The Second Serve // Pissing Like A Pressure Washer

The most streamed song on Taylor Swift’s recently re-recorded re-release of Red is the 10-minute ‘uncut’ version of All Too Well, which has heaped a whole lot more fuel on the fire that Taylor wrote it about her ex, Jake Gyllenhaal.

Taylor’s reputation for mining former conquests for material is well-established. What’s less well-known is that Jake Gyllenhaal does it too.

In fact, one of the ways he’s been heard chatting up women is to dazzle them by listing some of the other, more famous ladies he’s slept with – including Kirsten Dunst and Chelsea Clinton.

If you haven’t been following every beat of the Meghan Markle v Mail appeal in court (who could blame you?) there was a significant development last week.

Meghan has been forced to make a new statement to the court admitting that – contrary to her previous claims – she had actually drafted her infamous letter to ‘Daddy’ with an eye on how it would be read by the public if it leaked. Not only that, but she’s also just remembered that she did in fact help brief the writers of her recent biography, Finding Freedom, too – when she told the previous judge she categorically hadn’t.

This sort of climbdown plays badly in PR terms. It also gives the media a chance to make hay. But is this legally problematic for her? Erm, yes…

Bad: Because Meghan only made this confession after a witness provided contradictory evidence, it now calls into question all her testimony – and Mail lawyers will likely suggest Meghan was desperate to get a summary judgement precisely because she knew this evidence would come to light if it made it to court.

Worse: The email evidence is all on the Palace’s server and can be searched by keyword and handed to the Mail, who can now claim public interest in disclosing them – and anything else those emails may contain.

Worst: It seems her lawyers are every bit as surprised by these revelations as anyone else. A backpedal this big is extremely professionally embarrassing for them, which means her legal team will not be in any great rush to put their necks on the line for her again.

In that recent Memories Of Britpop piece Vice did, Luke Haines was quoted talking about a London Records A&R he nicknamed ‘Nosebag’.

“He was a really thick cunt. I physically kicked him out of our dressing room once. He would sign up anything that played at the Camden Falcon, give them an advance and then keep them on contract, wasting years of studio time with albums that never came out. These things can really fuck young people up. It’s tantamount to abuse.”

One of our readers got in touch after we linked to the piece a few weeks back to say that he remembers this A&R guy – and, if it’s the same Nosebag, he ended up getting the sack for doling out gak to his colleagues in the label’s in-house canteen.

In this modern era, when relatively trivial mistakes require celebrities to write four-page apologies on social media, there was a refreshingly understated apology from the band Brass Against this weekend.

“We had a great time last night at Welcome to Rockville. Sophia got carried away. That’s not something the rest of us expected, and it’s not something you’ll see again at our shows. Thanks for bringing it last night, Daytona.”

The incident they briefly allude to? Their singer Sophia invited a member of the audience up onto the stage, laid him down, then pulled down her pants and pissed like a pressure washer all over his face.

If you want to see the full song, building up to the incident, it’s here. The magic happens at around 3’20.

[Warning: features a lot of piss. ]

Brass Against weren’t the only act giving health and safety officers heart palpitations at a gig this weekend. Damon Albarn played at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday in a big tribute night to his former collaborator, Tony Allen.

We have no idea what Damon was on, but we need to start taking it as concertgoers said he was brilliantly animated and joyful all night. The show culminated with Albarn deciding to invite half the crowd to join him and the likes of Ben Okri and Nitin Sawney on stage.

Aghast at the breaking of Covid protocols, organisers quickly got security to swarm the stage to try to beat back revellers – while Albarn kept giving his minders the slip to haul yet more of the audience up to join in.

In Thursday’s issue we pointed out that Esther McVey is currently playing both sides in the great GBNews/NewsUK divide; drawing a monthly £2K wage from GBNews, while also filming paid pilots for Murdoch’s rival TV venture, TalkTV.

However, far from being a cutthroat media Machiavelli, it seems that Esther didn’t actually realise she’d been moonlighting.

For the first two months she was appearing on GBNews, Esther mistakenly declared the £3,900 in wages they’d given her as having come from NewsUK. It was only after a journalist emailed her to point out that GBNews wasn’t the channel owned by Rupert Murdoch that she ended up realising and correcting the record…

Another week brings with it another fifty songs, all sliced up and stitched together into five daily music quizzes. You will find them on this page each day, plus an archive of all the ones we’ve done before.

Mon/ Supergroups

Tue/ Rain

Wed/ Babies

Thu/ Fruit Salad

Fri/ Medieval Covers

You can give yourself a point for every song and every artist you correctly identify. A hundred points in total for the week – each of absolutely zero real-world value…

A petition to add a penis to the dragon on the Welsh flag
[Let your voice be heard]

Nick Cave talks about the squirrel he accidentally adopted
[Read on Red Hand Files]

Now that Britney is free to get married, here’s an interesting profile of Sam Asghari, her fiancé.
[Read on New York Times]

An AI that will give a makeover to any picture you send it…
[Play around on Twitter]