The Daily Tonic: E-Zee Does It

Ian Botham has just become Baron Botham of Ravenswood, having been introduced to the House Of Lords this afternoon. Though he might seem like an unusual addition to the upper house, Beefy has long been someone that people turn to for wisdom and insight.

For instance, on Botham’s first tour abroad, Geoffrey Boycott was dropped halfway through the series. Feeling sorry for him, Botham took a bottle of whisky up to Geoff’s room to commiserate. Upon entering, what does he find but Boycott, standing stark bollock naked except for his pads.

Boycott then made Botham sit on the bed while he got his bat out and started practising his forward defensive, all the while saying to Beefy “Now, tell me. What’s wrong with that stance? Nothing! That’s what!”

As the White House Gift Shop prepares to press 2,500 “Donald Trump Defeats Covid” commemorative coins, we want to know:

What is the gaudiest/tackiest/most inappropriate bit of tie-in merchandise you’ve ever seen?

Email your suggestions to us at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dish out some digital goody bags to the best of them.

In response to our request for botched band stories, one reader emailed in to remind us of E-Male: the boyband that didn’t just have one gimmick, but two.

As well as rocking a set of Spice-style nicknames (E-Lusive, E-Mense, E-Nigma, E-Zee and E-Go), the boys from E-Male had a shared love… of rollerskating.

Dreadful as that sounds, these sorts of things weren’t without precedent in the late 90s. Both Steps and Atomic Kitten had similar sorts of nicknames that they shelved early on (‘Glitter Steps’, ‘Smiley Steps’ / ‘Party Kitten’, ‘Mental Kitten’, etc). And Starlight Express’s rollerskate training school was absolutely teeming with soon-to-be pop stars, including Mel B, Saffron from Republica and Lolly.

[Still, it’s really bad]

NP writes:
“At Jarvis’s Meltdown fest at the South Bank in 2007 there was a free, all-ages all-dayer in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of it. The headlining act was meant to be Jarv, Kevin Shields, Bobby Gillespie and Douglas Hart from the Mary Chain playing in a one-off supergroup.

“They never actually made it to the stage though. Gillespie’s kid threw a wobbly over something, broke a window and had to be taken home.”

ROH writes:
“Ian Brown has history with on-stage rants. In the early 2000s he supported the Manics on their greatest hits tour. At Wembley Arena he almost got chucked out of the venue before the show even began for trying to smoke in the arena rather than outside. When he finally made it on stage he used the gap between just about every song to berate the security guards for having the temerity to apply the venue rules to him.”

EA writes:
“I went to see Manic Street Preachers with ‘very special guest’ Ian Brown back in December 2002 at the Newcastle upon Tyne Arena. Ian took to the stage and within a few minutes had said that Newcastle was a shithole so had most of the audience chanting ‘Fuck off, you wanker’ until he finally left the stage.”

Today’s ten tracks are all one-hit wonders: i.e. people who bothered the charts once and then never again. You get a point for each of the artists’ names you can dredge from your memory, and another point for every title you can recall too.

Ten songs, a possible total of twenty points.

[Play it here]

In honour of Gunnersaurus (RIP)
[Minute Silence Mascots]

Local news of the weekend: Handbag Bogey/Dirty Nappy Edition
[Read on Gloucestershire Live]

A WAP/Disney mash-up
[Wet Ass Aristocats]