Totally Afflicted To Bass

Ten films in and Guy Ritchie has got lazy blockbuster film-making down to an art.

Not content with a simple director’s chair, Ritchie has treated himself to a director’s winnebago instead. Any set he works on now has to be built in such a way that he can drive the RV straight onto it, plug his own monitors in to watch the on-set action, and then direct everything from the comfort of the vehicle – which he never leaves.

Robert Downey Jnr sounds as if he’s really getting into his part on the set of the new Dr Doolittle movie. Tensions quickly became strained between RDJ and the film’s director, Stephen Gaghan, and it led to something of a breakdown in communication.

So, taking inspiration from his character, Downey Jnr decided that he would no longer speak English to Gaghan, and instead only respond with a series of monkey noises whenever Gaghan addressed him.

No wonder the film’s release has been pushed back to 2020…

Which formerly clean-cut 00s popstar is enjoying the recent attention he’s been getting on the chemsex scene of South London?

Toby Young spent most of December complaining that no-one had invited him to any Christmas parties because of Twitter mobs, but we reckon he’s being unduly modest. He’s surely done most of the groundwork himself?

A few years back, after appearing on a BBC show, he was bundled off in a cab on the Beeb’s account. Not long after he’d arrived home, a furious Young rang the taxi company to inform them that he’d left his phone in their cab and he wanted the driver to come back to his house immediately.

The company explained that, as the driver was no longer on the BBC’s time, he would have to pay for that journey himself – to which he started ranting and raving, saying that it was “fucking outrageous” he be asked to pay.

The cab came back, and he and the driver searched it from top to bottom but found no phone, prompting yet more effing and blinding – this time directed at the driver, who Young appeared to blame for the entire incident.

A short while later, the cab firm took another call: this time from the BBC, who asked if someone would mind coming back to collect Mr Young’s phone and delivering it to his home, as he’d absent-mindedly left it behind in the studio.

For years, everywhere that Ian Wright went he found himself being provided with vodka and cranberry to drink. It made him curse each and every time he opened a fridge in a dressing room because he knew exactly what he was going to find in there and he absolutely hated the stuff.

So how did it come to end up on his rider?

He had tried the drink once at a party, and had hated it then, but his agent (who took that order) assumed it must have been Wrighty’s tipple of choice. So – thinking he was doing his client a service – quietly added vodka and cranberry to his rider.

Wrighty reckons he must have told his agent a thousand times to take it off, but the change never got made.

Between tours, Gary Moore of Thin Lizzy was a very regular customer at the Henley branch of Blockbusters. He used to mainline videos in his downtime, coming in daily to see what else he could watch – but his passion for Blockbusters didn’t just extend to renting movies for himself.

One day, bored of browsing through the same old boxes, he struck up a conversation with the cashier. He asked him how easy it was to work the till and the zapper. Before he knew it, the rock legend had taken over the guy’s shift at the till, proudly greeting punters as they came in, spending a good 15 minutes checking out films and sorting out their change for them.

Michael Gove’s little quip about parliamentary swingers in their mid-50s caught us a bit off-guard this week. As we mentioned back in July, there’s been a persistent Westminster rumour about the Goves hosting some rather specialist parties round theirs – but we had always assumed it was just that. A rumour.

Now we’re not so sure. And given that he is now actively trying to stoke our suspicions, we couldn’t very well let it lie, could we? So we decided to investigate.

Is Michael Gove a secret swinger? We’ve collected our evidence here.

[Read ‘Swing Votes’ on Popbitch]

They say you can take the girl out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take the Yorkshire out of a girl – and Mel B is living, breathing proof of that.

On the set of a TV show that Mel once worked on, production staff were informed by her people that she was on a very strict diet and would only eat steamed seabass, hand-prepared by her personal chef.

Obviously it was too impractical to have this chef fly out to the studio every single week, so the chef trained the on-site canteen cook how to prepare seabass to Ms B’s liking instead.

Only for her to turn up for the first show to announce that she “fooking hated” sea bass, and promptly ordered a runner to pop out and get her some “proper” fish and chips.

Noel Edmonds took to social media this week to record a very pointed message lambasting the Sun for writing a false and misleading story all about how he was depressed by his I’m A Celebrity experience, and is selling his house with an eye to emigrating to New Zealand.

For some reason, Noel’s outburst really got under the skin of some of the journalists there. Not because he was accusing them of lying and being bad at their job. Nor because he branded them “lowlifes” and “disgusting people”.

The thing that really got their goat? Noel angrily attributed the story to The Sun, when it was actually a Sun On Sunday story…

Owing to popular demand, in 2019 we’re going to be taking the Popbitch Popquiz fortnightly.

Every other Tuesday at Smiths Of Smithfield, our host Tom Webb will guide you through a Popbitch-written pub quiz, filled with trivia, music, mucky arts and crafts, puzzles, games and more – with the chance to win bar tabs, tickets to the Soho Theatre and other assorted goodies.

* Tues 22nd January [Book here]
* Tues 5th February [Book here]

If you want advance notice when future dates go on sale, you can sign up to the Popbitch Popquiz insiders list [here].

We’ll also start doing some Friday mini-quizzes on Twitter too, so follow us [@popbitch] and join in from around 1pm tomorrow.

Guess the band from the Sleeperbloke
[Play on monkeon.co.uk]

Local news goes dogging
[See on Kent Live]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, dancing to every song
[Find your favourite]

Interesting read on the company that scans the natural world for use in computer games
[Read on Wired]

Corporate response of the week, regarding people using Lush aubergine bath bombs as dildos
[See on Metro]

We’ve added a bunch of new Popbitch back issues to our archive
[Revisit 2013!]

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