Regift Of The Gab

Even though the incident is nearly a decade old, the Murdoch papers have been very keen to run stories on the extreme pornography supposedly found on Damian Green’s laptop in 2008. Yet when a very similar story did the rounds back in 2014, they weren’t so interested.

What could have changed their minds? Well, we’ve since voted to leave the EU and Damian Green (a Remain supporter) has become deputy Prime Minister. Obviously it’s in the interests of prominent Brexiteers like Rupert Murdoch to get someone a little more Brexit-y in as Theresa May’s right hand man.

But something else has changed too.

When the story was handed to journalists in 2014, the details were almost exactly the same – except for one: the type of pornography allegedly on Green’s laptop. It was still legal (barely legal, you might say) but it was a different genre to the stuff that Murdoch journalists are talking about now.

Was it that changed detail that finally got the story commissioned? Or was it the changed political landscape? Guess we’ll have to wait for the investigation to find out…

Last Tuesday Uber announced that they were giving away 36,000 free Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Yet when people tried to sign up for the free treats, they found they couldn’t. Cue a follow-up announcement from Uber saying that social media had gone so crazy it had crashed their systems and they wouldn’t be able to go through with the promotion.

Which all made for a neat little PR story, and it duly got picked up by a number of outlets like the Metro, the Standard and the Sun – who ran with the “Uber’s promotion is so popular it sent social media into meltdown!” angle.

Except what actually happened was that someone pointed out to Uber that handing out deep-fried, sugar-coated treats to 36,000 Londoners on November 14th (a.k.a. World Diabetes Day) might not be the greatest look.

How lucky that the system crashed then!

Which eager-to-please comedian was once invited to have a threesome with an EastEnders actress and her boyfriend? The ‘threesome’ actually ended up more closely resembling a twosome as the couple mainly used him as a sort of human mattress – but he wasn’t completely uninvolved in the action. There was a moment where the boyfriend misjudged a stroke and accidentally flopped out. Thankfully the funnyman had two hands free to help slip him back into position.

A number of years back (sometime between his choirboy days and bagging the Songs Of Praise gig) Aled Jones was a popular regular in one particular Shaftesbury Avenue bar, having developed something of a taste for their pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea.

In those long, boozy afternoons, Aled had plenty of free time to think about his theatre ambitions. So when the West End and Broadway impresario David Pugh walked into the same bar one day, Aled jumped at the chance to make an introduction.

Unfortunately he jumped a little too vigorously – and accidentally puked all those pitchers of Iced Tea over David Pugh’s shoes.

The incident has dogged Aled in showbiz circles ever since. Just before he was interviewed on Radio 2, one of the station’s most serious presenters introduced themselves off-air by saying “Nice to meet you! I hope you’re not going to puke on my shoes…”

There’s an old Alan Partridge storyline where Alan goes back to a fan’s house to find that the entire place is plastered with pictures, photos and posters of himself. Perturbed, Alan tries to escape.

The story (famously) comes from a real-life incident that happened to comedian Stewart Lee, but something similar also happened to Jack Whitehall too. After a university gig, Whitehall ended up going back to a fan’s bedroom to discover that her walls were covered in pictures of him – but his story had an altogether happier ending.

“It was the hardest I ever came,” apparently.

Vice’s shift into television has not exactly gone to plan. Viceland has struggled to find viewers (and Spike Jonze has been somewhat sidelined to stop the project being quite so ‘creative’ and a little more ‘profitable’), while Vice News’ relationship with HBO appears to be fraying.

It might be nothing, but Vice head honcho Shane Smith obviously feels that something is up. He was so keen to keep HBO execs happy in a recent meeting that he came a little unspun, and ended up boasting that Vice has developed revolutionary real-time translation software that would be able to broadcast Vice’s documentaries in any language in the world.

Which means either Shane has somehow managed to create the babelfish technology that has long eluded Google, Apple, Microsoft and every other tech titan of Silicon Valley. Or he’s trying to convince HBO that he’s invented ‘dubbing’.

Century Club has undergone all sorts of renovations and refits over the last few years in order to keep a hold on their membership and stay afloat in these rather turbulent times. It hasn’t been easy for them, but things could have been a hell of a lot harder.

Back in December 2011, the board members of the club gathered to discuss plans for potential takeovers. One of the two bidders they entertained a pitch from?

Kevin Spacey.

Last week’s story of Steve Coogan getting his PA to buy her own thank-you gift reminded one Popbitch reader of a little trick that Pop Idol’s Darius Danesh(/Campbell) pulled during his West End run in Chicago.

On his last night as Billy Flynn, the cast were delighted to all receive small, individual gifts from Darius as a token of his thanks. They were slightly less delighted when they opened them though, to find small cards and personal messages hidden inside the gift boxes – made out to Darius himself, from his adoring fans.

Charles Dance doesn’t seem to be making many friends in the world of theatre at the moment. He recently attended a play in London where he asked to meet the cast in the bar afterwards so that he could buy them all a drink.

The cast weren’t hugely in the mood but didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so they agreed to meet him. Once they arrived in the bar however, all he did was tell them stories about himself and didn’t once put his hand in his pocket for a drink. Not for him; not for the cast. He didn’t buy a single drink all night.

He drank plenty of the ones that other members of the cast bought though.

If you feel that Lewis Hamilton is being unfairly maligned for exploiting shady (but perfectly legal) tax loopholes, perhaps you’ll permit us to malign him for being a charmless tween?

Someone who went to school with Lewis Hamilton remembers the time they went up to him in the playground during his formative Go Kart years and enthusiastically said, “Hey, Lewis! I saw you on Blue Peter last night!”

To which Hamilton replied, “What the fuck you watching Blue Peter for?” – and walked off.

Celebrity Perv Apology Generator
[Make an apology]

Lena Dunham apology bot
[See on Twitter]

Man accidentally shoots himself and his wife at church – during a discussion about church shootings
[Read at the Kansas City Star]

There’s a big mystery in Carlisle
[Read at News And Star]

Gen X Hollywood in pictures
[See on Hollywood Reporter]

Silicon Valley is fucking nuts
[Read on Daily Beast]

Statue of the year
[See in Australian media]

The weird Eurovision rumours are starting: John Lydon to represent Ireland?
[Listen at Today FM]

Popbitch Xmas Quiz! Tues 5th Dec at the Grove, Battersea. Tickets £5pp – only a few tables left.
[Book tickets now]

And as the Caerphilly Observer has withdrawn from the Royal Charter-backed regulator over “transparency issues”, Part Three is probably worth a revisit too
[Re-read Battle Royal]