The Sight-Seeing Spectacular

22 years ago this weekend, the big scandal to rock the 6 O’Clock News was Geri Halliwell leaving the Spice Girls. Heartbreaking though it was for young pop fans, it’s clear now that the band just wasn’t providing Geri with the creative outlet she needed.

In going solo, her imagination was allowed to run free. Like the time she asked for a unicorn to arrive at G.A.Y. for a performance and someone had to explain to her that unicorns don’t actually exist so she’d have to make do with a horse.

There’s been a lot of focus this week on Dominic Cummings’ parents’ home, but there’s also something quite interesting about his wife’s parents’ pad too.

Cummings’ in-laws own a castle of their own called Chillingham, which is famous for the wild cattle it has on its grounds. In 2001 – when Foot And Mouth disease spread across the country, causing mass devastation to the nation’s livestock – Chillingham went to extraordinary lengths to protect their herd.

To quote the Estate website: “The disease was confirmed to be just 10km away from the cattle and strict biosecurity measures were taken out to defend the herd. These had to be maintained for several months. This required ceaseless vigilance and complete attention to detail as well as the maintenance of relationships with neighbours and authorities and the media at a very difficult time.”

A shame the Wakefields weren’t the ones Dominic thought to turn to. They might have had some good advice.

Journalists never miss a chance to show off their superior knowledge, but which broadsheet columnist does it mid-blow job, stopping to inform the lucky chappie “Now I’m going to do something called ‘deep throat'”?

Yesterday, staff at the John Nike Leisure Centre in Bracknell received an email informing them that they would almost certainly not be reopening after the corona crisis subsided. Why is Popbitch telling you this? Because the threat of closure to the John Nike Leisure Centre is what spurred Ali G to make a move into politics in the 2002 film ‘Ali G Indahouse’ – whereupon he goes on to save the world.

It might be a bit much to hope for, but it’s not the first time that Ali G Indahouse has turned out to be prophetic. In the film Ali successfully boosts his own political standing by humiliating his rival, spreading a rumour that they once engaged in oral sex with a barnyard animal.

Maybe Dominic Cummings should take a trip to Staines?

Harry and Meghan’s ingenious plan to avoid unwanted press intrusion by moving to the peaceful remote village of Los Angeles has hit up against a few new teething problems.

It seems there’s a photo agency in LA (what are the chances?) that has been flying drones over their property to catch pictures of them in the garden to sell to tabloids. It’s got so bad that the Sussexes have had to call the LAPD five times this month already.

The irony is that if they were still in the UK, Harry and Meghan would have a decent chance of suing the paps for contravening their rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. In LA though, they’re going to struggle.

Up until recently, Kylie Jenner was the most shameless trademark hawk, trying to secure the branding rights to whatever wasn’t nailed down. She tried claim the age-old phrase “Rise And Shine” for her own, as well as trying to trademark the name “Kylie” (which Ms Minogue had something to say about).

But she’s just been knocked into second place. A WSJ journalist recently found a trademark application that was submitted to lay claim to the phrase ‘Catch And Kill’ – a long-used media term to describe the practice of editors buying up unflattering stories about their friends, specifically to squash them.

‘Catch And Kill’ was also famously the title of Ronan Farrow’s book about his Pulitzer-winning investigation into the Weinstein scandal and how the National Enquirer was weaponised on Weinstein’s behalf.

But it wasn’t Ronan who applied to trademark the name.

It was a company called Topixly: a production company owned by Dylan “Dyldo” Howard – former editor of the National Enquirer, one of Catch And Kill’s leading baddies!

(It was refused.)

It was always going to be a tough time for TalkSport during lockdown, what with there being no sport to talk of these last few months, but it’s all proved a bit much for Andrew Flintoff.

After six weeks in the gig, he’s decided it’s not for him. But with all the fanfare with which they announced him as a breakfast show co-host, it would be quite an embarrassment to have him just walk after a month and a half. So they’re spinning his departure as “time off” to attend to filming commitments for Total Wipeout and Top Gear, saying he’ll be returning before too long.

We’ve been advised not to hold our breath.

It seems that the government is hellbent on horning in on our territory, sending out its own daily blast of ridiculous stories, jokes and distractions to keep the public busy during lockdown.

While we can’t promise you anything quite as madcap as Dominic Cummings’ Corona Road Trip, we reckon that, on balance, the Popbitch daily is probably going to be a little bit better for your blood pressure.

If you want to catch up on the 60+ issues we’ve sent out so far, our sign-up page doubles as a daily archive.

[Sign up/read here]

One of the ongoing threads of the daily edition is people’s run-ins with stingy celebs. This one has stuck with us, just for the sheer oddness of it.

SM writes:
“Jim and Andrea Corr were in a club once where my friend works. He said Andrea came up to him at the end of the night and told my mate he had done a great job, so she wanted to give him something.

“He was hoping for a nice big tip, but she took out The Corrs’ latest CD from her bag, asked him his name and signed it for him. She then proceeded to take the actual CD out, put it back in her bag and handed him the signed, but empty, CD cover.”

Usually in each issue of the Daily Tonic we give readers a daily audio quiz of ten songs. This week has seen us do two Dominic Cummings themed audio rounds, which we present to you all here.

And in place of an audio round today, we’ve got a slightly different puzzle instead. The Dominic Cummings Sight-Seeing Wordsearch.

Is your vision good enough to pick out the tourist attractions from the government slogans? Have a go!

[Dominic Cummings Audio Round I]
[Dominic Cummings Audio Round II]
[The Dominic Cummings Wordsearch]

Japan’s weirdest mascot?
[Part rice; part clam]

Take On Me arranged for washing machine
[See on TikTok]

Martin Clunes v Gareth Keenan
[Car park wars]

Hip-hop producers can now go crate-digging for samples in the US Library of Congress
[Citizen DJ]

Brazen puffins
[See on Twitter]

There’s a legal dispute growing in the world of wolf-kink erotica
[Read on NYTimes]

Benbo has a book out: How To Survive A Pandemic
[Take a look!]

The Popbitch board is back up for lockdown
[Sign up for free here]