The Daily Tonic: Noddy’s Milk Round

Social media has spent the last 24 hours roasting Wayne Lineker for posting the list of demands he has for a potential girlfriend. It’s generated some solid burns, but none so devastating as the one we heard last year.

During a trip to Ibiza not too long ago, Gary Lineker was out on the town when he was approached by a young woman asking for a selfie. Gary gamely agreed to pose with her and listened along quite happily as she told him all about how she’d been at the Ocean Beach Club earlier that day and had her photo taken with the resort’s boss: Gary’s younger brother, Wayne.

But his ears properly perked up when she asked him: “Tell me, Gary. Is Wayne your dad?”

Thanks for all your stories of famous people’s first jobs. There’ll be a couple more in due course, but today we want to know: Who are the most pretentious celebrities you’ve ever met?

Send your tales of pseudy celebs to us at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll repay the favour in digital goodies for the best of them.

R writes:
“I worked with a pre-fame Jeremy Vine. For one day.

“He was a reporter on the Coventry Evening Telegraph and blagged his way into a job at the branch of McDonald’s where I had a Saturday job. He worked one shift, wrote a completely ridiculous report and then never showed up again, leaving us short-staffed for several shifts. I’ve never forgiven him.

“He later achieved even greater notoriety by causing a major terrorist alert in Coventry city centre by tailing someone famous in his car.”

dick_the_butcher writes:
“I used to work at the Paramount Comedy Channel in central London (before it became Comedy Central). Most annoying person in the office was a guy in the graphics department: one Leigh Francis, who went onto be Avid Merrion / Keith Lemon.

“He always told everyone he wanted to be a comedian, so good for him that he actually made it. Sadly we didn’t find him funny. He’d tour the office most days stopping at your desk to tell a series of shit jokes while you were trying to work. I don’t think anyone was honest enough to tell him to do one. Rather we’d all pretend to laugh for 10 minutes until he went to entertain someone else.

“We did all meet his wife once in the pub. She was a beautician called Jill. She was hilarious, had us all in stitches. They should have given her a show.”

N writes:
“I used to go to Cubs with Matt from Busted. He was a fairly normal kid – if quite hyperactive – but had a few odd tendencies.

“He was forever dressing up in drag for the various pantos we put on, and had a habit of headbutting the Scout hut wall when he lost British Bulldog. But it was his obsession with pebbles that really sticks in the mind. At any time he would have seemingly endless supplies of small rocks in his pocket which he’d proudly produce on request.”

In keeping with all this job-talk, today’s audio round consists of ten tracks with titles or artist names that are somehow related to the world of work. As always, you get a point for each correctly identified song and a point for each correctly identified artist.

Ten songs; twenty points.

[Have at it]

Kim Cattrall’s freestyle jazz
[See on YouTube]

Unfortunate graphic design of the week
[Poor Anak Malaysia]

Who called Boris on Friday?
[The Fence draws up some odds]