POPBITCH POPQUIZ // Xmas 2022 Edition
With eight brand new rounds of pop culture nonsense, the Play-At-Home Popbitch Xmas Popquiz is the perfect thing for your office parties or family gatherings – provided your colleagues and family are all mucky little bastards.
[Download it now – just £7] |
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“We gave Gareth Gates his first ever tequila. That was funny. He ended up rat-arsed and we threw him in the pool.” – Antony Costa |
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* Busta Rhymes’ buffet bar bouncers
* Footie face-off in business class
* PLUS: Taylor Swift v 58 frogs |
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| >> Lying down << |
| What’s all this about? |
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The big bombshell line dropped in this week’s consignment of Harry and Meghan Netflix documentaries comes from Harry: “They were happy to lie to protect my brother. They were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
Gosh. Whatever could he be talking about? If memory serves, the William/Harry rift first started cracking open around the same time that stories appeared in the press about Kate being embroiled in a so-called ‘Rural Rivalry’ with her Norfolk neighbour, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley.
If you fancy re-reading those old stories to jog your memory on the details, good luck finding them. For some unexplained reason, the Sun’s original ‘exclusive’ on it has since been taken offline. |
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| Matt Hancock was part of the winning team at the East Hill pub quiz in Wandsworth on Sunday. They called themselves “Professor Quiz Whitty”. |
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| >> Rhymes/Reason << |
| Bouncers at the buffet |
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Given how often they tour, you’d think celebrity security guards would understand the concept of a hotel breakfast buffet bar, but Busta Rhymes’ guys apparently don’t.
Busta has been out in Saudia Arabia this last month performing at various MDLBEAST festivals there. He’s been easy to spot as he’s the one who has a huge entourage circling around him wherever he goes.
One poor guest at Busta’s hotel found himself on the business end of that entourage one morning at breakfast when Busta’s security guys suddenly swarmed him, demanding to know what he wanted from “Mr Rhymes”.
“Er, nothing,” came the answer. “I was just trying to get some orange juice.” |
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| As of this afternoon, the Christmas 2022 re-recording of Three Lions has been played 429,427 times on Spotify, generating estimated royalties of… £829.52. |
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| >> Big Questions << |
| Who’s asking what this week? |
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Which comedian/presenter has been getting huffy with the younger lads he matches with on Scruff for refusing to believe that he is a famous actor? (He’s been directing them to his Instagram to show off how many followers he has.) |
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The cost of living crisis is pushing more people to the edge. Restore someone’s faith in the world this Christmas. Your donation to The Connection helps us support people all year round who sleep rough on London’s streets.
[Donate today] |
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| >> Fight or flight << |
| An awkward seating arrangement |
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Doha has been awash with ex-pro footballers taking their turns to be pundits for various media outlets. Even John Terry got signed up as an analyst for beIN Sports, part of a tournament dream team with Andy Gray and Richard Keys.
Terry’s World Cup journey didn’t get off to the best of starts though. He arrived at the Qatar Airways lounge in Heathrow to find it full of the BBC on-air team, including Rio Ferdinand. Rio and Terry haven’t spoken since the 2012 court case where Terry was accused of racially abusing Rio’s brother, Anton – and that position certainly didn’t change in the lounge. Nor on the plane.
Qatar Airways’ Business Class has fairly discreet seating, giving everyone their own private space. All except for the first two rows – which have one row facing forward, one facing back.
We aren’t sure if someone at Qatar Airways has a twisted sense of humour, but Ferdinand and Terry were assigned a pair of seats that faced each other. Which made for quite a frosty flight. |
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| Not content with knocking England out of the World Cup, France also won this year’s Junior Eurovision too (even though the UK won the public vote…) |
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| >> Charlie says << |
| Advice for the angels |
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The tabloids might have been miffed to see ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley snubbed a bit this World Cup, but there’s a few people out in Doha who are glad of the break.
Tyldesley has a running bit of schtick he seems wedded to in which he calls himself “Charlie” and refers to the Brit women sports presenters as his “Angels”. That kind of over-familiar uncle humour might not be so bad if “Charlie” didn’t also like to email his thoughts to these “Angels” from time to time, referring to himself in the third person throughout.
Messages like “Charlie has some advice for your presenting style” and “Charlie saw you by the pool today in your new bikini” etc. |
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| Dirty NewsCorp office parties are becoming as much of an Xmas tradition as turkey and tinsel. This year, Murdoch’s problem party has been at Sky News Australia, where a host has been fired for his “drunken meltdown” at the Xmas lunch. Among his other transgressions, he showed far too much interest in one colleague’s “side-boob”. |
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| >> Strike out << |
| Taking a pearly bath |
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Now that the England squad is full of wholesome, respectable young lads, those who want squalid footie drama have to look elsewhere. For this World Cup, it’s Serbia that’s been most swamped in scandal.
Reports have emerged that the reason Serbian striker Dusan Vlahovic missed so many games was because he’d been caught getting unwisely close with their goalkeeper’s model wife. Vlahovic denies the two were having an affair, but the sexy bath wank videos she’s been sending him don’t exactly help his story.
The whole thing resulted in a pretty physical confrontation with his team-mates, but Vlahovic hasn’t burned all his bridges quite yet. Arsenal are apparently interested in signing him.
And if it’s true about him shagging his team-mates’ wives, Chelsea might have a decent counteroffer to make him too. |
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| How has David Beckham been coming good on his promise to make Qatar 2022 a “platform for progress”? Well, he’s been visiting the first woman-owned café in Doha’s Souq Waqif – Shay Al Shoomos – for breakfast a lot. He’s a fan of the spicy eggs and tomatoes. |
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| >> Selfie-awareness << |
| Davina’s burger embargo |
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Hopefully enough time has passed that this doesn’t land Davina McCall in the middle of huge Phil’n’Holly-style backlash, but the night the Queen died, Davina was spotted drowning her sorrows in the Five Guys next to Oxford Circus station.
A fan approached and politely asked if they could have a selfie. Davina gladly agreed – on one condition. She asked the fan to hold back from posting it to social media for a while, because she didn’t want to look disrespectful to the Queen. |
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Pick My Postcode regrets to announce that, due to unforeseeable global factors including systematic incompetence, we will be forced to put our prices up by 10%. Playing Pick My Postcode is now 10% more FREE, so it will cost you even more NOTHING. Just enter your postcode and check back daily. Some have won thousands of pounds, which is enough to fill your petrol tank or eat today.
[Play Pick My Postcode here] |
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| >> News in brief << |
| What’s been happening? |
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How’s everything going in the bold new world of opinion-led UK TV news?
GB NEWS
* After spending a year out in the cold, Simon McCoy has been seen back at the GB News studio, tail somewhat between legs, having had at least two meetings with the CEO about making a possible return.
* The Rev Calvin Robinson has recorded an Xmas special that’s apparently quite heavy on the hellfire/eternal damnation angle and strangely light on the peace/good will to all men stuff. It’s a show we’re told will “do more for atheism than Ricky Gervais ever could.”
TALK TV
* Disgruntled staff at TalkTV were hatching a plan to quit while Tom Newton Dunn’s show was on air, lining up some graphics to announce their resignation live. Sadly, the stunt was caught by an editor and foiled. |
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| Where are Take That playing on July 7th next year? At Denmark’s Middelfart Stadium. |
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| >> Carr troubles << |
| Cajolling in the aisles |
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Jimmy Carr was on a train from Waterloo down to Weymouth at the tail-end of last week. He was crammed into the carriage and noticed a pregnant lady in among the crowd who was being forced to stand.
He (and others) tried to persuade someone to give up their seat for her, to no avail. Two women expressed sympathy with the pregnant lady, one saying “I’ve been there”, the other saying, “Me too!”
To which Carr added, “I’ve never been pregnant – but I did used to be fat.” |
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| The current Australian album charts – No.1: Paul Kelly. No.2: Taylor Swift. No.3: An album of frog calls, featuring 58 different types of frogs. |
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| >> Raye of light << |
| Hurrah for independence |
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She just missed out on a No.1 thanks to the ubiquity of Mariah Carey at this time of year, but we’re chuffed to bits for Raye and her latest single Escapism.
Raye was snapped up as a teen by Polydor way back in 2014, but quickly found herself stuck in ‘development’ – effectively blocked from putting out an album a whole seven years after she first signed her record contract.
The label thought she was great in collaborations (Jonas Blue’s By Your Side, Jax Jones’ You Don’t Know Me, Secrets by Regard and Bed by Joel Corry) but her own singles weren’t really charting too well, so declined to support an album release.
In going public with her grievances though, she gained huge support from other artists and was released from her contract. Now that she’s finally getting to release stuff on her own terms, she’s looking at a possible Xmas No.1. A rare bit of happiness in the music industry… |
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| Thanks to: ST, JM, mount_st_nobody, S, DG, EIB, JC, LW, WT, K, bitch_with_the_accent, wienerbalcony, CA, NG, ST |
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Old Jokes Home
Q/ How much does Santa pay for parking?
A/ Nothing. It’s on the house.
Still Bored?
Dozens of festive Mariah Carey mash-ups
[Listen on Bootie Mashup] |
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