The Difficult Second Decade

“The habit of gossiping is a habit of terrorism” – Pope Francis

Popbitch turns 20 this January and we’ve been busy working our way through our archive to put together a collection of some of our favourite stories. As we’ll be milking that for all it’s worth in just a few weeks’ time, we didn’t think it made much sense for us to do an end-of-decade round-up too.

But we ended up with quite a few leftovers that made us laugh when we re-read them, so we thought we’d plonk a few of them together as a bonus little mailout for New Year’s Eve.

It’s a bit of a weird bunch, but then Popbitch is a bit of a weird thing. So here you go. One story for each year of the decade. We’ll be back in 2020 for more.

Happy New Year!

pbx

Timmy Mallett used to work on a community radio station in Cookham in Berkshire. At the end of one summer he held a party to thank everyone for their work that year. He put on some music, hired a band to play and a good time was had by all – particularly by Timmy, who proceeded to get roaring drunk.

The party ended up going on late into the night and at one point the police turned up to act upon some complaints they’d received about the noise. On being informed of the police’s arrival by one of the ladies at the party, Timmy simply shouted into her face “OH, FUCK THE LAW!”

2011 was the year of Kim Kardashian’s infamous 72 day marriage to NBA star Kris Humphries.

Shortly after their divorce was announced, Kris was lined up to play in a Knicks v Nets game at Madison Square Gardens. The second he stepped out on to the court though, he was promptly and rather violently booed. He was taken back off pretty sharpish, only to then hear the crowd chanting “WE WANT KRIS! WE WANT KRIS!”

Why?

So that he would come back on and they could boo him some more. (And if there’s a more concise allegory for the role of celebrities in the 21st century, we’re yet to hear it…)

He may be blessed with good looks, irresistible charm and excellent sexual technique but Michael Fassbender is cursed with a bad memory.

Approached by an attractive woman at the BAFTAs, but unable to remember exactly how he knew her, Michael swept her straight up into a big, extravagent smooch in order to buy himself a bit of thinking time.

It turned out that the two of them had indeed met before – but it wasn’t quite what he’d thought. Far from being a forgotten former conquest, she had been the publicist for his last movie. She was merely coming to ask him to be part of a photocall.

If you have the misfortune to share a name with a well-known personality, occasionally you will find that you receive emails intended for your more famous namesake. Someone who shares a similar name to Hairy Biker Si King has had to reply to countless emails from TV producers and journalists over the years, telling them that they have the wrong address.

Whether or not it was the same Hairy Biker Si King who applied for membership to a dogging website in 2013, we don’t know. All we know for sure is that more than 20 messages from doggers arrived at the wrong inbox and we’re worried that the Si King in question never got to find out what “Charlie”, “Sparkle” and others wanted to share with him.

Louise Redknapp celebrated her 40th birthday in 2014 and we imagine it must have been a pretty lavish affair. Ever since her days presenting Something For The Weekend, Louise has developed a real taste for the finer things.

She was introduced to many fancy new dishes on the show and was given full briefings on each of them before she filmed any food section.

Producers thought this was probably a good idea after they saw Louise in rehearsals trying to bite into an raw oyster. While it was still in its shell.

Grace Jones was making a visit to an actress friend who lived in Brighton. On the way she stopped off at a Co-op to buy a packet of fags, whereupon she was approached by a fan.

“Excuse me,” the fan asked, “but aren’t you Grace Jones?”

“Darling,” Ms Jones replied, “if I was, do you think I would be shopping here?”

Somehow, despite that being The Most Grace Jones Answer Imaginable, it worked. The fan sloped off, agreeing that it did seem a bit strange.

We’ve given you plenty over the years, but if you needed another reason to turn down an invitation to dinner with James Corden, here you go:

James once appeared as a guest on Gordon Ramsay’s show, The F Word, with his mum and dad. The recording overran and producers were worried about getting Mr and Mrs Corden a cab back to the train station in time.

James didn’t seem to share their concern as when their cab turned up he nicked it, saying he had to go to a party in Soho, leaving his parents to wait for another taxi and almost causing them to miss their last train home.

After Trump’s election, someone who organised a monthly event at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club decided to make a stand – and switched all of his bookings to a different venue. Soon after he had done so, the organiser was most surprised to receive a handwritten letter from the president himself, begging him to return to the club.

To sweeten the deal, Trump promised him a whole load of extras to win back his custom including his own locker at the club – free of charge. Not only that, it would also be in a prized position: next to the locker of none other than massive movie star, Jack Nicholson!

A little intrigued, the guy made some inquiries about Nicholson’s membership only to be told that, no, famous Hollywood Democrat Jack Nicholson wasn’t a member of Trump’s club, but that Trump had written him a very similar letter offering him a free locker there too.

Dominic Raab’s former staffers confessed in 2018 that they used to have a running contest between them to see how many a’s they could slip into his surname on official documents (they claim their record was five).

This is something that Dom has in common with Dannii Minogue. People on her team also used to enjoy hiding increasingly mangled spellings of her name in various information packs and handouts whenever she was brought in for meetings at their offices.

Without fail, as soon as she spotted one of these ‘typos’, she would halt the meeting, grab up everybody’s papers, handwrite a correction onto each and every copy, then redistribute them before letting anyone continue.

Getting a bikini wax is never the most relaxing experience, but it must be extra nervy when you’re a recognisable celebrity getting hair yanked out of your arsehole.

In order to give Holly Willoughby her best chance of finding any sort of tranquility at these beauty treatments then, her people call the salon ahead of her arrival to insist on one very important thing. That any magazines in the waiting room that feature stories about their client are removed so that she doesn’t see them when she’s there.

Michael Bay-ify your photos
[With the Bayifer]

A goth-rock Hustle
[Listen on Soundcloud]

Before Kim Jong Un started looking at things
[Kim Jong Il was looking at things]

Danny Dyer’s The Real Football Factories in 60 seconds
[Pwoper nawty]

Africa by Toto – arranged for disk drives and printer
[Listen on YouTube]

Kellyanne Conway’s early attempts at stand-up
[Watch on YouTube]

Still Bored?
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[Popbitch Annual 2019 here]
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