The Daily Tonic: Bad Meat Selection

As it’s May the 4th, we thought we’d revisit a couple of Star Wars stories from the Popbitch archive.

During the filming of Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, crew members on set kept walking into the soundstage loos to find that someone had been laying huge, coiled turds on top of the closed toilet lids.

The mystery dumper kept no regular schedule and made their mark in both the gents and the ladies. Urgent memos went up on noticeboards around the set appealing to the crapper’s sense of dignity to stop, but to no avail. The turds continued.

The identity was never confirmed but execs were certain it was an inside job and the culprit they suspected most? A cast member. Practically the only one who had returned to join the cast for the third film, and the third film alone.

Peter Mayhew – a.k.a. Chewbacca.

Despite his fame (and the extraordinary amount of money he made from Star Wars, having smartly negotiated himself a percentage deal) Alec Guinness spent most of his years living quietly near Petersfield, Hampshire.

His phone number there was one digit different to that of the local butcher and he received a steady stream of calls from people looking to buy meat. After years of misdialled numbers, Guinness grew tired of explaining that they had the wrong person so would amuse himself instead by patiently taking their order – then berating them for making bad meat selections.

Manny from Tears For Fears isn’t the only celebrity with his own condiment range. Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Patti LaBelle, Michael Madsen, The Offspring and the Grateful Dead have all ventured into the spicy sauce business – which got us thinking…

Today’s Question: What unexpected celebrity side-businesses do you know of? Which famous people supplement their income with an interesting/incongruous revenue stream?

Send us your tales of showbiz second jobs to hello@popbitch.com and we’ll send out some digital goodies to our favourites.

J writes:
“A friend of mine rented his house near Guildford to Shakin’ Stevens. Whilst he was staying, the boiler broke and Shaky employed his mate to fix it. Two days later it blew up, taking a large proportion of the house with it. I’d love to have seen the insurance claim.”

pinktrash writes:
“About 15 years ago, I had the most brilliant quirky landlady. Loads of interesting people would stay, artists, writers, some long term, some for a night or so whilst they were passing through town. Frankly I rarely had a clue who anyone was.

“There was one really nice softly spoken guy who was there regularly. I’d probably known James for about five months when the landlady suggested he should get me a ticket for his next show.

“Turned out ‘James’ was Jim McCarty from The Yardbirds. Great concert and really top bloke.”

In keeping with the vague intergalactic theme of the day, today’s audio round is loosely connected to outer space. Ten songs: you get a point for naming the artist correctly and a point for naming the song.

[Here you go]

Withnail & I x Star Wars
[Ep.III: Yoda Danny]

Tabby the snowboarding cat
[Watch on YouTube]

Trisha’s – Soho institution and scene of many Popbitch editors’ drinks – is in danger of closing. There’s not all that much of Old Soho left, so if you can spare a couple of quid for one of London’s most sacred drinking dens, please do consider it.
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