Shameless Behaviour

Funny though it was to see Lorraine Kelly go in two-footed on Jennifer Arcuri on Good Morning Britain earlier this week, Lorraine might have crossed the wrong woman.

Back when Arcuri was making waves as the CEO of Hacker House, she had a rather proactive method of dealing with negative press. She would get the journalists who displeased her on the phone – then threaten to set her dad on them.

Tottenham probably don’t yet know the full extent of what appointing Jose Mourinho as manager entails, but he has some very particular demands.

For instance, Mou has been known to throw a huge hissy fit if his club chooses anywhere other than California to go on pre-season tour. Once this has been agreed, he then insists that Los Angeles be their base. And when the club suggests some of LA’s more famous 5* hotels for the squad to stay in, every single one will be turned down in favour of Mou’s preferred lodgings: the Montage in Beverly Hills.

He’ll insist on this, even if the extra cost means a lot of staff have to be left behind, split up or shipped off to a cheaper 4* nearby.

What makes the Montage so important to Mou? Someone at the hotel let slip that his loyalty might have more to do with a special friend who works there, rather than any of the establishment’s many on-site amenities.

Seriously, what is going on in the gents loos at the Daily Mail? First there were empty cans of lager appearing, now there’s proper metal cutlery turning up in the bins too. Is someone running a supper club out of there?

You’ll have seen by now just how badly Prince Andrew’s interview with Emily Maitlis went. Between him trying to recall exactly which years his sweat glands were active, and attempting to rebrand his erections as “positive action[s]”, it could hardly have gone worse for him. So why on earth is he thinking of doing a second?

As we pointed out in the Yewtree years, TV interviews like this often take quite a bit of practice to get right. Cliff Richard had the good sense to do most of his practice in private. So we’ve dusted off the media training notes that his PR people compiled for him back then to see if there were maybe a few lessons in there that we could pass across to His Royal Highness…

[Read ‘Royal Blush’ on Popbitch]

Since his kamikaze interview, Prince Andrew has announced that he will step back from his public duties. But will he be relinquishing his royal perks? Our humble advice is that he probably should – and not just for appearances’ sake.

There is supposedly a toilet at Edinburgh Airport which is reserved for the Royals’ use. Many years ago, when Andrew was passing through on his way to play golf nearby, he needed to use the facilities. However, it appears that someone had popped in to use this extra special toilet ahead of Andy and left the Duke a little floating gift in the bowl.

Andrew was furious, screaming at staff “Is this how you treat the fucking Royals?!”

He’ll be lucky to get anything that mild again.

It’s not often that we have cause to report on CBeebies, but the second series of Bing The Rabbit has just started airing, five years after the first, and there’s been quite an interesting change in personnel.

Pauline McLynn has reprised her role of Gilly for S2, but Mark Rylance has handed over the character of Flop to a new actor… David Threlfall.

The last time that Threlfall and McLynn worked together was on Shameless. Our lawyer has advised us not to explain the precise circumstances that led to that particular professional relationship dissolving – so let us just say this.

Our fingers are crossed for all involved that producers don’t feel that Flop is integral to the show’s plot, and that Pauline McLynn has already signed her contract for series three.

The Daily Star ran a front page this week bemoaning the death of workplace “bantz”, saying that nearly two-thirds of men are now afraid to make “old-school quips” in the office in case PC snowflakes kick up a fuss.

Clearly, this news has yet to reach the broadsheets. Staff at The Times are well used to hearing some very salty language from their esteemed editor. More than one colleague there has been treated to his charming chat-up line: “You have no idea how much I want to shove my cock into you.”

Further to last week’s discussion of celebrities who cradle their balls while pissing (Hugh Grant, Hugh Laurie, etc) – a quick clarification:

It seems Dara O’Briain felt that we were suggesting he cupped his balls while he weed. We really didn’t mean to. We only meant to point out that he had previously promoted the technique of manually expressing the final dribble of urine from the urethra by digging a finger in at the back of the scrotum – which he did on S6E7 of QI (at about 18’15).

If you were under the mistaken impression that we were claiming Dara cups his balls while weeing, we weren’t and Dara would like make the following clear: “I have never expressed any opinion on cupping your own balls while you wee. Particularly since wee comes from the bladder, not the testicles, so it would be totally pointless.”

We are very happy to clear this matter up.

FYI: The act of cupping one’s balls while weeing is called “fruitbowling”.

As part of The Sun’s recent 50th anniversary celebrations, Dan Wootton wrote a gushing tribute to the paper’s Bizarre column, revisiting some of its best scoops from its various former editors. Most of the big names were there: Piers Morgan, Nick Ferrari, Gordon Smart, Dan himself. But there was one rather notable exception.

Once again, there was absolutely no mention of Andy Coulson.

Coulson edited Bizarre for four years in the 90s but – in much the same way he was airbrushed out of the Times’ serialisation of David Cameron’s recent memoirs – there was no trace to be found of him.

It’s a shame, because there’s still plenty of good stories about Andy from those high, heady days to be told. The evening he chazbapped with Anna Friel, for example.

Our congratulations to Tones And I, whose single Dance Monkey has been number one in the UK charts for the last seven weeks. It’s an impressive feat in and of itself, but they’ve also just clinched the record for the longest run at No.1 for an Australian artist in the UK Top 40.

Beating the six-week run of the previous title holder… Rolf Harris.

Legendary rockers Hawkwind want your help to find missing pets!
[See on The Courier]

Doggers of Lincolnshire! Here are your hottest hangouts
[All is revealed]

Meet China’s pet wheelchair king
[Read on Sixthtone]

If you enjoyed the story about Mothercare and Ze Records last week, here’s a great Twitter thread on the others acts that Mothercare’s money funded
[See on Twitter]

A real-time cascade of emojis as they’re used on Twitter
[Surprisingly soothing]

Get 50% off sex toys and lingerie at Lovehoney right through to December 3rd in its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale
[Take a look on Lovehoney]

Fancy the world’s most hideous job?
[It’s on Gumtree]

Still Bored?
Enjoying Ian Wright on I’m A Celebrity? Check out his previous on-screen masterpiece, Gun Of The Black Sun: a film about a haunted Nazi revolver and Romanian gangsters
[Watch on YouTube]