“Who’s Got The Lettuce Then?”

Theatregoers at the Old Vic last night were a little surprised to see Bob Geldof slumming it in Row J, watching Live Aid: Just For One Day – the new play about… Bob Geldof.

Bob’s been a regular at the show though and was clearly loving every minute of it, clapping along to all the songs.

Last night his guest was the actor Fisher Stevens. The American tourist who sat in the seat immediately next to Geldof was delighted – and not a little starstruck – to see Hugo off of Succession was his next-but-one neighbour.

But his mind was fully blown when someone quietly explained that the scruffy fella in the tatty coat sat between them was Sir Bob himself.

We hope everything’s OK with Rag’n’Bone Man. He’s got a new single out this week with Calvin Harris – his first in a couple of years – which ought to be a nice little earner for the pair of them.

Looks like the funds will be welcome too as a curious car listing went online recently: an extremely rare Mercedes 500 CES that belonged to Rag is being made available for sale. Because of a cryptically non-specific “change in circumstances”.

[Want it?]

Which Premier League club has a potential scandal brewing behind the scenes? Tabloids have been looking into lurid rumours centred around the bar of a nearby high-end hotel, where a notorious local ‘fixer’ has been procuring barely legal women to entertain a group of footballers. One star’s form already started taking a noticeable dip when his wife got wise to his playing away – but what effect would a full exposé have on team morale?

The last couple of weeks of Gregg Wallace anecdotes have caused a few old Soho chefs to get in touch with their reminiscences.

In the early 90s, Gregg’s grocery company was well known to Soho restaurateurs. Not just for supplying all the standard fruit and veg, but their drivers would also deliver a few other essential sundries too. Notably, a very particular type of salt beloved by many chefs. Jazz salt – a speciality imported from South America.

Chefs would leave money out in a pint pot for the delivery driver to take what was owed for this little extra, and they could then expect to find their supply in a plastic bag tucked under the lettuce.

The lettuce was such a consistent feature that, even now, when old colleagues from those days get together they’ll still ask one another “Who’s got the lettuce then?”

When Holly Willoughby left her management agency a couple of years back (YMU: the firm basically responsible for ITV’s entire light entertainment output) there was some fear among the top brass there that Holly might take everything she’d learned at YMU and use it to become a serious rival. Seems those fears weren’t entirely misplaced.

Dan Baldwin – the TV mogul married to Holly – has already made a packet from a lucrative BBC deal to revamp Gladiators. And now he’s found a way to make even more money from the Saturday night hit: by setting up his own talent agency to represent almost all of the show’s hottest new stars.

At least 12 of the 16 Gladiators have signed up to his new company, Hungry Bear Talent. Which means he doesn’t just get paid for making the show they’re on; he’ll get a cut of all their future earnings too.

We have to admit, it was an inspired bit of skullduggery from Phillip Schofield. Rushing out a televised interview in which you state point blank there’s no NDA of any sort stopping your unwise (but not illegal) lover from coming forward. Then, as that same interview fills the news cycle for the next few days, you pop out and pick one up.

Your truthful-at-the-time statement gets repeated endlessly in the press, while you enjoy the benefits of having bought your young lover’s legally enforceable silence for six figures.

It’s genius, really. It’s just a shame that this has come at such a delicate moment for the lawyer who was representing Schofe throughout this episode. Why, just weeks ago he was trying to maintain that all the misleading he’d done on behalf of Michelle Mone and her husband wasn’t his fault – that his reputation was spotless – only to now get caught up in this shithousery?

Tough break, Jonathan Coad. Tough break.

The big money might have dried up from tabloid exclusives now that the arse has fallen out of the wider media industry – but there’s still ways to squeeze a decent sum out of a newspaper if you’re canny.

In order to protect the source of their big Matt Hancock/Gina Coladangelo exclusive, the Sun holed their secret informant up in a nearby hotel while they typed up the story.

Said informant clearly went hog wild on  room service. Because when the time came to settle their hotel bill, the Sun had to pony up over £12K.

Harry Hill made an appearance at the Bristol Slapstick Festival last weekend to screen his film The Last Caveman and take part in a Q&A afterwards.

The film is a silent rom-com (“knowingly silly but not hugely PC”) about a caveman who takes revenge on his bossy wife, who has left him for another, bigger caveman. The only thing more silent than the film however was the audience watching it, as the biggest laugh of the night was claimed by the first question posed in the Q&A.

“Would you describe this as a feminist movie?”

Ewen MacIntosh will forever be remembered for his performance as Big Keith in The Office, but he also holds a special place in our hearts for this fantastically graphic email he once sent to someone who added him (in the pre-GDPR era) to an email promo list, unbidden.

Ewen wrote:

“Take me off your list, do whatever you have to to do, just stop sending me message after message of inane, pathetic, cuntish insecure, fucking juvenile, Z-List ‘Love-me’ twattery or I will fucking punch you if I ever have the severe misfortune of EVER meeting you again…

“Please take me off ALL of your lists henceforth. If you ever even remotely enjoyed The Office then be ensured that if you ever send me any of this rancid shit again that I will guarantee that any cast members that outlive you will be present 2 days after your funeral to spit on your grave. Thanks. Now fuck the fuck off and leave me alone.”

If you enjoyed last week’s celebrity car scrap art – there’s a whole wealth of riches here
[Scrap Shrek, anyone?]

“Trump’s Last Hours In Office Were Consumed With Fury At Snoop Dogg”
[Read on Rolling Stone]

Ted Lasso’s apartment is up for sale
[Yours for £4.5m]

Headline Of The Week I: “Kilt-Wearing Pervert Caught Shoving Antique Items Up His Bum”
[Mitchell C Vest]

Headline Of The Week II: “El Chapo’s Granddaughter Joins Hunt For Loch Ness Monster While Romping Through Scotland”
[Read on NY Post]

Patsy Palmer’s tribute to Brick Lane’s yellow beigel shop
[A poem on Instagram]