The Daily Tonic: Drugs, Booze and Lily Savage

We weren’t expecting to learn quite so much about Lembit Öpik’s love for pinball these last few days after mentioning that he used to have the high-score on his local’s machine while MP for Montgomeryshire.

And yet…

nuttycow writes:
“In a past life, I used to work as a lobbyist. At one Lib Dem conference, I secured a meeting with Lembit. Instead of discussing the topic at hand, he took me to one of the seafront arcades and proceeded to play pinball (and talk about pinball) for the duration of our 45 minute meeting. His aides did not seem surprised by this.”

With Halloween happening this weekend, we figured we should probably try to swap a few horror stories. So if you’ve got anything horrifying, creepy or ghoulish to tell us about a celebrity interaction – now’s the time.

Today’s Question: Who is the most terrifying celeb you’ve ever met – and why?

Send stories of scary celebs to us: hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dish out some digital goodies to the best.

We’ve told the story of how Cilla Black got herself blacklisted at ITV many times (in short: she was an arsehole to a young runner over a salmon sandwich; that runner rose up the ranks to become one of the top bods at the station; they then stymied any attempt she ever made to get back on screen).

You might have wondered why Cilla never jumped ship to the BBC. Well, it was for much the same reason.

There’s a BBC commissioning ed who likes to reminisce about the time he once held out his hand to shake Cilla’s, only for her to dump her mink coat into it instead. He would laugh when telling it, before going on to point that she consequently had “more chance duetting with John Lennon than finding a show with the BBC.”

Cilla Black was also responsible for introducing Paul O’Grady to Ronnie Wood back when she did some demos at Ronnie’s place in 2001. Paul was such a hellraiser at the time that even Mick Jagger felt the need to intervene and order Ronnie to steer clear of him.

Since then Jagger has said they need to keep three things away from the Stones: “Drugs, booze and Lily Savage.”

allsorts_UK writes:
“I once had the pleasure of attending a quiz night hosted by Keith Chegwin, not long after he renounced alcohol. At the end he was good enough to take a break from the orange juice and sign some autographs.

“I thought it would be a giggle to show the chaps at work so I went up. Keith was very smiley and asked what my name was. I responded and went back to my seat, autograph in hand.

“When I sat down and read it, it just said ‘To Mike, Get Fucked, Love Cheggers’.”

Today’s ten tracks are all from Liverpool bands (or ones that have at least one very prominent Liverpudlian in them, at any rate). You get a point for naming the band and a point for naming their song.

Ten songs, twenty points – all of which can be exchanged for absolutely nothing.

Still, it’s a fun couple of minutes.

[Play it here]

Apology of the day: Dalry Swim Centre
[See on Twitter]

Blur’s Song 2 – with Mario doing all the woo-hoos
[Hear it here]

Noam Chomsky gives his two cents on All Of This
[Read on LitHub]

Thursday’s Popbitch goes out to the main mailing list, so if you’re only signed up to the daily edition, you’ll need to get on our free, weekly list too.
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