The Man-Milk Of Human Kindness

Popbitch readers will have been braced for the recent gory details of Jennifer Arcuri and Boris Johnson’s affair, after we shared the quick-spurt/boulder one with you a fortnight ago.

While Boris now faces uncomfortable questions about how and why he came to give £126,000 of taxpayers’ money to his mistress, he can count himself lucky that he at least ended up getting a shag out of the whole thing. Arcuri’s marks aren’t usually so lucky.

Her baby shower was an unusual affair. As well as the standard guestlist of gift-bearing girlfriends, there was also a group of older gentlemen present. Arcuri used the party to deliver a pitch, hyping up her unborn baby as the next great tech investor and giving these gentlemen the chance to get in on the ground floor by investing in her child’s career, offering donations (“starting at a thousand”) as seed money.

As she hadn’t yet set up a bank account in the baby’s name however, they were asked to make any cheques out to her…

Now that she’s escaped the clutches of the Palace and installed a fresh new team of strategists and handlers around her, Meghan Markle might think her troubles are finally at an end – but she’ll want to keep her guard up. There could well be a cuckoo in the nest.

The Sussexes hired LA-based PR flack Toya Holness at the back end of last year to be their new press secretary. Toya has had an impressive career, mainly based out of New York and LA – but she also did a stint in London back in 2012.

Ex-colleagues at the firm there remember her clearly. Mainly because one of the reasons she gave for coming to London was that she “wanted to marry Prince Harry one day.”

Staff at which fashion label have found their faces becoming billboards for their employer? They’re all under strict instruction to only wear Covid masks that prominently feature the label’s branding. (All except for the boss, that is, who prefers to go maskless.)

Katie Price was a guest on Esther Rantzen’s podcast, That’s After Life!, this week to chat about her history with men. The discussion ended up being quite a thoughtful one – which is presumably why Pricey chose not to relay this little anecdote.

Once upon a time, Katie was interviewed on Yorkshire radio station Viking FM while she was up there making an appearance at a Hull club night called Skool Daze. After the interview, the DJ asked if he could get an autograph. Katie, always happy to oblige, said yes – but only if she could sign his penis. Which she duly did.

Hopefully Esther wasn’t so starstruck as to ask for one herself.

It’s true what they say: you can’t keep a good blackmailer down. Our old pal Dylan ‘Dyldo’ Howard – former editor of the National Enquirer – is back once again to lay waste to yet more of the media landscape with a brand new venture.

He’s just been announced as the Chairman and CEO of Empire Media Group (EMG) whose portfolio contains one title that caught our eye: RadarOnline.

Radar originally started life as a magazine, bankrolled by Harvey Weinstein as a way to help him manage his reputation. Then Jeffrey Epstein took it over, for much the same reason. Then it fell into the hands of David Pecker, the National Enquirer boss who used his media empire to silence Donald Trump’s mistresses ahead of the 2016 election.

So we’re excited to see what Dyldo does with it…

In years gone by, the most that prospective politicians had to fear was a story of their days in a university drinking club surfacing – smashing up restaurants, burning cash in front of the homeless, plopping their cocks into dead pigs’ mouths, etc.

The upcoming generation are going to have to deal with much greater indignities though. Specifically, their old MySpace music careers.

Speaking of which: Victoria Aitken is going to be running for a seat on Wandsworth Council. Though she’s probably best known as being the daughter of former MP Jonathan Aitken (she was the teenage daughter he had lined up to lie under oath for him, shortly before his whole libel trial collapsed), longtime Popbitch readers may remember her a little better as… Vicky From The Yacht.

[Remind yourself here]

The story we’ve been telling these last few weeks of Piers Morgan’s car getting flipped over by musicians at a charity stock race in 1992 is starting to play out like Rashomon. Everyone who was there appears to have a different memory of the event. After Madness told us it was The Farm who actually flipped Piers’ car, The Farm have now been in touch to throw in their two cents.

Peter Hooton writes:
“It was the combined forces of Madness & The Farm. We weren’t taking part in the stock car racing so were in the middle of the field on a rostrum. We saw Piers Morgan’s car at the starting line with The Sun written on it & ran over from the middle of the track & over it went.”

Piers also wrote up his version of events in The Sun at the time, suggesting he was in on the prank – something The Farm hotly dispute (“Nothing could be further from the truth”).

Our hunt for the definitive story continues – and there’s some hope we might still get it. The Farm’s bassist, Carl (now a director and documentary maker) thinks he captured the event on camera. All he needs now is to find it…

If last week’s story about a young Orlando Bloom using the chat-up line “Suck my cock; I’ll be famous and you’ll wish you had,” left you with the impression he’s a vulgar, uncouth specimen, devoid of good breeding, then we haven’t painted the full picture.

Orlando, it turns out, is a bit of a chat-up chameleon – changing his approach depending on his setting. So while his cock-sucking line might have cut some ice in the bars of Wellington, in formal settings he plays a much more elevated game.

He once tried to chat up a reader’s friend at a fancy dinner by showing off his superior knowledge of table manners, purring the achingly pretentious line: “Of course, you’re only supposed to speak to the lady on your left – but nobody knows that any more…”

It can be tempting to think we live in a uniquely petulant and babyish time in British politics, so it might bring some small measure of comfort to know that it’s always been this way. It’s just better hidden sometimes.

The class of 2010 are currently embroiled in a little Mean Girls drama of their own making. The cause? George Osborne is apparently in a huge sulk at the minute because David Cameron hasn’t congratulated him effusively enough on the news of his impending baby, but went all-out for Boris and Carrie when their pregnancy was announced – even though he and Boris are well-known frenemies.

The poor lamb.

Huge, huge thanks to everyone who helped us test out some possible quiz options on Clubhouse this week. We’ll let you know if we try anything further with it.

In the meantime, celebrate the first anniversary of us putting together a special downloadable pandemic edition of the Popbitch Popquiz for the Easter weekend, by downloading one of the other sixteen we’ve put together in the full calendar year since.

Classic rounds like Dananagrams, Where’s Nick Cave?, Celebrity Price Is Right, Question Of Sunday Sport, Kardashian Episode or Kindle Erotica?, Morrissey Song or Foreign Movie? – and many, many more – await…

[Take a look here]

Sinead O’Connor is selling her gaff
[A snip at €950,000]

Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day has applied to run for President in 2024
[Saint Jimmy of TheKrustyKrab for VP]

The most popular Pokemon around the world
[Interesting graphic]

John Entwistle from The Who is trying to sell a load of giant fibreglass fish
[Lots 369-373]

Chinese Zoo tries to pass off golden retriever as African lion
[An ambitious scam]

Review of the phone app that gets you high
[Read on Vice]

The pampered pooches of Singapore
[Read on Insider]

The quiet horror of a Gingrich selfie
[Read on Trashberg]

Still Bored?
Stick the Evergiven anywhere in the world
[Evergiven Everywhere]