The Daily Tonic: The Italian Bob Hope

Prince Charles has gone and caught himself a case of the coronas, but a period of self-isolation might not be a bad thing for him. It could be just what His Royal Highness needs to get back into reading.

During his university days, the future King of England was given a copy of Anna Karenina to read by a friend of his. When later asked if he liked it he replied yes, but that he never wanted to read another novel again.

Communities and Housing minister Robert Jenrick got himself a nice new series of arseholes torn this morning while completing a round of media interviews. He’s never been a particularly inspiring political figure though – right from the very start.

A fellow student at Cambridge remembers the time Rob stood for election as JCR president. Even though he stood unopposed, he was so unpopular with his peers that students voted to reopen nominations instead.

anon writes:
“I went to secondary school with Stormzy. When we moved into 6th form, the school implemented a new sanction point rule where if you received 15 points across the year at any stage you would be expelled. I can’t remember what they were for (I guess maybe swearing, being late, etc) but Stormzy received all 15 in the first day. The only problem was that he was so smart the teachers didn’t want to lose him from the school, so they let him off.”

MrsD writes:
“I was at Newcastle Uni with Tim Farron, one-time leader of the Lib Dems. It was the early 90s and oddly strong bottled ciders had just taken off. His party trick was necking a bottle of K cider then catching ‘the bounce’ in a bucket (i.e. the cider went down in one, his stomach rejected it and then it all bounced straight back up again. Every time. And only ever K.)”

KV writes:
“I was unfortunate enough to go to Dumbarton school from 1981 where a certain Catherine Zeta Jones was in my class. I remember her crying like a baby because she wasn’t picked for the part of Nancy in Oliver.”

MBD writes:
“I went to school in a Dallas suburb and in the year above me was a super annoying guy named Robbie Van Winkle. Robbie was a tall and lanky guy, an awful dresser who was desperate to hang out with the cool kids and make friends.

“One of my close friends had a popular brother in Robbie’s year and he followed him around the school like a lost pup, squealing about the music he liked, flapping his arms in the hall and generally making a complete nuisance of himself on a regular basis. One day the brother snapped, told Robbie to go away for the final time, which he did not do, then beat the crap out of him, throwing him in a school locker.

“Robbie Van Winkle went on to be… Vanilla Ice.”

Thanks for all your stories of celeb school friends. We promise we’ll try to respond to as many of you as we can. For the moment though, we want to hear about your forays into the world of minor crime.

Today’s Question: What is the biggest, best or weirdest thing that you’ve ever stolen from a star?

Send your tales of celebrity kleptomania to us at hello@popbitch.com and we’ll fling some Popbitch goodies out to the winners.

Today’s audio round has no particular theme (at least not one that would be of any use to you). The only thing that links them is that they have each been a UK Number One hit – so however much you hate them, you only have the British public to blame.

Ten songs, ten artists – twenty points in total.

[Give it a whirl]

For one of his first roles, Russell Crowe filmed a promotional video for the Australian college that one Popbitch reader attended
[He plays ‘John’]

Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity as a playable game
[Including a VR version too]

Rare twin baby lemurs have just been born
[See at Chester Zoo]

The WHO’s official guide to making hand sanitiser
[Bust out your glycerol]

Pop track of the day: The Aces have a new video out for Daydream
[Watch it here]