“I look like a bin man” – Jay, The Wanted
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|_| |_| 18.09.13 ISSUE 658
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* Making friends with Tom Odell
* Rock and roll with Richard Desmond
* Charts: Jason Derulo is number 1
>> Calvin and hobs <<
Cooking up a theme tune
Listen out for the polite, perky and very much non dub-steppish little tune on the closing credits of Lorraine Pascale’s cookery show. It was composed by a pre-fame Calvin Harris.
Jessica Alba is the latest celeb caught using an iPhone (at NY Fashion Week) while an ambassador for someone else. Poor Microsoft…
>> Tom dumb <<
Bet the tour bus is fun…
Tom Odell is probably most famous for getting a sniggering 0/10 album review from the NME, and then having his Dad ring them up to complain. He’s not really been bothering to make new friends in New York this month either.
He performed at an event for New York Fashion Week. Staff working it were most surprised to be asked by the singer to pass instructions to his band. Surely even Elton John in his gak years wouldn’t have been such a prima donna?
Berlin Zoo has just won a court battle over the right to use the name Knut the Polar Bear, from an English company who had tried to register it. (It wasn’t us btw.)
>> Big Questions <<
What people are asking this week
Which movie star is fuming that she gave up an affair to dote upon her ailing husband, only to find that he now wants a divorce after getting better?
PS In the light of the Zac Efron stories around this week, it might be a good time to revisit the Big Question in Issue 623: http://bit.ly/18Bui2w
The O.C. is being remade in Turkey, called Medcezir.
>> Chilly Billy <<
Big Yin’s big heart
Sad news about Billy Connolly fighting cancer and Parkinson’s. Film crew from the Mrs Brown set remember him fondly. On the coldest day of the year, all of the actors understandably scuttled into their trailers between sets. Except Billy, who stayed out to do stand-up for the extras, have lunch with them and sign autographs.
He also revealed that when he did the nude swim scene, the other actor with him was just incredibly worried about how the cold water made his todger look tiny.
The other actor? Gerard Butler.
Shane Richie is recording a new album and a Christmas single. He is recording at Sutton Music Centre, a studio behind a music shop.
>> Dopey behaviour <<
Richard Desmond: rock god
Richard Desmond’s rock band – the RD Crusaders – played a gig at King’s College, Cambridge at the weekend. Naturally, there was a glowing review in the Express (if you can’t get a good notice in your own paper, where can you?) The writer found plenty of space to include words like ‘energetic’, ‘triumphant’ and ‘electrifying’, but no space to mention the two most notable incidents of the night.
1) The RD Crusaders causing damage to a Steinway piano.
2) That they were invited to take their leave from the college when someone was discovered smoking dope in the green room.
Is Dom Joly a badger man or a baboon fancier? “Badgers – because they’ve been gassed, they know how to fight. But baboons have been domesticated.”
>> Partridge in a peer tree <<
Hanging out with the aristocracy
Steve Coogan’s not afraid to make his political opinions clear. “I’d abolish the royal family tomorrow if I had any power… I distrust the British establishment… I’m sometimes very left-wing, other times I’m a little left wing, but I never go right of that centre post” etc.
But not so left-wing and anti-establishment he couldn’t enjoy life as a guest of the hereditary peer, Lord March, at the Goodwood Revival. He was nicely positioned in the old Control Tower where he could gaze on the masses while chatting to his chum Ross Noble, surrounded by aristos.
http://bit.ly/1gCHbIH
What has James Murphy done since LCD Soundsystem? Why, bring out his own brand of artisan gourmet coffee.
>> Syria’s business <<
Tinfoil hats at the ready
Some refugees from Damascus have been extolling a wild conspiracy theory about the start of the Syrian civil war. They say there’s a feeling among Syrians on the street that the troubles stem from a row between Russia and Qatar.
In short, their story goes like this: Qatar has been wanting to build a pipeline to Turkey to break European reliance on Russian oil. So the Qatari royal family started chumming up to Assad in order to be able to put the pipe across Syrian land.
However, Assad is good pals with the Russians and wasn’t having any of it. So Qatar decided to take advantage of all that Arab Spring business and try to engender a public uprising against Assad in the hopes that they’d get a more useful leader in instead. And how do the conspiracy theorists think they did this? By showing made films of anti-Assad demos on the West’s favourite Arab channel, Al-Jazeera, (a channel owned, funnily enough, by the Qatari government.)
An electrical fault on a custard stand caused the New Jersey boardwalk fire. No trifling matter, in peak season, it could have affected hundreds and thousands…
>> Gym Nesbitt <<
Working out with the stars
DD writes:
“Reading Dr_Vic’s report on Julien MacD at the local gym got me thinking about celebrities’ gym habits. At mine, Fusion in Herne Hill, I sometimes see actor James Nesbitt. While he’s sitting on machines, resting between sets, he has an endearing habit of sucking his thumb while checking his phone. Difficult to believe he once played hardman detective Murphy.”
The new Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, used to be known as “Errol” when he lived in his native South Africa.
>> Brain dead <<
Times have a-changed
29 August 1963, the Times reported that the new president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was to be… Lord Brain!
Bizarrely the Times only thought this was worthy of page 8. The same page as their coverage of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” march on Washington.
At the woman-scorned.co.uk website launch yesterday, Christine Hamilton was heard telling Neil she’d show him what would happen if he ever cheated on her.
>> Hmmms <<
PM, placenta, pizzas
Who’s that asleep in the background, snuggled up with a ministerial box?
http://instagram.com/p/d9l2KxK7xO/
Have some spare placenta kicking around? Why not make a lasagne? (or ‘plasagne’, as it’s known):
http://bit.ly/1f5fLx6
Makes sense that Simone would end up in the pizza biz:
http://bit.ly/18xEYix
Guardian legal chief says Leveson was “disastrous”:
http://bit.ly/1aVE0i0
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Thanks to: SM, AM, Am, The ST, DD, PB, JS, MSF, Wasp Summer, Swearboy, JT, RD, NC, deepstoat, BJT, tamara_bumpdeeay, smillsy
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Old Jokes Home:
I went out with a girl once called Titanic.
After two nights out she went down.
Still Bored:
A girl’s guide to the peep shows of Soho, 1983:
http://bit.ly/18Cmwj1
