2 1GT Friday October 16 2020 | the times
times
9
Do you remember how
in 2016 the pop star Ed
Sheeran received a facial
wound? And how it
was rumoured, but not
confirmed, that it had
occurred when Sheeran
was “partying” with
Princess Beatrice at
Windsor Castle, “some
drinks” had been imbibed,
and the princess decided
to “knight” fellow
partygoer James Blunt,
using a huge ceremonial
sword — only to slip, and
essentially invent the Ed
Sheeran Face Bacon Slicer?
Well, it seems that this story
has finally been verified. In an
interview this month, Sheeran’s
manager, Stuart Camp, spoke
of the incident. “We’ve never
publicly commented on it,” he
said. “But certain people said, ‘Oh,
you should lie, and say it wasn’t her,
and say it was someone else.’ I said,
UP
Princess
Beatrice
A new study,
published in Scientific
Reports, suggests that
dogs, too, have midlife crises.
“After the age of three —
mid-life for a dog — novelty-
seeking declines, and excitement
and enjoyment in new situations
dwindles,” the report found.
I suggest we call this phase...
“the meno-paws”. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to my joke.‘We’re not telling anyone anything.
I’m not lying just because someone’s a
f***ing idiot.’ Because they’re thinking,
‘Yeah, I will get paralytic and take a
sword off the wall.’ They’re just asking
for trouble. You know what? We’ve not
heard hide nor hair from her since.”
While glad that this rock mystery
has been cleared up, I do hope people
at Buckingham Palace are taking
notes. It’s almost certain that at some
point Sheeran will be knighted for his
billion-dollar contribution to the arts.
When he is, I hope the Queen takes
the opportunity to have a little royal
lol — for, with a feigned little stumble
with the sword, a vial of fake blood
and the cry “Oh no, it’s happened
again!” she could have a moment that
challenges “Pretending to jump out of
a helicopter during the 2012 Olympics
opening ceremony” as the Queen’s
Most ROFL Moment.
One visual gag
per decade of
reign seems
like a good
gag-rate
for a
monarch.Happy news: Kelly Rowland, formerly
of Destiny’s Child, has announced that
she’s expecting her second child.
Given that her former bandmate
Beyoncé already has three (Blue Ivy,
Sir and Rumi), it’s time to discuss how
we should refer to Destiny’s Child’s
children collectively. For if Rowland
and Beyoncé were Destiny’s Children,
then, surely, their children are...
Destiny’s Grandchildren. With DNA
being what it is, the chances are that
they will go on to follow in their
mothers’ footsteps and one day
form a band with that very name.
I suggest that they take the theme
seriously and perform in carefully
hand-knitted cardigans and bobble
hats, worn with beautiful party dresses
bought in the sale from Marks &
Spencer with the price on the price-tag
lovingly scribbled out by Grandma —
but with the receipt in the carrier bag,
“just in case”. When they sing, half-
chewed Haribo would fall out of their
mouths — all provided from Nanna’s
handbag with a hissed “Don’t tell
your mom. Treats are our secret!”;
and, on tour, they would be allowed
to stay up way past their bedtime,
leaving Destiny’s Children to deal
with Destiny’s cranky Grandchildren
the next morning, while Destiny’s
Grandma says with a sigh, “You’re too
strict with them,” before buggering
off to play golf with her mates.To the permanently sour
publication The National
Enquirer, which this week
was being peevish about
an incident in the life of
Catherine Zeta-Jones.
“The Oscar-winning
Chicago actress lets other
women wear her $1 million
engagement ring!” it began.
“When Catherine was starring
on Broadway in A Little Night
Music, she’d urge cast members
to wear her engagement ring on
stage. What woman,” it scolded,
“lets other women wear her ring?”
Er — quick history lesson here.
When Richard Burton and Elizabeth
Taylor visited Wales in May 1968
it was the day after Burton had
bought Taylor the Krupp Diamond
ring. According to the documentary
Elizabeth Taylor: Auction of a
Lifetime, Taylor and Burton went
to a “seedy beer-hall, with sawdust
on the floor”, where they plonked
a chair in the middle of the room.
Elizabeth “sat like a queen” — and
let every woman in the room try on
the ring while Burton bought the
village round after round.
So in answer to the
Enquirer’s question of
“What woman lets other
women wear her ring?”, the
answer is: the best kind.Love, as we
know, moves
in mysterious
ways. This
week,
Brooklyn
Beckham
revealed
that he has
acquired a
tattoo in honour of his
fiancée, Nicola Peltz. On his
neck he has had a picture
of her left eye, staring out
over the top of his T-shirt.
One can only presume that
this was done so that, as he
leaves the house, Peltz can
say, ominously, “I’ve got my
eye on you,” then point at
the eye and laugh. Setting up
a rolling gag like this bodes
well for the couple’s future.
Over the years, 90 per cent of your
interactions as a couple become
“repeating old in-jokes by way of
making ‘a comforting noise’ in lieu
of any actual conversation”.
One day, the couple can double
down on this original gag with the
tattooed addition of Peltz’s nose —
allowing her to point and say, “Eye
nose. Eye nose,” as Beckham tells
an old anecdote for the 90th time.Caitlin
Moran
Celebrity Watch
The pop perennial
Cliff Richard
was asked by
Hello! how he
had found the
Covid-19 lockdown.
“I learnt to mop floors,
work the dishwasher and
I duetted with Gary
Barlow,” Richard replied.
So it was as terrible
for him as it was for
the rest of us, then.UP
Catherine
Zeta-Jones
UP
Brooklyn
Beckham
UP
Kelly Rowland
DOWN
Boris Johnson
DOWN
Dogs
UP
Quote of
the Week
Having failed in almost
every aspect of “being
prime minister” — from
spending £12 billion on
a track-and-trace system
that isn’t working to
screwing the exams results
and tanking the economy
— it seems that Boris
Johnson is also failing
at the one thing
people were confident he
would always manage: being
a cheekily hilarious guy.
During a Zoom meeting
with the 1922 Committee,
reported on bloomberg.com,
Johnson “made multiple jokes that
landed badly with his audience”,
including that a Christmas lockdown
would mean that families could avoid
seeing their in-laws. The shadow
policing minister Sarah Jones said:
“We all have a sense of humour, but
that really isn’t funny right now.”
Johnson should be made aware that
his “relatable” humour is... quite niche.
With an unconfirmed number of
children with an unconfirmed number
of partners, he has, theoretically, more
than four sets of present and former
in-laws and therefore possibly
overestimates how difficult most of
us find dealing with ours.
It’s hard to rock a “man
of the people” shtick
when your backstory
is a bit... Henry VIII.w
Controversial fish news: an angler,
Wayne Mansford, has caught
Britain’s biggest carp (75lb 2oz), but
has not claimed the record. Why?
He’s worried “traditionalist” anglers
wouldn’t accept the “imported” fish.
Mirror carp are not native to the
Cambridgeshire lake he caught it in.
As the Daily Mail sombrely
reported, “This follows the fishy
story of angler Tom Doherty who in
2016 received death threats for trying
to claim the record for a 70lb mirror
carp — imported from Israel.”
“It could be a British record, but
I just don’t know whether I want to
go through all the controversy,”
Mansford told the Mail. “People get
very angry about imported fish...
a lot of it is probably just jealousy.”
Is there a more 2020 story than
“Immigrant Fishgate”? To deny
a new national record under the
pretext of “establishing reasonable
trout”? I guess it comes under the
category of “hake news”. This is,
sadly, not an eelgood story.
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Fish
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