Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec 1/50 Click These Coloured Tabs To Switch Quickly Between Months 2015: Notorious P.I.G. Welcome to the Popbitch Annual 2015. A collection of our favourite stories of the year – both the short, gossipy snippets from the mailout; plus some of the longer articles from Popbitch Magazine. This is a recap of the year you might not remember, but definitely shouldn’t forget... //////////////////////////////////////////////////// Jan/Feb/Mar ..................... 3-11 Diddling to Dimbleby! Dancing shoulders! The return of the Wookie Monster! Timewasting with Professor Hawking! Paedo pop! Beckham’s unfortunate look-a-like – and much, much more... Apr/May/Jun ..................... 12-25 The great UKIP bake sale! Sexy talk with Keith Harris’s old chap! We find the lostprophets! PLUS: internet comments, a good look back at Alanis and some deep milk for Katy Perry! Jul/Aug/Sep ..................... 26-37 David Cameron knobbed a pig. Oct/Nov/Dec ..................... 38-50 Cosplay with Andrew Lloyd Webber! Peanuts at the BBC! A prime minsterial pale ale! Sandra Bullock invades her own privacy! Calvin dishes out lawsuits! PLUS: the return of injunctions! Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec 3/50 Prince Party Hands January It was a fairly grim start to the year, what with the brutal attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris; the deaths of Deirdre Barlow and Demis Roussos; and then Brian Harvey smashing up a platinum disc to make a point about paedophiles. Still, we managed to find a few stories that made us laugh... //////////////////////////////////////////////////// >> Barely Regal << Deirdre Barlow (a.k.a. The Weatherfield “Do you have any Radioheads?” One) on Coronation Street. Prince Andrew kicked off another year filled Anne was a hugely popular castmate on with celebrity scandal and suspected the Corrie set. One of the reasons for such sexual offences. popularity? She could always be relied upon to provide her colleauges with a decent Andrew is known in certain circles as Mr bifta. Tickle (thanks to his wandering ‘party _________________________________ hands’) so it was no real surprise to hear A scene in Caitlin Moran’s sitcom Raised he had found himself in a spot of bother. By Wolves featured a scene where a He wasn’t surprised at the level of press character had a wank to Question Time. attention he received either. Channel 4 had to ask for David Dimbleby’s permission to use a clip. Dimbleby was At a party at Cameron Diaz’s house a few fine about it. years ago, one poor soul ended up talking _________________________________ to the Duke about this and that. Apparently he spent most of the evening complaining >> Sweet Cärolein << about how the UK press liked to build Dancing shoulders people up only to knock them down, saying it had happened not only to him but also 2015 brought us the best Europop tune his favourite band, “The Radioheads”. since Whigfield’s Saturday Night... Dancing _________________________________ Shoulders by Cärolein. It’s got everything. Richard Dawkins’ wife was overheard telling There’s a dance (basically, shaking your someone that she reads his books to him to shoulders to make your “apples” dance); help him sleep. _________________________________ there’s a mad video (a group of people with misshapen mirrorball heads blindly >> RIP Deirdre << staggering about); great lyrics (“I shake my Bye bye, Barlow ass / My ass has friends on Facebook”) and one motherfucker of a catchy tune. Tributes poured in for the late Anne Kirkbride, who was best known for playing Hear it for yourself... Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec 4/50 CD Behaviour Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec 5/50 The Wookie Monster February Madonna got hoiked down the stairs by her cape at the BRITs; John Travolta was creepy as heck with Scarlett Johannson and Idina Menzel at the Oscars; Amanda Holden fired her aide after a fancy dress disaster with her child – and, suddenly, it started to seem like all was well with the world once more. //////////////////////////////////////////////////// >> Tea for Vendetta << the best advice their mates ever gave them. Hair today, gone tomorrow Presumably he doesn’t count his legal team George Osborne made some big enemies in as ‘mates’, as the best advice Justin says he Whitehall this year, but not for the reasons ever got from a mate was to try Lilt. you might think. It’s because of his lack of _________________________________ lunchtime etiquette. “I had a dream that a cat came onto me Not only does George routinely ignore and I had a sexual relationship with a cat. the canteen’s queuing system completely, That was a weird one. Not that I’m into he also has a bad habit of swanning in fiddling with animals or anything.” and stealing up the last plate of any one – Lee Ryan option – meaning that those waiting in _________________________________ the queue miss out. >> Model behaviour << George has done this to one particular A minor stroke of luck individual so often that they’re finding it Nightclubs and members’ bars have really hard to believe it isn’t personal... upped the level of service they provide to _________________________________ their A-list clientele. A few years ago, all they’d offer you was a late license ajd a flat We’ve no idea if the Dogs’ Trust in Basildon surface to snort your gak off. But nowadays? has heard the same showbiz rumours as us, but we enjoyed their decision to call two One high-profile venue really pulled out pups... Paul Spaniels and Doggie McGee. _________________________________ all the stops for one VIP when a star- studded fashion party started going a little >> Justin Case << Pulp Fiction. The combination of an ultra- The wookie monster returns discreet private ambulance service and an expensive PR contract has meant the story Justin Lee Collins made a surprise has been successfully kept out of the press appearance in February’s issue of FHM. Not all year. as a cover star. Not as a profiled celebrity. Just as one of a dozen members of the Unrelated, we hear Kate Moss’s appetite for public interviewed for a voxpop piece about a good night out remains undimmed. Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sep Oct-Dec 6/50 Paedo Popped Rock And Royalties As Britain continues its campaign to collectively airbrush them out of history entirely, it seems that some of pop music’s biggest perverts are still enjoying a huge audience over in America. And one of them is managing to make a pretty penny out of the whole thing too. //////////////////////////////////////////////////// Gary Glitter seems to be a permanent offence charges. fixture in the dock these days, but he can’t get himself arrested on the radio. You This isn’t because sports fans in the States don’t find X Factor contestants essaying a are a bunch of paedo-sympathisers. There’s Glitter Band hit, or Another Rock ‘N’ Roll a more simple explanation. Though they all Christmas played at Costa Coffee over the knew Rock And Roll (Part II), no-one in the holiday season. His only cultural resonance States really knew who Gary Glitter was. for years here in the UK has been as a big He was never a star there. They therefore old perv. didn’t know about his later, less family- friendly career segue. So why would they It’s not quite the same story in America. stop playing this tune? Rock And Roll (Part II) – the Glitter Band’s Sometime after the 2006 underage finest moment – has long been a staple convictions in Vietnam, the NFL did decide song in American sports stadiums. Better to take action. They took steps to stop the known to most as “The Hey Song” after record being used in its matches, but the its refrain (the only obvious word in that individual teams didn’t much like being sparse, largely instrumental setting) told what they could and couldn’t play, so Glitter’s 1972 hit has been used in pretty they got round the NFL’s ban by using a much every sport, all across the country. cover version. A pretty star-studded cover From American football to hockey, via major version too, performed by an alt-rock league baseball and basketball, everyone supergroup comprising members of Hole, loved a bit of Glitter. Even after all the sex Smashing Pumpkins, Blondie, White Flag and The Go-Gos – all perfoming under the Suspicious Minds and Always On My Mind). name Tube Tops 2000. It was a top five hit in the States by BJ Thomas. The original featured an unusual But in 2012 the NFL had had enough. They electric sitar, but not a sign of any Ooga told Super Bowl finalists the New England Chakas at all. Patriots that they couldn’t even play the cover version any more. So where the hell did they come from? Well, for that we have to thank Mr Jonathan King, So Rock and Rock (Part II) was killed off from another of Britain’s big 70s stars who is now the NFL, but it still enjoyed something of a languishing on the Sex Offenders Register. life in other sports. Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, King has just written the second part of for example, don’t have any say over what his memoirs, 70 FFFY, and in it he outlines teams can play in their own arenas. Billboard how he turned the pop song into a novelty reported that, even as recently as last year, masterpiece. the song was generating something in the vicinity of a quarter of a million dollars in “At the time I’d been quite successful reviving royalties for Glitter and his co-writer, Mike great songs that had missed out on the UK Leander.