The Daily Tonic: Various Aquariums

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* Pimp My Passport: The Westwood ’69

* Doctor Who? Saving Sylvester

* PLUS: Piss-synching with Loose Women

>> Water palaver <<

Jared’s expensive wash

Jared Leto has just emerged from a 12-day meditation retreat in the desert, where he claims to have been totally oblivious to the global pandemic that’s been raging on without him. Here’s hoping he had the foresight to stock up on mineral water before he left, because he may well struggle to adequately protect himself against coronavirus if he didn’t.
During a big photoshoot back in 2017, one of Jared’s team was instructed to tell the on-set crew that Jared was “allergic to water” – insisting that if they wanted to take any pictures of him in the swimming pool then they would have to empty it entirely and refill it with Evian.

30 Seconds To Mars fans will be devastated if Jared Leto has to self-isolate. The queue of groupies outside his tourbus can often get ten deep on a good night.

>> Blurred vision <<

Bad year for weird dancing

With official word that Eurovision has been cancelled, people are (quite rightly) gutted on Iceland’s behalf now that they may be robbed of a chance to compete with their excellent song Think About Things.
We were big fans from the start, but if you haven’t seen Russia’s gloriously batshit entry Uno by Little Big (the band who gave the world Skibidi back in 2018) then you ought to check it out too. It would have given Iceland a proper run for its money in the quirky dance stakes – and is absolutely guaranteed to brighten your afternoon.
[Watch on YouTube]

Further confirmation of Shane Warne’s pissy mitts. Someone who stood next to him in a nightclub toilet in Durham says he had “a wristy flick to shake off the excess urine from his googly – but no handwashing”.

>> Fanning out <<

Question of the day

Thanks to everyone who sent in answers to yesterday’s question “Who is the most unusual celebrity you’ve had to deal with in the course of your work?” We’ll try to respond to everyone individually, but we’ve picked out a couple of our favourites below.
Today’s question: What is your most embarrassing fan experience?
Send us your tales of celebrity humiliation to hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dole out some digital goodies to the winner.

There’s been a run on weirdly prescient band merch since the coronavirus reached Europe and the US. Aphex Twin’s 2018 branded respirator masks are now all sold out, as are Korn’s 2019 branded surgical face masks.

>> Pimp my passport <<

#1: The Westwood ’69

JM writes:

“I used to work at a music industry organsation. In order to join, musicians would have to supply a copy of a passport or driving license. Tim Westwood sent a copy of his passport where he had clearly (and tragically) doctored his birth year from 1957 to 1969 on the copy.”

Good celebrity handwasher: Kaye Adams from Loose Women. Someone who got into piss-synch with her at a press event noted she washed her hands all three times they crossed paths and even indulged in a little chuckle when the fellow washer said “We must stop meeting like this!”

>> Doctor who? <<

#2: Saving Sylvester

DW writes:

“I used to work in an office on Haymarket with both a front and back entrance. When going for a cigarette, I used to take the back entrance so I wouldn’t be standing outside on the main road. I certainly didn’t expect for the lift doors to open on the ground floor to be confronted by Sylvester McCoy who was trying to get in, explaining to a security guard he was there for a meeting.
“The security guard had no idea who he was or what he was talking about and was getting quite arsey, so I walked Sylv round to the front of the building.
“I confessed I was a bit of a fan, to which he replied: ‘That’s the best thing about being an old Doctor. I used to save the universe, but now there’s always someone in the universe there to save you when you need help.'”

It’s not just the Germans who use hamsters in their words for panic-buying. In Swedish “att hamstra” is to hoard / panic-buy; in Dutch it’s “hamsteren”.

>> Another round <<

More quizzical activity

We had a few people email in to tell us that they got the full 20/20 for yesterday’s St Patrick’s audio round – so here’s another one for you.
As before, it’s ten songs all mixed together. You get a point for correctly identifying the artist and a point for correctly identifying the song; twenty points in total.
[Play it here]

THE POPBITCH PUZZLEBOOK: As our regular pub quiz is almost certainly going to be postponed for the foreseeable future, we put together a Popbitch Popquiz Puzzlebook filled with quiz rounds and other activities you can complete under quarantine. Just £5 – the price of a Popquiz ticket.

[Download it and get playing today]

>> Hmmms <<

A few other distractions

If you want to kill some time while self-isolating, Korg and Moog have made some of their synth apps free

[Get making music!]
Fiona Apple in the New Yorker explaining she gave up the gak after an “excruciating night” with Quentin Tarantino and her then boyfriend Paul T Anderson. “Every addict should just get locked in a private movie theatre with QT and PTA on coke and they’ll never want to do it again”

[Read the full interview]
Penguins around the world are getting a free run of their various aquariums

[Cape Town]

[Chicago]
Puppies in a bucket!

[See on Boing Boing]

THANKS: GW, RS, OH, poshduckhunter, AW, weelyn, WB, RC, KJ
FYI: We won’t be sending out a separate mini-issue tomorrow as you’ll get the standard Popbitch mailout as normal, but we’ll resume this nonsense on Friday.

Old Jokes Home

A friend in Germany says everyone’s panic-buying cheese and sausages at the supermarket.
It’s a wurst käse scenario.

Fancy Another?