David Sullivan's Letterboxd
#1288
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“The dance floor is not just a place, it’s a threshold: A ritualistic space where movement replaces language” - Madonna
* Abbey Clancy’s Big Screen
* Ross Kemp is Too Comfy
* PLUS: Horny Graham Greene
Stuff amusing us this week - since 2000. Send us tips & trivia, via email, WhatsApp +44 7923 619540 or DM on Instagram.
>> Vitamin N(D)A <<
Feeling good?
Nowadays it’s all peptides and summers in the south of France, but back when fake tanning was at its peak, celebs loved the streaky stuff just as much as the rest of us.
St Tropez was the apex predator of the self-tanning game, and celebrities could even pop into the brand’s office where they could go to a specially created booth and get a free tan.
Many stars took them up on this freebie, but only one demanded ALL staff sign an NDA about it.
Michael Bublé.
Ross Kemp isn’t happy with the furniture set up in his new production company’s office (previously used by VICE). He keeps calling people up to complain that there are too many sofas.
>> Box Office Diva <<
He’s big, he’s red
With Peter Crouch heading off to the World Cup as a pundit, Abbey Clancy took the rest of the family for a day out to watch The Sheep Detectives at Everyman Cinema, Esher, last Saturday.
It’s not the first time she’s used the car park for staff but, this time, after being blocked in, she made her way to the kitchen and asked a member of staff: “Are you the chef? Can you move your car?”
When this wasn’t done fast enough, she proceeded to enter something of a tantrum in front of the kids, putting Peter Crouch on FaceTime to a manager. But this tactic didn’t go brilliantly as it culminated in the manager being called an “arsehole” and him putting the phone down.
TalkSport has launched its own World Cup lager. It’s called So Good and available in “all O’Neills pubs”. No, please, not all at once!
>> Big Question <<
Who’s asking what this week?
Rumours are circulating about a Reform local politician with very specific tastes. The rumours are dual-pronged - one, that he has been messaging 16-year-olds to meet up, and two, may be running a local gossip page under a curious pseudonym, Graham Greene.
And which ex-footballer claimed that he’d been on a first date with Katie Price on which she’d tromboned him? (He walked into his club’s dressing room the next day and announced it to his team-mates.)
Rowland Rivron is on this week’s episode of Martin Deeson Unloaded, where he explains how he fell into alternative comedy by accident from the drum stool at the Raymond Revuebar and how he dyed his knob green at a BBC Christmas party and got it caught in some lift doors, offending Ronnie Barker in the process. Plus much more, including a urine-soaked encounter with Jeffrey Bernard at the Groucho Club.
[Martin Deeson Unloaded]
>> Gangster Paradise <<
David Sullivan’s Letterboxd
Now that skeletons are being exhumed from David Sullivan’s closet, fresh eyes are being cast over all his pet projects from his past lives and pre-West Ham career.
One of them was an execrable straight-to-VHS movie called The Van Boys. Released in 2000, long-suffering staff at Sullivan’s Sunday Sport have rueful memories of being forced to pump out endless stories promoting the film.
Sullivan was also involved in promoting the similarly doomed Rise of the Krays, which had the unfortunate fate of coming out the same year as the much superior Krays movie Legend, starring Tom Hardy. It also went straight to DVD and sank without a trace - despite a glowing review from the Sport calling it “The Best British Gangster Film of All Time".
When he couldn’t rely on his staff to do promo for him, David also mucked in himself. The Guardian caught him - or someone acting as his proxy - writing glowing reviews for the movie on IMDB... using the not-so-covert user name 'davidsullivanoffice'.
Nominative Determinism of the Week: The Executive Director of All Out, the global movement supporting LGBTQ+ activists, is called Matthew Beard.
>> Short Sighted <<
UnSporting behaviour
The main casualty so far of the David Sullivan investigation has been his old Sunday Sport editor Tony Livesey, whose BBC career finally looks shot.
One of the features from Tony’s tenure which definitely hasn’t aged brilliantly in initial media reports is the Sport’s old Charlotte Church Countdown Clock, where the paper ticked off the last few weeks when the 15-year-old singer was about to turn “legal”.
Our favourite from back in the day, however, hasn’t yet cropped up. It was a competition for readers to “have sex with a dwarf”.
We’re not actually sure if any reader took them up on this, but we do know that at least one of the Sunday Sport journalists did enjoy some personal time with the little model.
Want to win a London Records goodie bag? Just tell us which contemporary artist did Shaznay Lewis say on Hit That Perfect Beat: The London Records Story was just like All Saints? (Clue: “She’s just so reserved and very nonchalant”. Answers to server@popbitch.com and we'll send a prize to two lucky winners.
>> Radio Silence <<
Artificial Unintelligence
Chris Moyles’ maverick Radio 1 breakfast show style inspired a lot of copycats over the years, including one aspect currently enjoying a re-run in Northern Ireland.
Moyles caused controversy for liking to write his own jingles, and then constantly playing them in his shows, generating some nice airtime royalties in the process.
Presenter and content director of Bauer’s Cool FM & Downtown Radio, Stuart Robinson, has been the talk of the stations after releasing a single, “The Old Town” which somehow managed to get playlisted on... Cool FM and Downtown Radio.
The heavy promotion of the tune backfired though, as listeners rushed to complain that the track sounded suspiciously like it was generated by AI. Robinson is adamant he’s done it all himself, but in response to the backlash the song has now been pulled from Spotify, Facebook, Apple Music, Youtube and everywhere else you get your singles/AI slop.
The plot thickens.
Sleb spot of the week? Someone who looked very much like Jeff Goldblum out for a run in Dulwich, rocking a shorts, high cowboy boots combo, complete with gold-rimmed aviators.
>> Pub Ammo <<
Not our Cup of tea
With referees barred, players frisked on arrival and pretty much the whole fanbase of many non-white teams getting refused entry to the States, this isn’t yet looking like a World Cup to remember.
So here’s some fun facts to start the tournament:
Marc Guehi has revealed some worrying news for his England roommates - “I really like 80s music and Lisa Stansfield.”
The only appearance Cole Palmer is making in the US is as one of 16 celeb cameos in the new Madonna video. (He’s been partying with Wayne Lineker in Ibiza instead.)
Paraguay is the country which has the most reported sightings of Adolf Hitler over the years.
A member of the French squad told a journalist he totally believed the old rumour that Brazilian Ronaldo’s collapse before the 1998 World Cup final in Paris was because he was nobbled by the secret services on the order of President Jacques Chirac.
One of the England squad still has his WAG watching happily from the stands - he managed to stop a long-time affair getting out thanks to a £20k pay-off and an NDA.
We’re sad Peru didn’t qualify - look at this beautiful gesture before the friendly with Spain last night.
Spotted together at Cafe OTO in east London: Ben Whishaw and PJ Harvey.
>> Sex Education <<
Substitute teachers
We may finally have uncovered the inspiration behind MP Samantha Niblett’s earnest albeit cringe ‘summer of sex’ campaign. She has a doppelganger, one she’s determined to remind the wider world she kind of, sort of looks like.
She once turned up at a school to do a visit and had an interesting address for the mortified teenagers who had assembled to hear her speak.
“I know what you’re thinking, Gillian Anderson from Sex Education, but no, I’m Samantha Niblett.”
Well, suppose we all have to have role models.
Can’t a celeb get any privacy these days? How unlucky for Lewis Hamilton and Kim Kardashian that their “passionate embrace” on their hotel balcony was captured by pap shots. Especially when those paps were from BackGrid, the agency Kim has on call to make sure all those off-the-cuff moments get on camera.
>> London Calling <<
Put the needle on the record signing
Over the past five weeks listening to the London Records podcast, we learned a lot about how bands get signed.
1. We always thought Siobhan from Bananarama was working for London as The Smurfs’ press officer when the band signed; she was actually on reception. After they got their deal the girls became notorious/respected at the label for their ability to pilfer things for their bedsit.
2. It was Goldie’s dog who persuaded Pete Tong to put pen to paper. The pitbull, Massive, sat on Pete’s office chair staring at the DJ, when Goldie played Timeless. In Tong’s words: “I just knew if I dared look other than really intently listening to the music, the dog was going to bite my hand off, it was going to attack me”.
3. When Flowered Up signed, the band celebrated by carving out a massive F and a U in gak on the boardroom table. Sadly the album bombed, and the label didn’t want to release 13 minute opus Weekender. So the band took it to Heavenly and it became a scene classic.
4. To be fair to London, their execs did say they turned down Peter Andre and Boyzone.
5. Rev Richard Coles bought a speedboat when the Communards signed. Wasn’t expecting that.
Hit That Perfect Beat - five episodes, from 80s to now.
[LISTEN HERE]
>> Hmms <<
Internet bright spots of the week
New York held a 6 7 meet-up last weekend
[Painful]
Ume the cute baby Tapir is off on her travels
[Move over otters]
Heidi Blake’s recounting of the Andrew Tate empire of abuse is extraordinary.
[On The New Yorker]
And the Epstein Files are not done yet
[White House, by NYT]
David Sullivan’s $94 million London mansion is up for sale. (The one he bought from Fast Eddie Davenport for only $34m.)
[In need of some quick cash?]
You can now get a religious exemption from using AI at work
[Hallelujah]
Good nominative determinism in this report about a raven being shot
[Quoth Jed Raven nevermore]
Think the US or UK is a tough place for media? Try starting a magazine in Cuba
[Squeaky bum time]
A Moscow bar just celebrated its birthday with an Angine de Poitrine tribute band
[Angine de Fauxtrine?]
There’s a new UK government AI “Jobcentre in your pocket” chatbot. The Times’ Tom Whipple got it to write a CV. For a parrot
[”Shoulder Based Communications Specialist”]
Thanks to: The Impish Scribe, AW, WJ, AK, mrs homan, G, SW, NT, DP, DH, DS, deep_stoat, CL, MountStNobody.
Old Jokes Home
The bartender says, “we don’t serve time travellers here.”
A time traveller walks into a bar.
Still Bored?
Here’s another longevity calculator, except this one’s for your dog.
[Sorry!]