The Daily Tonic: Death’s Tweet Release

2010 was the year of Cleggmania: a bizarre stretch of time in which the Lib Dem leader was treated more like a rock star than a politician in the run-up to the General Election (with the NME even applying for an access pass to Clegg’s battle bus.)

There was one man who saw through the bluster though. Boris Johnson, who described Nick Clegg’s ascent as “The biggest load of media-driven nonsense since the funeral of Diana.”

And Boris would know. He was supposedly the one who ghostwrote Earl Spencer’s eulogy for that very event.

David Hasselhoff managed to parlay his kitsch ironic appeal into something genuinely lucrative in 2010, beginning a regular stint in panto playing Captain Hook.

It was a challenging role for the Hoff though. In that first year, he was heard asking the director if he could maybe perform the second act of the show without the Captain’s trademark hook, as wearing it hurt his hand.

Neatly proving just how ineffective celebrity social media campaigns actually are, 18 A-listers sacrificed their “digital lives” for charity in 2010, vowing to stop updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds until their fans had donated a million dollars to the Keep A Child Alive campaign to help fight AIDS.

Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys and Usher were among those who took part – but after six days of celebrity silence donations were still under $300k.

As the celebs all had projects to push, but couldn’t very well tweet until their goal was matched, a billionaire donor had to be drafted in to pay off the remainder to let them get back to plugging themselves.

FYI: It would have cost the celebs’ combined 35 million followers at the time less than 3 cents each to clear the goal.

2010 saw the sad demise of the Stereophonics’ drummer (and Popbitch untouchable) Stuart Cable. In an era where rock music was becoming increasingly clinical and careerist, Stuart was a welcome blast of madness.

On the day the Stereophonics’ management gave the band their first big royalty cheque, their accountant warned them he’d seen bands come and go, so advised them not to do anything reckless with the cash.

As such, frontman Kelly used the money as a downpayment on a house. Bass player Richard put his in the bank.

And Stuart? He bought two quad bikes.

“Since I had my boobs done I only really get them out on special occasions” – Michelle Bass

“I’m will.i.am. If anyone says different then I can get quite hostile” – will.i.am

“I love all the old classic music. Bands like Take That, that my mum used to listen to” – Pixie Lott

“I don’t think about cannibalism that much” – Nelly Furtado

Ten more songs, pruned from the UK Top ten in 2010. We’ve spared you some of the worst ones (Dizzee Rascal ft. James Corden, anyone?) but see how you get on.

You get a point for naming each song title, and a point for correctly identifying the artists too.

[Ten songs; twenty points]

A German sausage piano
[Hear on YouTube]

Nominative Determinism of the Week: the cop trying to help a Scottish widow who was conned out of £100,000 in savings?
[David Swindle]