The Daily Tonic: Natalie Imbruglia’s 9/11

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A quick dose of gossip, smut and silliness Subscribe

* Leslie and the lesbians!

* Cher and the car bonnet!

* PLUS: Friday’s audio round

>> Story/board <<

Natalie Imbruglia’s 9/11

Every year on 9/11, people get in touch with us to reminisce about how the Popbitch messageboard became one of the more reliable sources for updates on the unfolding events. As so many news sites’ servers couldn’t cope with the traffic spike, most of London’s media was refreshing our messageboard for the latest.
Not everything that got posted to the board on 9/11 was strictly on-topic though. One of the other stories new visitors were treated to on that fateful day was this:
“Talking, as I was, about Natalie Imbruglia earlier I’ve just remembered a builder who fitted new windows at her place a couple of years ago. He says, and I have no reason to doubt him, that her bedroom was absolutely stuffed with soft toys, all of whom had their arms and/or legs ripped off. So she either takes home unwanted and damaged soft toys, which would be sweet. Or sits at home ripping their limbs off, which is scary.
“Sorry it didn’t involve cocaine and Kylie’s arse, but at least it’s true.”

Timmy Mallett was a bell ringer at the wedding of ex-Home and Away star Emily Symons and WH Smith descendant Lorenzo Smith.

>> Royal brush <<

Question of the day

Almost everyone has had some sort of run-in with a member of the Royal Family. Maybe one attended your village fete, or opened your local leisure centre, or sent you a shouty legal letter when you tried writing about the family’s long-established form with shagging around. Whatever it is, we want to hear about it.
Today’s Question: What’s been your most memorable encounter with a Royal?
Send your stories of mixing with the blue bloods to us at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll send out a digital PB goody bundle to the best of them.

Andrew Davenport, co-creator of Teletubbies and In The Night Garden, was a model for Gilbert & George’s “Naked Shit Pictures” exhibition.

>> Dirty John <<

That legendary Leslie charm

J writes:

“When I was at uni, I played for the women’s rugby team. John Leslie used to hang around one particular pub in Edinburgh – the Golf Tavern. Two of my teammates were lesbians and he spent all night trying to get them to have a threesome with him.
“In the end, he gave up and went home with the youngest of the team. Grim.”

J2 writes: “I did PR for Steve Backshall a few years back and he was so mean and angry and rude to me his agent had to apologise separately. The cause? Because too many kids wanted his autograph and he wanted to be seen as a celeb whose fan base were grown ups.”

>> Duck: off <<

No such thing as a free lunch

JM writes:

“I was at the Pegu Club in NYC in 2007 having cocktails with a friend. Steve Burns from Blue’s Clues came into the bar and my friend struck up a conversation since his young daughter was a huge fan. While we were chatting, our appetizer was delivered and Steve assumed it was a freebie and walked away with it.
“Hope you enjoyed our duck pancakes, app thief.”

S writes: “John Barrowman used to tell people in his Live & Kicking days about shagging Cher over the bonnet of a car.”

>> Sharp tongue <<

Pushing the wrong buttons

SN writes:

“I was DJing in a student union bar in Scotland about 15 years ago and we had an appearance from Pat Sharp. He was ‘DJing’ for about 20 minutes, using the ancient equipment we had. I warned him that, if the music was too loud, it would blow the speakers.
“After the 4th time of him cutting the speakers, the crowd started booing him. He then got on the mic, blamed it all on me and called me a cunt.”

PJB writes: “A friend who slept with Jamie Theakston reports that, before sex, he uttered the immortal words: ‘Brace yourself, you are about to have Jamie Theakston’.”

>> Quarantunes <<

Today’s ten tracks

The premise is simple. We’ve threaded ten snippets of songs together into one 2’30 mix. All you have to do is identify the ten bands/artists (one point each) and the ten songs’ titles (a further point each).
The points are fundamentally worthless but it’s the taking part that really counts…
[Play it here]

Popbitch Popquizzes: Seeing as we’re all going to be socialising on Zoom again before too long, now’s the time to get loaded up on play-at-home Popbitch Popquizzes. All the questions, answers and materials you need to host your own version of our infamous pub quiz.

[Download yours here]

>> Hmmms <<

Some things for the weekend

There’s huge auction of hip-hop memorabilia at Sotheby’s next week

[Buy Tupac’s teenage love letters]
Are otters holding the ecosystem together?

[Read on New York Times]
A reggae mix of 70s and 80s classics

[Listen on Soundcloud]

Thanks to: bunny, RC, S, PJB, SN, JA, JM, LN, pauly, J

Old Jokes Home

Parallel lines have so much in common.

Such a shame they’ll never meet.

Fancy Another?