The Truth Of Gossip Sites

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1:27Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. It is even nearer Christmas than the last time we spoke. We'll have a show on Christmas Eve, won't we? There'll be a podcast out on Christmas Eve. Yes, there will. So we won't say Merry Christmas at the end of this. Yeah, on the eve, at midnight on Christmas Eve, not the 23rd to the 24th crossover. The 23rd to the 24th crossover, is that what you call it in your house? I don't know. I was trying to think of what it means, the eve of Christmas. Do say to your kids, Father Christmas will be here on the 24th, 25th crossover.

1:56Yeah, we're heavily data-driven in that way. This is very much why none of your carols have ever taken off. Right. Now, there has been a considerable amount of discourse on the matter of Quality Streets, hasn't there? I've got to say, there's quite a lot of support for me out there. I didn't say the Toffee Penny was the best. I just said that it wasn't a war crime, and I quite like them. lot of stuff so i'm just going to summarize quake savage summarizes quite well fruit creams are evil okay um and there's quite a lot quite a lot starting with richard you're a great guy and rarely put a step wrong on this podcast i don't even need to read the rest of thea butler's reply to say she's on my side on a lot of this stuff i mean i feel attacked yeah for sure but should i tell you the nice thing is because i know i'm right and because i know that history will judge me well.

2:47It's one of those things, actually, the more abuse that gets thrown my way, the stronger it makes me. Which I think is probably how a lot of these alt-right influences begin. historical timeline where, like, the sweet battles, it would be so much better than the actual wars, wouldn't it? Yeah. But if history would be your judge, I mean, will history be able to taste the sweets? Because I think that's where your theory might fall down. If history can taste a strawberry cream. Yeah, well, I think they'll probably still be around. Well, yeah, I mean, by the way, if at this point we're all distilling drinking water from our own urine and living in the catacombs of the earth, a strawberry cream, I agree, is going to taste great if we happen to find one.

3:21But if things stay in a slightly sort of just pre-apocalyptic stage, I actually still think history is going to judge you poorly on the strawberry cream. Yeah, genuinely, I think people will look back at this time in history at a number of things. Firstly, they'll say, wow, you drove huge hunks of metal which were fuelled by oil and you just drove them around your streets. I think that's weird. And they'll also go, well, at Christmas you bought some premium chocolates. Bought some premium chocolates, the word, putting chocolate in there. And one of the main ones didn't have any chocolate on it.

3:54And everyone was like, yeah, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. I think that's a thing. In the same way that they'll look back and go, how was ITV2 plus one different to ITV3? I think they'll look back and say, you ate chocolates which had no chocolate on them. And you had the gall to have a go at your co-host. I think if either of us is on trial, it will be you. That's what I think. See you in the court of history. Anybody at home who hates fruit creams and you've got Quality Street at home, send the strawberry and orange creams to Goldhanger. Oh, my God. I can see our producers thinking, you know that there's going to be, when they get back and they weren't able to open the door because they've just, so many fruit creams have been missing.

4:32Do you know what? That's not my problem. It's Gary Lineker's problem. Yeah. As with so many things in life. shall we get on and answer some questions here's a fun one for you from nor ann you might have to explain what a blind item is after this question nor ann asks how reliable are blind items on de moi or pop bitch have you ever known someone to take them personally okay this is a brilliant question and i have also taken one personally so yes a blind item is one of those things where they can't actually say who it is the story is about because that person might actually These are both gossip sites, celebrity gossip sites.

5:08Celebrity gossip sites, Dunwa, Pop Bitch. And so they'll say, you know, which A-list actor was recently found doing Y with a C-list tradesperson. I don't know what it would be, but it would be something odd. And then they exist to various degrees of coding where sometimes it's really quite easy to work it out. And you'll find that's the one that it's not that libelous. And if it's really hard to work it out, it's because it's very, very libelous. There are always things that people can't stand up stories, meaning they can't prove them. Otherwise, they'd write them as a wonderful scandal story and it'd be on the front of the paper or the front of the website or whatever.

5:43Now, they've got quite an interesting history, blind items. They were supposedly dreamt up by a sort of gilded age American publisher called William Dalton Mann. And he had something called Town Topics. And his ones were all sort of, I actually found some original ones. Oh, great. What Playboy was seen at 3am stealing out of the Newport cottage of which prominent social leader while her husband was in New York? Elf, then. No, but in a nearby paragraph, it said, talked about a faith given by Mrs. John Jacob Astor. And it said, prominent amongst the guests was one of the resort's favourite bachelors, Mr.

6:18Crichton Webb. At which point you're like, oh my goodness. Webbo. Webbo is knocking off Mrs. Astor. Webbo is such a rhyme. You would know. Now, unfortunately, what Mann ended up doing, William Dalton Mann, is that he ended up using it as a form of blackmail. But all the robber barons would pay him money not to be featured in town topics. So it became a bit of a money spinner. But then from then you moved on to things like Confidential magazine, which L.A. Confidential, which we recently discovered was like the top rating film of all time, which is great. and the Danny DeVito character in that is effectively the publisher of Confidential Magazine.

6:58I think they call it Hush Hush, but that's what it is. And now that obsessions of those blind items with things like hidden homosexuality, race mixing, communism, all of those sort of, you know, those kind of scare things of the 50s and 60s, 50s particularly. Then there was Walter Winchell, the notorious gossip person from the Daily Mirror. He used them a lot. But now publicists, if they're any good, know the stories about their clients. So if you see a story, they'll use it as an early warning system. And they'll think, OK, that story is coming out or it's near or, oh, dear, people know about this.

7:31But the good thing about them is you can't really go and say, that's about my client, because then you're sort of confirming it. And there are these sites that nowadays sit beyond libel, as far as I can work out, things like Tattle Life and Twitter, really, where people can say all sorts of things. And the ones that people love are the things about marriage contracts, you know, which stars have they're not really married. They've got a contract, any forms of sort of compulsive lying, people who've totally misrepresented their backgrounds, things like that. But celebrities have done it in songs in a way.

8:02I mean, You're So Vain is one giant blind item. As Warren Beatty told me, it's not about Mick Jagger. Beyonce's one, you know, he only want me when I'm not there. He better call Becky with a good hair. Do you remember? And everyone's like, who is Becky? is this someone Jay-Z is having an affair with. In terms of your question, Noran, about do you know someone who's been affected by them? Well, I was once the subject of a pop bitch sort of blind item or innuendo item declaring that I was having an affair with my editor at the time at The Guardian, which was not true. I remember thinking... So was it a blind item or did it name you?

8:38I think it named me there, but then maybe in private eye they didn't. I can't remember how it worked, but it was. And I remember thinking, what can I do? So I wrote to Private Eye and said, it's not true. Can you correct it? And they said, oh, we don't correct things, but you can write a letter in explaining that it's not true. And I thought, how's that going to come across? Like, dear Private Eye, I'm not having an affair with my boss, Love Marine. I thought this would add insult to injury, so I just had to leave it. But I tried to counter it, this pop bitch one. By having an affair with him?

9:10No, by not actually. by sitting on a really dreary media panel that I thought, oh, The Guardian was running some media panel about something. I can't even remember what it was about, but I saw that the editor of Pop Bitch was going to be on it. And I went and I sat through the whole media panel just so that I could say when she said something about it, shoehorn in some very sort of crass way of saying, ha, what? Like my non-affair with my boss. Because then I thought people would report it and the news would be disseminated that way. But I thought it was really like, oh, this is really not very helpful to me.

9:40So they're definitely not always true. um they're sometimes true as always it's things that they cannot prove sometimes people say oh everyone knows that so-and-so's got a marriage contract and so yeah they're the most fun in lots of ways because they're the most outlandish stories often the things you can prove are rather more boring but they've been with us a long time and they will continue to be with us and especially now obviously the internet just powered all this stuff but you are still publishing things if you're on the internet but i have to say the burden of proof and identification is less onerous than it on a traditional publisher.

10:13There we go. It's the long answer to that one. It's a very gossipy industry. It does run on gossip, most of which you can't repeat. People always say, oh, why don't you say X, Y, Z? Do you think, well, normally it'd be something that has to go to court, and it's not really your place to say. I don't want to go down the strand for that. I think in the poppits, there's a particularly unpleasant witch TV chef thing this week, and you just say, oh, maybe, I don't know. I mean, people in the business read it. and people in the business obviously contribute things to it as well. Richard, here's one for you about Junior Taskmaster from Ruthie Doherty.

10:47We're watching Junior Taskmaster at the moment, says Ruthie, and enjoying it. However, it made me wonder if on shows like this with a competitive element for kids, does the team have any trouble dealing with the helicopter parents? Just curious, as I often hear from teachers and other people working with children, that managing the parents is the worst bit. Yeah, my mum was a primary school teacher for many years, I think, yeah, the moment the kids are dropped off, the job becomes easier. Junior Taskmaster, which is a delight, I think, Rose Matafeo and Mike Wozniak, and they've got four kids and they do various things.

11:21It's not as competitive as the adult one. Of course, one of the things with kids is you have to take some of the competitiveness out of it. The lovely thing on Taskmaster is you've got the ridiculous prize kind of task anyway, so you're not really playing for anything other than glory. So one of the things with kids is you do have to decompetitive-ize it a bit. People often ask if we do Pointless for kids, and I just think it's that thing of it's actually quite stressful doing something with kids. I think Taskmaster can get away with it because it's so silly and funny and kids like using their imagination.

11:52And the show that I did, which is Child Genius, again, it is the idea that they are children. That was the point of the show with that one. But by and large, unless it's a kids' game show, you wouldn't do stuff with kids for the reason that it can be quite stressful being on television. And if you're old enough to look after yourself, then that's okay. And it's your choice. But with children, it can be quite stressful. And I guess their parents are on set. Exactly. At all times. So Child Genius, the parents were there all the time. The thing with Child Genius is interesting. And in the end, I stopped doing it.

12:24I liked, the kids were amazing on that show. the kids were just so great and they were smart and what what have you and also also by the way almost all the parents were great as well and most of the parents are just sitting there going what on earth have I got on my hands here with this kid and some of the kids were super competitive and the parents were also competitive it's just one of those just normal relationships and I like I liked being able to hang out with all of them seeing all those different dynamics but then that show was edited in such a way to make the parents look like helicopter parents I caught an edit of won and this guy who's a lovely guy and his his son who was one of the winners the two of them when they were together enjoyed the competitive nature of it so much you could just see it they were just like you know a father and son at football they were enjoying it and watching the edit it made the dad look like he was he was a proper kind of no you must do this you must do that it's important and i just thought this that's not what i saw so i would say if you've got kids on set they are unbelievably well looked after they are chaperoned at all times there are recording breaks at all times um the parents will be there but i think it's one of those things that parents in a television studio and kids in a television show it feels slightly different to normal reality so however they are like at home if they are helicopter parents or whatever in a tv studio genuinely the and the atmosphere is very very supportive and the atmosphere is an awful lot of fun so i don't think that the parents are the problem when you have a kid's tv show i think just so long as the show is made with a bit of glee and a bit of joy and so long as the kids are properly treated then everyone feels like they've had a day full of a bit of magic i think but junior taskmaster if you've not uh seen it i would uh i would genuinely recommend again it's so ridiculous and so silly in the best possible way holly douglas asked about we talked about british accents and American actors and American actors and British accents.

14:13The one thing we didn't cover was best American accents by British people. And worst. And by the way, last week I talked about the incredible British accents of the American actors in Spinal Tap, and I said Hank Azaria instead of Harry Shearer. Oh. They're both Simpsons. They're both Simpsons, yes. It was Harry Shearer. Synaptic misconnection. Yeah, apologies. Okay, worst American accents by Brit. This is, okay, number three, Emma Watson in anything. sorry oh no oh oh gosh okay and then equal at number two i'm gonna have to put sorry yeah yes so have you got a number one as well okay yeah you're right in which case emma watson's number four okay so she's not emma watson and anything so you're doing the top four okay we're doing the top four it's only because you said you were doing the top three equal at two i this was some Neither of these will be popular, but I'm not here to win friends.

15:11Is Ray Winston's in The Departed. Oh, my God. And I have to say, sorry, everyone. Dominic West in The Wire is in the affair is good. But in The Wire, that Baltimore is. Oh, I didn't mind it because I didn't know who he was at that point. And also, you probably don't know the Baltimore accent. You will hear if people from Baltimore will tell you this. OK. Yeah. And at number one, the indisputable, again, I'm not here to win friends. It's Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc in any of the Knives Out mysteries. What the hell is happening there? I've read some interviews with other actors, actually, where they say things like, when he first did it in the rehearsal room, I think we all thought that we were seeing something quite...

15:52And the words are things like special, unusual. I don't know. I feel like they're euphemisms. And having seen it, yes, I'm sorry. Also in Tomb Raider. That's not another triumphant accent by a hit. I don't mind it. I don't mind it that Knives Out. It feels like a choice for sure. But that's a, you know. To do a bad accent. Okay, cool. What an unusual accent. My big issue with Knives Out. People from the South are unusual, aren't they, Richard? Yeah. I mean, I think if you, you know. How do you mean to say you think it's a Southern accent? Oh, I mean, I'm afraid to say that it is supposed to be a Southern accent.

16:23I think it's Louisiana, isn't it? How can you tell that if it's that bad? That's the trap I'm luring you into. You're not going to lure me into your trap. It feels like I have. He's playing a person from a supposedly very specific time and place. It is a franchise, by the way. It's huge, that Knives Out franchise. It had the absolutely unforgivable thing the second episode of it, of right towards the end, just saying, oh, by the way, she's got an identical twin, which you cannot do in Murder Mysteries. But that aside, it's a huge deal. Oh, I know. Very happy to devote a full main show item to it when the third one comes out.

16:59let's move on to the best accents by brits and these are hard because there's some really good you've said it's just what's we're having to do for they're all really good these matthew mcfadden in succession is brilliant really good yeah he's english is he it turns out he's english um idris alba brilliant in the in the wire christian bale is fantastic in american cycle hugh lorry i don't think they even knew when they were when he was auditioning that he wasn't American. Yes, they were like where it's in-house. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. So those are the good ones. But do Americans think they're good?

17:31I'd like to hear what Americans think. Yes, Americans genuinely think those are good. They genuinely think the early ones I mentioned are bad. And they're right. Yeah. Americans are right about everything, but they're particularly right about this. They're right about it. Americans are right about everything. That's a historically interesting thing to say. I mean, that's a real toffee penny. Again, might do it as a main item on the main podcast at some point. Now. Should we listen to a couple of adverts? Let's please. eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBCLIS.

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19:58Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back. Richard, I've got a question for you about samples and covers. Matthew Smith says, what is the difference in money between someone sampling your song and someone covering your song? And do you have any control over it? It's such a good question. and it all comes down to this two different rights that a songwriter would have in the song. It has the master rights and that is the actual tapes of the recordings. That's when Taylor Swift recorded everything so she had her own masters. So you have that right which is the thing you take a sample from and then you have the publishing copyright which is the song itself, lyrics and what have you and if you wanted a cover version that's essentially what you're doing.

20:41So if you sample, you are taking something from that master recording so like a tribe called Quest, Can You Kick It? they took Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed so they are physically taking it from the master recording and in that situation, yes, you have to get permission you have to do a deal, you have to sign over some of the rights to that song you'll be paying money to that artist so it can be very, very lucrative for the original artist or for whoever owns that master copyright which isn't always the artist if you want to do a cover version You don't need permission from anyone. Absolutely do exactly what you want.

21:17The artist will get publishing rights every time it's recorded or played or what have you. But you can do that. If you want to change the lyrics, you then have to ask permission. If you want to subtly alter it, you do. But the master right is the key, and sampling is the way you make your most money. Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music, Jay-Z and Kanye used a riff of his on No Church in the Wild. This is a thing from the late 70s that he'd done just a little riff. He didn't even know they were taking it. They used that riff. And he says his autobiography has just come out. My brother has worked with him many, many times and can back up this story.

21:54He said, I made more money from that sample than I made from my entire 40-year career in Roxy Music. Wow. So if you want to know whether samples are lucrative, they absolutely are. The Rolling Stones made a lot of money from Bittersweet Symphony, from the Vir... Just that little hook. Yeah. Well, not more money than they made in the Rolling Stones, however, because they made... I think in their 40 years in the Rolling Stones, they also made quite a lot of money. But if you can be sampled, it can be a real career changer for an awful lot of people. Look at Dido on Stan. You know, it can be immensely lucrative because suddenly you've got joint songwriting credits on one of the biggest songs in the world.

22:38and there's plenty of money in that still. And thanks to Jamie Emsall, by the way, the CEO of Communion Music, who took us through all sorts of copyright stuff as well to tell us about it. But yeah, the master right, that's the key. If you're taking actual something from the original recording, then you're going to pay. And the artists can say no. Lots of Madonna, ABBA, they famously say no to almost everything, but with the occasional exception. Marina, Chris Smith. Any relation to Matthew Smith, our previous questioner? It's not Quillair, is it? I'm told it's a relatively common surname, but I'll defer to you.

23:12Just listen. I'm just saying it's not impossible. That's all I'm saying. He asks this. People always say, that wasn't on my bingo card. What is on your 2025 bingo card? What's going to happen in 2025? Chris is asking. I always write the words Richard Branson on. Don't know in what format it'll come out. But I always feel like one day my numbers come up. There'll be something. Oh, something will come up. we talked actually a little bit in the Royal Albert Hall show and I must say that I Martha from Baby Reindeer to become a multi-millionaire because I think even though she's asking for 170 million from Netflix she's not going to get it but she's going to get a lot an awful lot so yeah which you know arguably would make an interesting show in itself Martha becomes a millionaire but I think we know it'll be another difficult year for men in television yes Richard for sure definitely these are the bankers don't say Richard like that just write it down every I don't mean it like that don't tweet Richard these are the bankers you just write that one down I mean there are people who you think oh there's a lot of stories about that person doing the rounds there's someone actually who had a very very phenomenally successful year who I slightly think if they carry on being more successful lots of stories about him are going to come out what else oh I'll tell you what in happy news I'm hoping that we'll see finally see a wedding between Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos oh that would be nice and I think it'll be very low key Yeah, I would have thought so.

24:34I don't think they'll splash out much. Registry office, reception above the pub. Yeah, something just, you know, that's what they're like. They keep it simple. Lots of AI upheavals. We'll keep talking about those. I actually think there are all sorts of big upheavals in news because of Trump and the Trump administration. And I think people in America, I think it will be not a good time for news. I think people will either try and hive off their news services. I think there'll be a crisis in reporting in various different ways because I think lots of the very big entertainment companies who also have news as part of their business are going to either try and get rid of it or downplay it or even editorially lean on it in order to get what they want at mergers and acquisitions level from Trump.

25:14So I think those sort of things are... I mean, I could go on forever, but those are some of the things on my bingo card and I expect to be putting across on all of them. Okay, I think that Noel Edmonds' ITV documentary will somehow end in acrimony. That's pretty much the only thing I have. That's pretty much the only thing I'm absolutely so sorry. When is it coming? I'm dying for it. Oh, yes, I don't know. We need to find that out. It's on its way, isn't it? A three-parter. Yeah, I can match that part for part, no question. Yeah, and Martin Lewis to be Prime Minister. That's all I've got on my...