The Daily Tonic: A Tossed Green Pudding

Things are starting to wrap up for the end of the year, so we’ll stop with the endless questions soon – but one thing we’ve been meaning to ask is about celebrity Christmas cards. Which celebs still send them out? Who designs their own and stages a special photo shoot for them? Who writes Round Robin end-of-year recaps? Which stars send weirdly corporate ones?

If you’ve ever received a notable celebrity Christmas card, let us know at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll send a little digital stocking filler to the best of them.

This September, Sasha Swire’s tell-all diaries threatened to embarrass almost every top-flight Tory minister of the last ten years – with the notable exception of her own husband. He’s more than capable of causing full body cringes though. For example…

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!”

September saw the release of Van Morrison’s first anti-lockdown single “Born To Be Free”. We should have known he’d start getting grumpy when international travel was curtailed and group socialising was stripped back.

It’s been a long-standing legend from Van’s touring days that his after-show entertainment of choice was something known as “The United Nations”: three ladies, each from a different continent.

No wonder he was so miffed.

In among all the dynamite celebrity court proceedings this year, one that flew a little under the radar was the multi-million dollar suing and countersuing going on between Naomi Campbell and her Russian billionaire ex, Vladislav Doronin.

Doronin sued Campbell in September, claiming she had £3 million of his property that he wanted returning. Seems like an awful lot of stuff to have let slip – but then Vlad has never been the best at keeping track of his possessions.

When the pair were dating, someone who worked in a hotel the couple stayed at had to call Mr Doronin after check-out so they could find a way to return the rather personal item he’d left behind on the bedside table. Maybe they shouldn’t have bothered, but it would have been an awful shame to toss out such a finely crafted cock ring.

Social media went into overdrive roasting Wayne Lineker for posting his list of demands that he has for a potential girlfriend on Instagram in September. The whole episode generated some solid burns, but none was 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?”

For those of you wanting to keep going with the calendar No.1s, we’ve already used the most interesting tracks for a couple of September No.1 rounds we did a few months back. You can find them here and here.

Instead, as it’s the season, today’s ten tracks are all singles that were sold in aid of charity. You get a point for naming each song and a point for naming each artist – but be warned. Most of these tracks are covers (and absolutely dogshit ones at that) so don’t get tripped up trying to recall the original artists.

Brace yourself. There’s some real stinkers in there.

[Play it here]

Bohemain WAPsody
[Queen x Cardi]

Unsoliticed dik-dik pics
[Cuteness on Twitter]

An oral history of Prince’s Sign O The Times
[Read on BBC]