hum

In 2009, our favourite C4 commissioning editor was using the word “Obama” as an adjective (”That’s so Obama” / “We’re looking for something a bit more Obama at the moment”). Earlier this year he was taking people to the park and forcing them to pitch their ideas before they reached the duck pond.

Now he’s back and his latest method of articulating himself involves talking dirty. He was heard saying in response to an edit put in front of him: “It’s good, but it’s not fucking me. At the moment it’s just flashing me a bit of pube. I want it to bend me over and fuck me.”

FYI We hear there’s an even more eccentric chap at the BBC. That can’t be true, can it? Email stories to hello@popbitch.com

Power, here, failed the deep imagining: but already my desire and will were rolled, like a wheel that is turned, equally, by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.

Dante

Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W. Pen and I did dig another, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things.

Samuel Pepys

The sound experience which I prefer to all others is the experience of silence.

John Cage

The restaurant started life as an unlicensed cafe selling Italian food in 1916. It was set up by Abel Giandellini, who hired Mario Gallati as maitre d’ – Gallati was instrumental in transforming it into The Ivy. The name itself originated from a chance remark by actor Alice Delysia, who overheard Giandellini apologise to a customer for the inconvenience caused by building works. When he said that it was because of his intention to create a restaurant of the highest class, she interjected “Don’t worry – we will always come and see you. ‘We will cling together like the ivy’,” a line from a popular song.

Matthew Fort

I’m a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

J. D. Salinger

A police marksman known only as Officer AZ8 is being investigated over claims he deliberately inserted song titles into his testimony at the inquest into the fatal shooting of barrister Mark Saunders.

Metro

Thus began the Battle of the Dudes, in which each sought to eclipse the other in sartorial extremes. According to the Times, Wall finally won when, during the Great Blizzard of 1888, he strode into the Hoffman House bar clad in gleaming boots of black patent leather that went to his hips.

Wall won another contest in Saratoga when daredevil financier John “Bet-A-Million” Gates wagered that he could not wear 40 changes of clothes between breakfast and dinner. On the appointed day, Wall repeatedly appeared at the racetrack in one flashy ensemble after another until, exhausted but victorious, he at last entered the ballroom of the United States Hotel in faultless evening attire to wild applause.

William Bryk