Tomfoolery Of The Gonad Kind

As seen on Dragons’ Den, with over 2,000 five-star reviews.

One of the stand-out moments of the Brits on Tuesday was Elton John and Olly Alexander’s performance of It’s A Sin – but the papers today tell us we were robbed of a special appearance from Pet Shop Boys too, thanks to an insurmountable ‘contractual issue’.

The story that’s emerging from unnamed sources in the tabloids is that the dispute centred around the song’s stage performance. Some parties wanted it to be an emphatic celebration of gay culture, while others felt it would benefit from having a more ‘general’ appeal.

If true, that would be a very principled, noble thing to step down over. However, it’s slightly different to the story that was going around backstage at the event itself. The rumour on the night was that the whole thing had fallen through because the acts couldn’t agree on the order in which they should be credited.

To thank Little Mix for the generous shout-out they gave in their Brit Award acceptance speech, Geri Halliwell sent flowers – and signed the card “Geri [Spice Girls]”.

It’s strange that, for absolutely anyone else, that sign-off would have made the card instantly suspicious; the pen-and-paper equivalent of a phishing email. But with Geri, it’s basically a guarantee of authenticity.

Geri’s always been quite literal-minded when it comes to these sorts of things. One of the earliest stories we ever ran (Popbitch, Issue 5) was about exactly this habit: the time she tried to settle up a bill for some dental treatment by writing out a cheque she had made payable to “The Dentist”.

The original line-up of the Sugababes is back and teasing a new release – but why is it only Keisha and Siobhan doing their first big interview? Could it have anything to do Mutya’s summer on social media, dabbling in QAnon conspiracies and casually making some highly libelous allegations about satanic celebrity sex rituals – the sort of thing that might cause a few legal headaches if published more formally?

After chiding Noel Clarke last week for giving a very one-dimensional view of John Barrowman’s on-set behaviour, it seems we went and did much the same thing.

Barrowman’s studio banter didn’t just revolve around getting his dick out, like we suggested it did. He had other tricks up his sleeve too.

One of his other big wheezes was to ask a production assistant if they’d mind popping to his dressing room to fetch his luggage for him, as he’d be dashing from the studio straight to the airport. The assistant headed off, not knowing that the leather hold-all waiting for them would be unzipped in such a way that the moment they picked it up, the bag’s contents would spill out and they’d discover it was filled to the brim with porn.

The gag slightly backfired insofar as the assistant wasn’t in the least embarrassed and handed the bag to Barrowman with a wry “Aye, porn. Good one.”

It also meant they had a story to swap when everyone got dishing about his antics at the wrap party, where conversation flowed freely thanks to the personalised bottles of wine they’d all been given as gifts – from John…

A lot of the tributes to Nick Kamen noted that he was best known as the model in the iconic 80s Levi’s ad, where he stripped down to his boxers in a launderette as Heard It Through The Grapevine played.

The ad was a massive hit, it launched Nick’s profile globally and famously increased sales of 501s by 800%. But what’s less well known is that the same advert went a long way to making boxer shorts cool again too.

That hadn’t been part of the plan. According to Sir John Hegarty, whose agency created the ad, they originally had Nick strip down to a pair of tighty-whities. But Nick filled them so snugly it quickly became clear they’d have no chance getting the footage past TV censors. So they switched him to a looser, less-revealing cut – and, in doing so, inadvertently made boxer shorts sexy in the eyes of Brits again.

Horse racing has the best excuses. When the winner of last weekend’s Kentucky Derby failed its post-race drugs test, the blame was initially dumped at the feet of a stable worker. Supposedly suffering from Covid, they claimed he had taken a bunch of cough syrup, pissed on some hay in the stable which the horse then ate, innocently contaminating itself with steroids.

The excuse has been refined a little now that there’s a legal challenge in the offing. The story now is that drugs got into its system because of a misapplication of horse eczema ointment on his hind quarters.

It’s not just horses. Jockeys get away with this sort of stuff too. Oisin Murphy failed a cocaine test last year, but managed to convince a tribunal that he must have been contaminated passively by having sex with a cocaine user the night before.

These sorts of outlandish excuses are thought to stem from the experience of French tennis star Richard Gasquet a few years back, who managed to convince sport authorities that his positive cocaine test (3x higher than Murphy’s) was merely the result of kissing someone in a nightclub.

Which is why the excuse strand is known around industry circles as “Blowing a Gasquet”.

The whispered reunion of Ben Affleck and J-Lo has caused much excitement in the weekly gossip glossies, who are all made up to see at least one of their early-00s power couples start shagging again (as Jennifer Aniston still refuses to play ball).

We can’t muster much enthusiasm for it to be honest, but wake us up if there’s any hint of a Gigli sequel. We’d be keen to see if the two of them could top the least sexy bit of sex dialogue in cinema history.

(J-Lo and Affleck lay together on a dimly-lit bed)

Affleck: “Where you goin’?

J-Lo: “It’s turkey time”

Affleck: “Huh?”

J-Lo: “Gobble, gobble…”

There’s a great new Twitter account marking the days in celebrities’ lives when they hit ‘The Meldrew Point’ – i.e. the age that Richard Wilson was when the first episode of One Foot In The Grave aired in 1990.

Surprising celebs who have reached – and are now past – the Meldrew Point?
* David Guetta
* Vanilla Ice
* Davina McCall
* Michael Gove

[Find out more]

Europe’s premier cultural spectacle, the Eurovision Song Contest, takes place next week. Our annual guide will be with you in time for semi-final one on Tuesday, but if you want a quick preview:

ONES TIPPED TO DO WELL

* Malta – This Lizzo-esque electoswinger is the obvious choice on paper, and the bookies’ favourite for months, but others have been gaining on it in recent days

* Iceland – Last year’s hot ticket, 8-bit bedroom-disco hero Daði is back with more of the same and has tons of goodwill in the bank

* France – About as French as it can be. Melancholic cigarettes-for-dinner tier.

* Italy – Aiming for Arctic Monkeys, landing a little closer to Terrorvision, it’s a juicy bit of red meat for the ‘real music’ crowd

ONES YOU’LL WANT TO CATCH

* Ukraine – A bonkers wailing folk-rave mash-up that might induce a passive acid trip

* Finland – An early 00s nu-metal call to take shots, throw up, and stick your middle fingers in the air

* Denmark – A proper time-warp, like something from Eurovision ’87. Not in a kitsch ironic way; a genuine bug-in-amber relic.

* San Marino – They got Flo Rida to do a verse on the record, can they convince him to come to Rotterdam?

Putting rude things into What3Words location finder
[Where’s munched.rugs.easily?]

The weird, weird world of online slander sites
[Read on NYTimes]

Spotify Playlist Of The Week: “Frasier’s Playlist For When He Has Women Over”
[Ladies…]

Pop/Politics Trivia Of The Week: Billie v Laurence
[See on Twitter]

A three-day festival dedicated exclusively to AC/DC tribute acts, anyone?
[Highway To Hellfest]

Data-viz article about Pret sales in the pandemic
[See on Bloomberg]

Shit Men In TV Have Said To Me
[See on Instagram]

What now for London theatre, post-pandemic?
[An insider writes]

A homeless LA man helped build a Daft Punk classic, but has never seen a penny
[Read on LA Times]

Courtney Stodden speaks out
[Read on Daily Beast]

Still Bored?
Our Boris phone number story made Gogglebox…
[One for the CV]