them swapped numbers and, over the next few weeks, he would text her on Fridays, asking if she’d like to come and see him.

The two things he always sent to entice her?
1. Dick pics
2. Free tickets to a Sunderland game

NB: This was the season where Sunderland were very bottom of the Premier League – about to be relegated.

Because TV quiz shows film to very intense schedules, episodes are often recorded months ahead of their broadcast date. This puts them slightly at the mercy of surprising news events, but there are some loose guidelines to help questions-setters avoid such pitfalls.

For instance, it’s sensible to not set questions about elderly people, in case they pop their clogs before transmission (currently at the top of that list: Prince Philip). The volatile nature of politics means that questions about MP’s positions in Parliament can quickly fall out of date too.

But now, in the wake of Operation Yewtree and #MeToo, they’re having be more proactive thinking about which celebrities might end up being outed as wrong ‘uns – so are advised to steer clear of anyone that they suspect has skeletons in their closet.

If you’re one of the venues that the Dandy Warhols are visiting on their upcoming anniversary tour, you’re going to want to make sure your bogs are all in good working order.

One journalist remembers being backstage with the Warhols at Reading one year when keyboardist Zia McCabe asked him if there were any toilets nearby. When he told her they were about 100 yards away, she clearly decided that was too far, so stepped behind the beer fridge, dropped her kecks and struck up a conversation with him while taking a piss.

The whole thing provided some welcome relief – not just for Zia, but for the journalist too. In doing so, she had interrupted the band’s drummer, Brent DeBoer, who had been telling the poor journo all about the kidney stone he’d been trying (and failing) to pass.

The appointment of Susanna Dinnage as the incoming chief exec of the Premier League has some of her former colleagues from Channel 5 curious to see what she’ll do at the job.

In the early days of C5, when Susanna was working on their marketing, she drafted in two branding experts to help her whip up the channel’s “branding vision”. She was very excited by the result, and called the whole company in to a meeting where this vision would be unveiled.

The two branding experts (one short, squat and fair; the other tall, slim and dark – who became known in C5 folklore as ‘Elton and David’) boldly announced to the staff that Channel 5 was… “Nail Soup”.

If you’re not sure what “Nail Soup” is, you’re not alone. Neither was anyone else at C5. So the whole project was binned and never saw the light of day again.

We know Wikipedia editors probably have more pressing business than to scour the pages of British celebs, but there’s a claim on Judge Jules’s wiki entry saying that Jules was the saxophone player on ITV’s This Morning theme tune.

Hoping that we could be the official citation that cemented this claim’s place in history, we asked Jules if it was true. Sadly, it seems like a case of crossed wires.

Jules says: “The Wiki entry contains elements of truth, as I did compose the theme to Richard And Judy back in the day, but I certainly didn’t play sax on it. Perhaps the confusion arises from my playing trumpet (very badly) during a few early DJ sets?”

If you want us to get to the bottom of any other unverified Wikipedia claims you’ve seen: hello@popbitch.com

Otters photobomb a proposal
[See on BBC World]

Tom Hanks’ son now makes hankerchiefs
[Or, ‘Hankskerchiefs’]

Do you like to scrub down hot, hunky men in the shower? Boy, do we have the simulator for you
[Play Rinse And Repeat]

Smart playlist generator from Spotify. Tell them the weight of your turkey, they’ll make a playlist long enough to cook it properly.
[Generate with Spotify]

Headline of the week: “Shopping Centre ‘Sorry’ For Polar Bear Anal Sex Christmas Display”
[See on Pink News]

The dark side of Instagram
[Read on Wired]

Florida man is at it again…
[Read on Action News Jax]

Further to our piece last week on Simon Cowell’s split with Modest Management, Syco got in touch to deny it was connected to Simon Fuller & Spice Girls. “Modest’s Harry Magee actually met Mel B at the finale of America’s Got Talent in September – a meeting which was in fact facilitated by Simon Cowell.” His Midas touch still very much working then.

[True West starts on November 23rd]

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