The Daily Tonic: Passing Out In Post

Given that he has his freedom and a clear name, Cliff Richard surely can’t be wanting for much on this, his 80th birthday. However, if you did want to get him something, he’s a real sucker for artworks of himself.

Staff working at his record label in the mid-90s found this out for themselves when bosses insisted they all spend their lunch hour acting as his welcome committee when Cliff paid a visit one day. The purpose of his trip? To unveil a big, bronze Cliff Richard bust in the office – that he had commissioned and paid for himself.

He opted for something a little less gaudy at home. One of the items that BBC cameras didn’t catch during the televised police raid of his house in 2014 was a big painting of him and Elvis Presley duetting. The two of them never actually sang together in real life; the painting was commissioned from Cliff’s imagination. But he gets quite defensive if you mention that, telling you very matter-of-factly that, had it not been for Elvis’s untimely death, he “would have”.

Thanks for all your stories of celebrity stoners. Today, after news that a Wirral pub has changed its name to ‘The Three Bellends‘ with fresh new signage that features the familiar faces of Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Dominic Cummings, we want to know about other egregious/unofficial uses of celebrity likeness.

Fairgrounds, foreign pubs, low-grade takeaways, international ad campaigns. Where are the weirdest, funniest and ballsiest places you’ve seen famous people’s faces plastered without their approval?

Tell us about your strangest sightings of rights-infringing celebrity imagery, and we’ll send out some goody bags to the best of them: hello@popbitch.com

CB writes:
“Belsize Park, around 2007, I was picking up my usual oz from a 60 year old hippy nanna dealer at her basement flat. As I was arriving, I met a huge American dude who was stood in front of Gwyneth Paltrow. He was so big I didn’t see her at first. She is tiny.

“Turns out she was a neighbour from five doors down whilst married to Chris Martin. A regular visitor for herbals.

“Other visitors included Claudia Winkleman, Finley Quaye and a couple of High Court judges also used to buy their prang off her.”

RE writes:
“Some years ago I was invited to a rather posh dinner party at a country house. I can’t remember where exactly it was but at the time I was living in Chelsea and mixing with the locals, so it must have been through one of them.

“Anyway, it was very casual, not a sit-down table affair. I ended up on a sofa next to Ainsley Harriott who was very friendly and chatty. During our conversation he pulled out a tin of doings and proceeded to spin one up. After he’d started it off he passed it to me. Which was nice.”

albert_steptoes_horse writes:
“[10CC members turned video directors] Godley and Creme were renowned stoners back in the day. So much so that one London post-production house would station a runner outside the room they were working in to chain smoke smelly herbal cigarettes to mask the smell.

“Didn’t always work though. One time the runner was found passed out in the room an hour after the session ended.”

In keeping with the theme, something about each of today’s ten tracks somehow relates to smoking weed. Some of the songs are explicitly about it, some of the bands are specifically named after it – while others just happen to inadvertently reference drug slang.

You get a point for each artist and a point for each song. Ten songs, twenty points.

[Play it here]

How a-ha’s Take On Me was made
[And Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing]

Someone called every number listed in Epstein’s little black book
[This is the story]

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[You can do it here]