The Boys Are Back In Town

Sasha Swire’s tell-all diaries have caused a bit of a splash in Westminster this week, embarrassing almost every top-flight Tory minister of the last ten years – with the notable exception of her husband. So allow us.

In 2012, Hugo Swire (then-Minister Of State for Northern Ireland) was invited as a guest of honour to attend an Old Etonians In Ireland lunch. Those present have a very vivid memory of the speech he gave.

Using a portable CD player, kitted out with tinny-sounding speakers, Hugo began blasting out Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town. Then, as the chorus kicked in, he started calling out the names of prominent Old Etonians and listing their current positions in public life, all while singing along to the refrain.

“David Cameron, Prime Minister… The boys are back in town! / Boris Johnson, Mayor of London… The boys are back in town! / Prince William and Prince Harry… The boys are back in town! (The boys are back in town!) / Tom Hiddleston… The boys are back in town!”

Paris Hilton’s new documentary on YouTube gives an extraordinary insight into her personal issues, but also contains a lot of lighter revelations. We were amused by the tales of how she’s constantly being sent free clothes by brands and designers to promote on social media, because it wasn’t always that way.

Back in 2003, when she was mainly famous as an It Girl, Popbitch spent New York Fashion Week with Paris. She was so unfashionable at that point that Marc Jacobs’ team wouldn’t give her an invite to his show – we had to give her ours.

Paris’s mum persuaded her to wear a Chanel jacket so she’d look classy in the front row photos, but Paris didn’t like designer labels. So, on the way out of the apartment, she managed to surreptitiously swap it for a pink satin Miss Selfridge bomber jacket instead.

Which Blue Peter presenter used to take a handful of Blue Peter badges out with him to a nightclub, stuff them down his pants and then encourage any clubbers that took his fancy to have a dip?

If you haven’t been joining us for our pandemic-era weekday editions – little daily shots of filth and frivolity in your inbox each afternoon to distract from the unending madness of 2020 – then you’re missing out.

Across 120+ mini issues, we’ve shared loads of brand new stories and strange celebrity anecdotes that we don’t have space to include in our weekly mailout. This last week alone we’ve had tales of Natalie Imbruglia’s 9/11, Prince Andrew’s MDMA photobomb, Jimmy Savile’s credit card gag, and more.

You need to sign up to a dedicated list to receive it, or you can catch up with our six month archive here.

[Sign up/catch up here]

For Monday’s daily, we asked readers to tell us about their most memorable run-ins with members of the Royal Family.

J writes:
“I was asked to DJ along with my DJing partner at the time (the considerably more talented Andy Cato from Groove Armada) at Alannah Weston’s 21st birthday. Her family own Selfridges and Primark along with some other retail ventures so it was a lavish affair. Guests included Mick Jagger, Elle Macpherson, etc.

“I saw a drunken mate flailing his arms around dancing to ‘The Twist’ accidentally punch the guy next to him in the face. I will never forget the look on my mate’s face as he turned to apologise and then slowly realised that the guy he just smacked was… Prince Charles.”

In yesterday’s daily we asked readers to tell us about the most pretentious celebs they’d ever crossed paths with.

Txacoli writes:
“I worked as a waiter in my youth in a Lincoln restaurant where many of the stars who were at the Theatre Royal came after a show. The worst, by a country mile, was Wendy Richard (aka Pauline Fowler).

“Spoke in a very affected accent, smoked using a cigarette holder, and was a finger clicker when trying to catch the attention of the staff. We were trained to ignore that kind of action, which we did… until the accent broke and she shouted “‘Ere, will one of you bleedin’ lot get me some more wine?””

We’ve also been asking daily readers to tell us about the stars they once worked with in their pre-fame jobs.

S writes:
“I worked at a small north London news and picture agency on and off in the 2000s. When I first met Amy Winehouse she was a tiny, long-haired skater girl who could talk til the cows came home and then keep them up all night. We sometimes smoked fags together in the depressing business park car park in between writing celebrity news feeds. Had no idea Amy would be filling those very feeds just a few years later.

“One day I bought the Observer and there she was on the cover of Music Monthly. Turns out her debut album was all about a mutual colleague who was a celebrity features editor.

“I ended up freelancing back at the same company just as Rehab was getting massive radio play. One day Rehab comes on. A second later the office door opens and Amy walks in unexpectedly with her beehive and a bag of chips. She looked a bit mind blown to walk in to her own tune playing randomly at her old place of toil.

“Pretty surreal. Never saw her again after that day.”

Wayne Lineker has been taking a pasting on social media this week for posting the list of demands he has for a potential girlfriend. The whole thing has generated some pretty solid burns, but none so devastating as the one we heard last year.

During a trip to Ibiza not too long ago, Gary Lineker was out on the town when he was approached by a young woman asking for a selfie. Gary gamely agreed to pose with her and listened along quite happily as she told him all about how she’d been at the Ocean Beach Club earlier that day and had her photo taken with the resort’s boss: Gary’s younger brother, Wayne.

But his ears properly perked up when she asked him: “Tell me, Gary. Is Wayne your dad?”

News that Madonna is going to be co-writing and directing her own biopic has caused a few sharp breaths to be drawn.

There’s some concern that Madge’s directorial style is a little too freewheeling to draw out the best from her actors (we’ve mentioned before that when she auditioned Benedict Cumberbatch for her previous cinematic pile-up, W.E., she spent the scene following Ben around the room screeching “Yes, but how does he drink his TEA?” at him).

Those who worked behind the scenes on her recent Madame X tour aren’t sure she’s going to run a particularly efficient set either. Staff at venues had to take special meetings about how her concerts would be a bit ‘different’ from others they might have worked on.

Mainly to brace them for the fact that she would habitually be 2-3 hours late on stage, no-one (punters or staff) would be allowed to carry a phone on them, and anyone who worked in service/catering would have to stop and face the wall if Madonna needed to pass by.

From our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it desk: a number of Hollywood types are staging a 24 hour Facebook and Instagram boycott today to combat the spread of “hate, propaganda and misinformation”. It’s a noble bit of posturing from Leo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Katy Perry and Sacha Baron Cohen – but to give you some idea of how effective these sorts of celebrity social media campaigns usually end up being…

In 2010, 18 A-listers sacrificed their “digital lives” to support the Keep A Child Alive campaign, vowing to stop updating their Twitter/Facebook feeds until their fans had donated a million dollars to help fight AIDS.

Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys and Usher all loudly announced they would take part but, after six days of celebrity silence, their fans had only managed to stump up $300K – less than 1¢ per follower. A billionaire donor had to be quietly drafted in to pay off the remainder so the celebs could start tweeting again without it looking like they no longer cared about kids with AIDS.

Want to relive the rave era?
[Here’s a comprehensive archive]

Who twisted Boris’s arm on grouse hunting?
[The Fence draws up some odds]

Unsoliticed dik-dik pics
[Cuteness on Twitter]

Local news of the week: Canadian dishwasher poo edition
[Read on CBA]

A reggae mix of 70s and 80s classics
[Listen on Soundcloud]

Gollum x Scatman John
[An AI lipsync]

Unfortunate graphic design
[Poor Anak Malaysia]

System Of A Down on the Hurdy Gurdy
[Listen on YouTube]

POPBITCH POPQUIZZES: If you need some pre-written pub quizzes for the next stretch of Zoom parties, we’ve got a bunch of them on offer
[Get yours here]

Still Bored?
With a prison sentence denting his earning ability and court costs of £35,000 to fork out soon, you might be able to put in a lowball offer on Charlie Elphicke’s house
[See on RightMove]