Undying Digital Love

It’s been years in the post, but it finally happened: the axe has fallen on The X Factor. Hopeful superstars of the future needn’t despair too much though. It hasn’t been the path to One Direction/Little Mix mega-fame for a long, long time.

Take 2017 winners, Rak-Su, for example. Having parted ways with Syco Records within a year of winning (then getting dropped from RCA within months of that) they’re still out there, valiantly plugging away. But their most recent gigs have been a string of secondary school end-of-year parties.

At one of those schools, the pupils had so little idea who Rak-Su were that their performance was preceded by a lesson about the band, at which the kids were played the song they were due to perform later, to make sure that at least some of them recognised it.

During the height of his success/smack use, Pete Doherty was notorious for turning up to gigs late. Now that he’s put the needle down, he’s much more punctual.

Arguably, a bit too punctual.

Pete turned up for his gig at Riverside Newcastle last week eight hours early. The promoter had to babysit him and take him on an afternoon pub crawl to keep him entertained until showtime.

Which former panel show host would start each morning, whenever his show was in production, by asking the same colleague if he could borrow her laptop – then use it to run a Google search for “James Corden”, every single day?

Pandemic life in London is playing havoc with film sets – and not just with constant Covid testing, pinging and shut downs.

Smithfield Market was shut off this month for a hush-hush film set (a production going by the name of “Baby Shower”; thought to be scenes from The Flash). The whole market area was turned into a full US street scene, complete with stars and stripes flags, American cop cars, yellow taxis etc. But the illusion was somewhat ruined when, in the middle of a scene, a local Deliveroo rider biked his way right through the set.

No amount of shouting from the crew could persuade him to stop or go another way. The courier insisted that his need to deliver take-out quickly was more important than their million-dollar film shoot.

The metal world is mourning the loss of Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison this week. Even those who don’t much care for the band had nothing but compliments to offer about him as a musician.

Without question, Joey was the most committed to the Slipknot style. Even when soundchecking for gigs, to an otherwise empty room, he would be the one member of the band who continued to wear his mask. (We’re told it was quite a sight to see them soundcheck, as they made their way through a note-perfect rendition of the Lipps Inc classic, Funky Town.)

It wasn’t just Slipknot he was committed to either. Joey played in many other bands over his career too, including one in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. Whenever he went back home, he’d pick up his sticks and go and play drums with a bunch of 70 year-old local musicians in their swingin’ big band.

grimly_fiendish writes:
“I did a phone interview with one of Slipknot. He was in a hotel room in Portugal. I asked him about the image, the nihilism, the masks and so forth. He defended it seriously and said it wasn’t a part of who they were. Then I asked what all the background noise was and it turned out that he was watching cartoons.”

tarka_the_frotter writes:
“I was interviewing one of Slipknot for an end-of-year retrospective thing one year and he was in the middle of telling me about an invitation he had from an Australian girl to ‘Come to Australia, cut her arm and then fuck the wound’ when I heard maniacal giggling from the next room. Intrigued as to what the rest of the band were up to, I jokingly asked ‘Are they deflowering virgins next door?’ to which he replied – in all seriousness – ‘Oh no, dude. They’re playing dominoes.'”

A weird thing about the Popbitch archive is that, whenever we go trawling it for suitable tributes to the dearly departed, it always seems to throw up a weird old story about Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo too…

anon writes:
“When I was working at Sony, a very strait-laced American woman came to work on our floor. Very quiet, nice corporate bob hair, sensible shoes, quiet as a mouse.

“So imagine our collective horror/hilarity on Valentine’s Day when the lift doors to our floor opened to reveal Nick Beggs dressed as Robocop, clutching a bunch of dodgy red roses. He then stayed in character and bleeped and blooped around the whole floor, robot-style, until he found his girlfriend: the little corporate American.

“She looked like she would have rather been caught being spit-roasted by Slipknot, and he prolonged her torture by doing a robo-dance in front of her before going down on one robo-knee to declare his undying digital love.

“And they say romance is dead!”

Yesterday, sources who had been “briefed on [his] plan” were telling Reuters that Jared Kushner is leaving politics to set up a new investment fund overseas.

Which is funny because, just a few weeks ago, the only thing that sources close to Kushner were discussing was how he and Ivanka had both set their hearts on running for the presidency. But, as the Clintons discovered in the 90s, it’s not really feasible for both of them to go all out for it.

Seems pretty clear who won the role of Bill. And who’s been left to stay home and bake cookies.

While doing promotion for the new Suicide Squad movie, Sylvester Stallone gave an excellent quote to Esquire this week: “On set now, I’ve become something of a father figure to these younger actors. And I enjoy that a great deal. I mean… I don’t really. I just said that because I thought it sounded good.”

Nice to see Sly is still being cautious about taking on any extra paternal responsibilities. Back in his day, he had a reputation among Hollywood groupies for his quick clean-up act after one-night stands for exactly this reason.

Such was his post-coital fear that his hook-ups would pilfer his spunk and somehow use it to land herself a lucrative paternity claim, he’d withdraw immediately after climax, dash the bathroom, flush the condom and scrub himself clean to ensure there wasn’t a single sperm left anywhere that could be put to use.

Chris Lynam wasn’t the only comedian who tried to close out his show by pinching a lit firework between his arse cheeks. Late comedy legend Malcolm Hardee tried it too.

One of Hardee’s more memorable attempts at the routine came about when the two of them were sharing a bill and Lynam had to be rushed to hospital in the middle of the show. Not wanting the audience to miss out on the grand finale, Hardee offered to step into the breach – picking up a firework and pulling down his pants.

Those who saw last week’s clip will have noticed that, before setting the flare alight, Lynam tucks his cock and balls between his legs. Hardee did this too, but didn’t account for the fact that his balls were significantly bigger than Lynam’s. Nor did he appreciate quite what a firm grip Lynam’s buttocks had developed.

As a result, no sooner had he ignited the flare than it began to slip, sparks catching his balls and singeing his arse hair – all while he bounced around the stage, yelping along to the tune of There’s No Business Like Showbusiness as flames shot up his back.

Local News Of The Week: Grave Robbing Badgers Edition
[Read on Chronicle Live]

Death by Public Information Film
[Watch on Twitter]

A game in which you to try to avert WW2 by using therapy
[Play ‘Heal Hitler’]

Primadonna Festival starts tomorrow – with Self Esteem on the line-up
[Tickets/information]

Where do poppers come from?
[Read on BuzzFeed]

Making noiseless props for TV and movies
[See on YouTube]

Furries have taken over VR
[Read on Input]

If you don’t use Spotify, one reader very kindly replicated last week’s Yacht Rock playlist on YouTube
[Listen here]

Still Bored?
Celebrities answering curious questions, inc. Werner Herzog on horse consciousness, Annie Mac on Kylie’s wine and Michael Palin on online supermarket order substitutions…
[Read on The Fence]