A Horny Namaste
#1293
For anyone who didn’t manage to cop one last week, we still have a few special Popbitch 25th birthday commemorative t-shirts.
Sizing range includes tight (cropped style ), tighter (like UK women’s 6-8), as well as standard small, medium and large (unisex/mens - classic Russell Athletic fit).
“Sometimes you just go on a bike and then you just need a big parking lot, an ice cream in your hand for 15 minutes on a bike and then you feel like you're 15 years old” - Thomas Tuchel
* Ms Black If You’re Nasty
* Peston’s Revenge
* PLUS: Ye vs Dua
Stuff amusing us this week - since 2000. Send us tips & trivia, via email, WhatsApp +44 7923 619540 or DM on Instagram.
>> Oh Lindsey <<
The NDAs have expired
In a pretty stacked week of political news, Lindsey Graham’s death on Saturday night might have topped the league of lurid speculation.
In the days after his passing, conjecture grew about who might have called the ambulance in the middle of the night, given that Graham lived alone.
Graham had denied being gay for much of his entire life, at one stage going on Chelsea Handler’s show to shut down online speculation that he was ‘Lady G’, a codename supposedly used for Graham by sex workers in the Washington DC area.
Which makes this particular story all the more surprising.
Erling Haaland says he might have played for England if his dad had stayed in the UK longer. A fascinating butterfly effect whereby Roy Keane potentially cost England the World Cup by denying them another star striker via prematurely destroying Erling’s dad’s career. Very Irish of him.
>> Farewell Tour <<
And a grunge GoFundMe
Legendary all-girl grunge band L7 are on their farewell global tour. After inspiring generations of female musicians, not least for their on stage antics (such as singer Donita Sparks pulling down her knickers live on The Word, and throwing her used tampon into the crowd at the Reading Festival in 1992), you’d think a victory lap would be deserved.
Sadly, reality intervened. Bassist Jennifer Finch has just been diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer and had to quit the tour, leaving the rest of the band dealing with the aftermath.
A GoFundMe was launched to help two days ago, if you’d like to contribute.
At the tender age of 67 Madonna just set the record for the biggest ever TikTok live, with over 2.16m people tuning in for her.
>> Big Question <<
Who’s asking what this week?
Which middle-aged TV personality has become rather more flexible than their public image suggests?
Apparently, our wholesome national treasure has turned a weekly wellness class into something of a revolving audition. The routine is said to be remarkably consistent: identify the newest attractive arrival, become their biggest cheerleader, offer lifts home, exchange increasingly enthusiastic Instagram messages, and eventually suggest “continuing the conversation somewhere quieter”.
One particularly ambitious rendezvous allegedly took place in a detached garden studio while the rest of the household slept just a few metres away. Efficient, if nothing else.
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>> True Romance <<
Never trust a rockstar
Robert Peston had a fun profile in The Times this week, where he discussed his later-in-life turn as lead singer of a rock band and promoted his new book.
Peston also gushed about his new girlfriend in surprising detail:
“‘I met her on the dancefloor at a Christmas party. Her name’s Nell Breyer’. Ever the journalist, he spells out the name. ‘We get on incredibly well. She’s an artist and she also runs something called the Association of Marshall Scholars.’”
All very romantic, and presumably nothing to do with the fact Peston’s ex-girlfriend as of March, Charlotte Edwardes, has also just released her own book earlier this month.
Nominative Determinism of the Week: Head of Press and Public affairs at Catholic charity Church In Need... John Pontifex.
>> Miss Black <<
The People’s Princess, remembered
As we approach the anniversary of the death of Cilla Black, it seems a good time to remember what a lovely person she was to all who encountered her (see Popbitch archives for proof).
It wasn’t just civilians who felt the lash of her tongue, she could bring an arctic chill to any celeb gathering too.
Maria McErlane, the voice of Eurotrash and Caroline Aherne’s successor on The Fast Show, once found herself sitting next to the Blind Date host in the Ivy, at a starry dinner hosted by Charles Saatchi. McErlane started telling an anecdote to the whole table and turned to Cilla to land it, addressing the famously snooty singer by her first name.
Cilla simply fixed her with a laser stare and said, coldly, in front of all:
“It’s Miss Black”.
Get the full Cilla story and a load more excellent anecdotes on the Martin Deeson Unloaded podcast.
[Listen/watch here]
>> Artificial Unintelligence <<
It’s coming for us all
The oft-predicted apocalyptic day when AI will finally replace all journalists seems to get closer and closer.
Marie Claire accidentally left an AI prompt in one of their recent articles, an explainer on The Odyssey.
“This version feels a little tighter and more magazine-style” it helpfully reads.
It was particularly proud of the phrase “embracing his villain era”.
FYI: Take A Break, one of the UK’s most profitable publications, has announced its fiction section will from now on be 100% AI.
An AI film studio announced they will be making a fully AI-generated adaptation of The Odyssey, set for release later this summer.
>> Train Dreams <<
The heatwave madness continues
The temperatures in the UK over the past few weeks have inflamed tempers, derailed train journeys and put travellers in a terrible mood. In the political world, not everyone handles the extreme heat in the same way.
On the same train from London to the West Midlands last week: MP Laurence Turner, trying to show that he understands the ordinary man’s burden of ‘Maximum Working Temperatures’, sweating it out in a standard carriage with broken aircon.
While nearby, soon-to-go DEFRA Minister Mary Creagh was soaking up the last few weeks of glamour in cool, temperature-controlled First Class.
Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey has made a chart comeback at 27, after being adopted by the US World Cup team. It only made number 62 when first released in 1981, but shot up to number 6 in 2010 after being featured on both The Sopranos and Glee. Can it do it again?
>> Spoons Fed <<
Pints on you
Triflemonster writes:
“Ann Widdecombe came to speak to our sixth form politics class. Afterward she rather gamely agreed to come with us to the local Wetherspoons and about half an hour into assuring us that the Tories would abolish tuition fees I (genuinely) accidentally wobbled a tall bar table and upended an entire pint right down the front of her dress. She wasn’t particularly gracious about it, but fair play.
“Years later I was seated opposite her at a dinner. When she saw me she pointed and declared to everyone ’this boy is a halfwit’ and refused to speak to me for the rest of the meal.”
StubHub’s CEO is also the managing partner of a ticket broker that made millions on the platform. The touting firm has since been hit with a customer class-action lawsuit alleging fraud.
>> Kushner vs Kanye <<
The battle for Albania
Could it really be true that Kanye has persuaded embattled Albanian president for life Edi Rama to spend 4 million Euros on unsold stadium seats? DW reports that Albanian civil servants will be doing unpaid overtime at the concert, to their horror.
Still, it’ll be a useful distraction from the many hundreds of hectares Rama has indefinitely leased for €1 to Jared Kushner and other “strategic investors” interested in building resorts, airports and military bases over Albania’s unexploited coast, wetlands and Alpine mountains.
Alistair Campbell thinks he’s a genius. Dua Lipa on the other hand...
Want more Popbitch in your life now that there’s a big World Cup-shaped hole in it? You’re in luck. We’re offering a special deal for new VIP subscribers - you get an extra helping of Popbitch every Monday, plus a free monthly quiz.
>> Hmms <<
Internet bright spots of the week
It turns out Senegal’s team doctor might be a secret gynaecologist
[Which is nothing to do with sports medicine!]
Over 500 newborn babies in Peru have been named after Erling Haaland
[Congratulations to them all]
Nobody knows how to behave at gigs anymore
[The FT investigates]
The foreign office reveals list of the most unusual requests made by Brits abroad
[Some of them are valid]
How Argentina became the 2026 World Cup’s surprise villain
[On Intelligencer]
Labrador rescued from Ben Nevis after becoming “critically ill” from eating suspected cannabis
[The best day of his life]
Why don’t we use elephants to detect bombs?
[Presumably because the police vests don’t fit]
Lily Allen is downsizing her US concert venues
[The stadium dream is over]
An interesting longread on the Dacre dynasty
[From The Guardian]
Thanks to: JC, aglio_olio, JB, Holly, CR, NK, triflemonster.
Old Jokes Home
A bra walks into a bar and asks for a beer.
The bartender says “I can’t serve you, you’re off your tits”.
Still Bored?
Settle old neighbourhood scores by rating every local fete in Britain. [Acceptable NIMBYism]