Wahu recalls hilarious labour ward encounter Singer Wahu Kagwi has opened up about a memorable yet comical experience during the birth of her first child, Tumiso. In a radio phone call with Bill Miya, Wahu was asked to recall a moment she could never forget in her entire life. Wahu delved into the labor ward recollection that left her both in pain and amusement. The mother of three recounted how her husband, fellow artist Nameless, found himself caught between business negotiations and the pain of childbirth. “I vividly remember when I was giving birth to my first child. I was a new wife, and I was in labor. You guys don’t understand the whole thing. I am in pain, and then my husband, Mr. Mathenge, was there negotiating a deal,” Wahu shared. Amidst the labor pains, Nameless was engrossed in a crucial discussion regarding a business deal with a telecommunications network in Uganda and even contemplating a tour in Tanzania. “I grabbed the phone and threw it down,” Wahu continued, expressing her rage at her husband’s divided attention. Despite the chaos of the moment, Wahu’s husband swiftly collected the phone from under the hospital bed, realizing the gravity of the situation. He promptly informed the person on the other end that his wife was in labor. “He collected the phone under the bed inside the labour ward and told the person he was on the phone with, ‘excuse me, my wife is in labour’. “The other guy asked him, ‘What are you doing on the phone when your wife is in labor?’” Wahu chuckled. Reflecting on the incident, Wahu emphasized her need for support and comfort during the intense experience of childbirth. “All I needed was his support and some rubbing on my back. I was not understanding,” she admitted. However, Wahu noted that such a scenario never recurred, as both she and Nameless navigated the waters of parenthood and marriage together. “He has never done that again and we were all new in parenthood and marriage.” The couple has raising three girls. Also read: Police hunt for woman with gun father allegedly used in murder Wilbroda encourages men interested in dating her to ‘shoot their shot’
Simon Brodkin is blasted by viewers for ‘sick’ Covid joke
Simon Brodkin is blasted by viewers for ‘sick and insensitive’ Covid joke at the Royal Variety Performance: ‘People lost loved ones during the pandemic!’ Simon Brodkin has been blasted by furious viewers after making a ‘sick and insensitive’ Covid joke at the Royal Variety Performance. The comedian has previously been known for attention-grabbing stunts, including throwing money at FIFA President Sepp Blatter during a press conference and handing Theresa May a P45. Opening his set at the prestigious event, Simon quipped that he ‘broke into a lab in Wuhan in 2019’ in reference to the supposed origins of the deadly coronavirus. He told the audience: ‘I am the guy that did all the stunts and people always want to kow if my stunts ever go wrong. Occasionally, late 2019 I broke into this laboratory in Wuhan. Sorry.’ While Simon’s joke earned plenty of laughter from the audience, many viewers watching at home took offence, and slammed the jibe. Simon Brodkin has been blasted by furious viewers after making a ‘sick and insensitive’ Covid joke at the Royal Variety Performance One posted: ‘HOW dare you make a DISGUSTING joke about the pandemic? I will be making a complete Ofcom about this you should be ashamed of yourself.’ ‘The Wuhan joke was very poor taste. Many lost loved ones, or remain poorly – not funny,’ a second added. A third posted: ‘Sorry, but jokes about Covid are in poor taste, we lost a family member to it. I’m a nurse and worked through it too, terrible times.’ ‘Very distasteful and insensitive joke about the Wuhan Labs. Many people lost their lives to Covid!’ one user posted. One shared: ‘Was Simon Brodkin making a joke about Covid?? The joke about him breaking to a laboratory if so that’s not funny that’s sick!!’ Covid spread worldwide in 2020, and has lead to at least 232,000 in the UK alone. Simon’s escapades have landed Britain’s Greatest Prankster in custody, in court and on the receiving end of disturbing death threats, after he handed Theresa May her P45, hijacked Kanye West’s Glastonbury appearance, breached Donald Trump ‘s security, made a holy fool of Simon Cowell and showered former Fifa president Sepp Blatter with banknotes. He previously told Event Magazine: ‘They’re deserving targets. Opening his set at the prestigious event, Simon quipped that he ‘broke into a lab in Wuhan in 2019’ in reference to the supposed origins of the deadly coronavirus While Simon’s joke earned plenty of laughter from the audience, many viewers watching at home took offence, and slammed the jibe ‘It’s a sad day when you’re feeling sorry for these seriously powerful people being made to look a little silly. If they get upset, that’s their problem.’ but Brodkin remains resolute in his mission ‘to make people laugh while unnerving a few so-called untouchables. Getting a chuckle is the reason I do it’. Elsewhere host Bradley Walsh opened the Royal Variety Performance show with an awkward joke about being snubbed for an MBE and OBE at the star-studded show. The show’s host Mr Walsh opened the event with a few jokes, one of which was about him not being included on the King’s honours list. Addressing Prince William, he said: ‘I have worked for your greatnan, your nan, your granddad, your dad, and now I’m working for your Sir and Madam. ‘And I must say – ask me if I’ve got an MBE. Nah, ain’t got one. Ask me if I’ve got an OBE – nah, ain’t got one of them. Ask me if I’ve got a CBE – no!’ He went on to say ‘they’ve probably run out’ of those honours because ‘they give them all to people who row boats’ and ‘people on telly who bake cakes’. Bradley said he ‘entertained troops in the Falklands’ and was ‘happy to make it out alive’ while others got commended for their ‘victoria sponge’ cakes. READ MORE: Royal Variety Performance viewers slam host Bradley Walsh for ‘painfully unfunny’ stand-up routine as he kicks off ITV show with awkward joke about Prince and Princess of Wales He also told an anecdote of meeting his two-year-old grandson, who he ‘promised’ that he would ask Prince William for knighthood so the little boy could use the his grandfather’s title during ‘show-and-tell’ in nursery. Earlier Mr Walsh had greeted the ‘royal highnesses’, with the camera switching to William and Kate as they laughed away. He pretended to stumble over the word ‘highnesses’ several times. ‘It doesn’t sound right, your royal highnessesses? There’s too many ‘ssessess’, innit? Your royal highness… your royal highnessesses?,’ he said. ‘It should be like cactus, cactussess, cacti. Your royal highness, highnessess and highni. That’s it. I’ve got it. Your royal highni.’ Meanwhile Kate and William were seen laughing at the awkward joke. People on X, formerly known as Twitter, branded his opening sketch ‘cringe-worthy’ and ‘boring’. One user said: ‘Bradley Walsh completely embarrassing at the beginning not funny at all begging to be given a cbe obe etc.’ Another added: ‘Bradley Walsh’s just not funny! Cringe-worthy start to show. Think he’s just gone to back of the list #RoyalVariety.’ This notion was echoed by another user who commented: ‘Agreed, normally love Bradley Walsh, but begging for gong is embarrassing.’ ‘Bradley Walsh. Stand-up comedy isn’t for you,’ a third urged. One user also wrote: ‘What a bore Bradley Walsh is.’
‘It was crazy’: Saoirse-Monica Jackson on her whirlwind life after Derry Girls
When the first season of the Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls debuted in 2018, the show’s lead actor Saoirse-Monica Jackson had something of a flip out. Her performance as Erin Quinn, one of four Catholic schoolgirls (and an English fella) living in Derry on the Northern Ireland border in the final throes of the Troubles, was – she now realised – quite out there: full of adolescent facial contortions that dripped with awkwardness, disdain and indignation. Jackson had been inspired by the punk irascibility of her teenage cousin and the animated comic tics of Jim Carrey and Rowan Atkinson. But now she feared that she had blown her big break. “I felt in a perpetual state of fear,” recalls the 30-year-old Jackson now. “It’s crazy: I didn’t think of it as a risk when I was doing it because Lisa [McGee], the writer, instilled such faith in me. I’d basically auditioned and I just thought that Erin was very physical and that the madness of the world and all the characters around her would lend itself to a physical comedy performance.” Jackson, who was playing a teenager, but was actually 24, began to catastrophise. “When it first came out and it was commented on a lot, I felt extremely vulnerable and really anxious,” she goes on. “And felt scared that I would never get cast in anything else again. And I was terrified that I was just… bad.” It turns out that Jackson needn’t have worried. Over three seasons, Derry Girls became the most popular Channel 4 comedy since Father Ted, and broke viewing records in Northern Ireland. When it transferred to Netflix, the show became a global hit. And Jackson has, in fact, worked again, appearing this summer in the $190m DC superhero flick The Flash , alongside Ezra Miller and Ben Affleck. Upcoming, she is in the Paramount+ period thriller The Doll Factory , adapted from Elizabeth Macneal’s 2019 novel about scandal and murder in the Victorian art establishment in the buildup to the 1851 Great Exhibition. There’s also a Netflix series, The Decameron , based on Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century collection of comic short stories. Still, Jackson finds that it gives her courage to remember the insecurity she felt in the early days on Derry Girls . “I was so absorbed in the anxiety of it that I forgot it was working,” she says. “It was obviously working. The show was a big success and people loved it. That was a lesson for me to learn creatively: if you half-arse a big decision, it’s never going to work and really land.” We are meeting at the end of the Observer ’s photoshoot, at a studio in north London. It’s been a long day, but Jackson loves fashion and is down with all the dressing-up. Off-duty, she wears skinny jeans, Adidas shell-toes and a vibrant, brushed-wool Fendi sweater she bought in Rome while filming The Decameron . She’s much more poised than Erin Quinn, but shares her comedic timing. When a dog, belonging to one of the shoot team, becomes a little over-familiar with my trouser leg, Jackson scrunches her face and deadpans, “I feel cheated on now, because he was humping me and I thought I was special.” Derry Girls , the final season of which dropped in spring 2022, remains a touchstone for Jackson and probably always will. She grew up in and around Derry and went to an all-girls Catholic secondary school there, not a million miles from the one in the show. So it was not a surprise that the series resonated deeply with her; what was less expected was that the city has now become a tourist hotspot. “I don’t think anything will ever compare to that experience,” she says. “There will be other jobs where you move to a different country or they financially make you feel more secure or they will probably stretch me more emotionally as an actor. But the sentiment of Derry Girls and the fundamental change it’s made… Well, what can ever be as big as that personally for me? There will never be anything like that.” One moment where it clicked for Jackson came last year when Julian Smith MP, who was secretary of state for Northern Ireland under Boris Johnson, referenced the “brilliant” Derry Girls , which had just concluded, in a debate in the House of Commons. “That was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had,” she says. “He gave this speech where he’s talking about the importance of the Good Friday Agreement and Erin’s monologue [in the final episode]. I did not think that a character I played in a comedy would be talked about in Westminster by one of Boris Johnson’s cronies. I just feel like I’m in an upside-down land! We made a show about girls talking about fingering and having a good time. And now this, it’s just so crazy.” Jackson leaves an extended, almost reverential pause, before adding solemnly, “Obviously Derry Girls is a lot more than fingering.” there wasn’t a great precedent of actors from Derry making it big when she was growing up. Bronagh Gallagher, who was in As Jackson notes, The Commitments and smokes a bong in Pulp Fiction , was the main one. Jackson’s dad, Sean, is from Derry, and her mother, Ruth, is from County Donegal, 20 miles away in the south, and she split her time between the two places. When she was born, Sean was an engineer and Ruth was a chef, but over the years they had “sooo many businesses”: her mother, for example, ran a pub and later became a child psychologist. Jackson, though, was always fixated on one goal, to act, and feels indebted to her parents for not trying to talk her out of it. “Especially now I’m older, I really appreciate the way I was brought up,” she says. “My parents had this belief in me that I didn’t really need to have a Plan B, because, if I had a Plan B, that means I didn’t really believe in Plan A. Which is fucking mental! For some reason, they just had this blind faith that it would be OK. But I had that blind faith, too.” After leaving home at 18, Jackson studied at the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester before moving to London. She did some odd jobs, such as hawking HelloFresh boxes door-to-door, while trying to find an agent. “My dad told me a story about him setting up a business when he was in his early 20s and he was ringing these companies to try and get them to buy whatever he was selling,” she says. “It was the point where I was looking for my first agent and he was like, ‘Remember, you only need one yes.’” Jackson’s intense bluey-green eyes go moist. “It’s making me a wee bit emotional thinking about it, but he said to me, ‘I would get up in the morning every day and I’d sit on the phone all day long and it could be nearly three weeks before someone said yes to me. But it only took one yes.’ And it was so applicable to what I was trying to do in acting: fake it till you make it.” In the aftermath of Derry Girls , Jackson has particularly sought out dramatic and non-comic roles. Landing Patty Spivot in The Flash , however, came totally out of nowhere. “It was this crazy whirlwind that I just couldn’t believe,” she says. “I never thought I’d be auditioning for a superhero film. So I just sent a tape and the director Andy [Muschietti], who’s a lovely little fella, loved it. He didn’t know that I was in Derry Girls or anything. It was just a random tape that he’d seen and he thought, ‘Why don’t we cast her?’ It all felt like a massive fluke.” From Derry Girls , Jackson had become used to TV’s long days, being in every scene. The Flash offered a change of pace and scale. “With these big jobs,” she says, “even when you’re a smaller part and you’re in and out, you’re still contracted for a big amount of time, which is like happy days!” The film shot on the Warner Bros complex in Leavesden, north London, and it was Jackson’s first experience of a studio film lot. “It’s more like a schoolyard outside the trailers,” she says. “It’s summer, it’s London, everybody’s hanging outside the trailers having a craic. And the lovely girl that played Supergirl [Sasha Calle], we got quite friendly, so we’d go over and knock on each other’s trailers after lunch going, ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ It would honestly feel like a school trip sometimes.” Jackson often seems to form strong connections when she’s working. Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Michelle from Derry Girls , is one of her best friends and they speak most days. On The Decameron , it was Zosia Mamet, who played Shoshanna on the HBO comedy Girls . In the series, Jackson plays Misia, a servant to Pampinea (Mamet), but mainly they bonded over their often mispronounced first names. (Famously, Ryan Gosling delivered a primer on how to pronounce Saoirse in 2015, when presenting another acting Saoirse, Ronan, with an award: “It’s Ser-sha, like inertia .”) “Exactly!” screams Jackson. “That actually was my first conversation with Zosia. We both have Scrabble-bag names: just like a hand in the bag and then a couple of vowels and a few letters thrown in and that’ll do you, those sort of names. We had different directors coming in throughout the series and they all gave us a combined name of Zersha or Zosha, which I loved. So we both answered to any pharmaceutical company that it sounded like after that.” The intense bonds that form on set are a big part of what Jackson loves about her job. “On The Decameron , we were basically each other’s family for seven months,” she says, “and acting is the most peculiar profession to speed up any intimacy. On day two, I had my fingers in Zosia’s mouth and she had her fingers in my mouth and… Haha, I’m sure that’s going to be so strange in print! But that’s what the job entails sometimes. And thank God you are a nice person after it, because otherwise it would be, ‘Oh, nightmare! They’ve been into my mouth and I don’t like them!’” I make the dad-joke insight that when Jackson talks about The Decameron , I can’t not picture David Cameron. “I rang my brother because I was elated about the job, it was a part that I really, really wanted,” she replies. “And he was like, ‘That’s really good,’ but he just naturally assumed I was going to be playing David Cameron’s wife. It’s a big leap but fair enough. A job I would happily do as well, if anyone’s reading this.” while in her 20s, Jackson was also particularly determined to land roles where she played her real age. “People are really nice to me and treat me with glass mittens on – that’s not the expression is it? – because they think I’m so young,” she says. “And sometimes people talk down to me because they don’t realise I’m a 30-year-old woman who’s been out on her own for years.” Jackson’s birthday was last month and she’s excited by kicking on with a new decade. “Your 30s always feel like the doing years, don’t they?” After playing a schoolgirl Jackson describes her life as more “chill” these days. She’s been seeing the Scottish DJ and music producer Denis Sulta (real name: Hector Barbour) for three years and they recently bought a place in Liverpool. “He’s from Glasgow and I’m from Derry, so geographically it’s bang in the middle. So it’s fair,” she says, smiling. “And I have a lot of family connections in Liverpool and childhood memories there. And it’s great for a blow-dry, all the beauty treatments are good, so it’s good for a Derry girl like me. Hec travels a lot and I do, too, but the times that we do get at home together are so lovely. The wee Liverpool hideout. The scouse house!” Downtime for Jackson is often spent cooking. She showcased some of these skills on the Great New Year’s Bake Off in 2020 when, as an unfancied outsider – she had never baked before – she destroyed four other Derry Girls cast members to walk off with the ornamental cake stand. “Oh Jesus, baking is a different beast, but my competition wasn’t high with the Derry Girls ,” she says. “The standards were low, so that’s how I won that. My mum actually said she’s never been prouder and I was like, ‘Are you serious? I made a great cake and that’s what you’re proud of?’” We need to wrap up: Jackson has to get the train back to Liverpool. Derry Girls will always stay with her, but her career beyond the show is ratcheting up nicely. In 2021, Jackson met Joanna Lumley in Derry for the BBC travel series, Joanna Lumley’s Britain . Off-camera, the Absolutely Fabulous star asked Jackson how she felt about going up for different parts now and she admitted she was worried she might never escape from being associated with comedy. “And she gave me an amazing piece of advice,” says Jackson, picking up the story. “She was like, ‘You’ll always be a perpetual schoolgirl to some people in their eyes, but being in these comedy shows gives you a real ticket to the world.’ And I didn’t really know what she meant until a year or two later. But people are just so welcoming when they meet you sometimes. Not all the time, obviously. But when they meet me and they’ve watched the show and they associate you with laughter.” Jackson giggles, “They associate you with a joyous moment when they were laughing at you!” The Doll Factory is available to stream on Paramount+ now. The Decameron will be on Netflix in early 2024 Fashion editor Jo Jones; makeup by Amanda Grossman at The Only Agency using Dr Hauschka & Jones Road; hair by Ken O’Rourke C/O Management using Sam McKnight and Babyliss Pro; styling assistant Sam Deaman
45 Wholesome, But Funny Memes That Aren’t At Anyone’s Expense
Welcome to the oasis of giggles in the vast desert of the internet, where the dunes are made of dad jokes and the cacti chuckle in the wind. You’ve clicked on the right link if you’re on the hunt for laughs that don’t punch down, but rather, lift everyone up! Today, we’re serving up a delightful platter of Wholesome, But Funny Memes That Aren’t At Anyone’s Expense. That’s right – no one gets roasted except marshmallows here! In this article, we’re diving into a treasure trove of memes that prove humor can be both heartwarming and side-splitting. From the cat who simply adores its reflection (because self-love is important, folks) to the dog who’s a bit too literal when it comes to ‘fetch,’ these memes are the internet equivalent of a warm hug followed by a gentle tickle. So, buckle up your seatbelt and put on your giggle-glasses, as we embark on a journey through the funniest, most feel-good corners of the meme world, where the only thing that gets hurt is your spleen… from laughing too hard, of course! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. h/t: BoredPanda
James Cleverly facing calls to resign after joke about date rape drug
The home secretary is facing calls to resign after making jokes about spiking his wife’s drink with a date rape drug at a Downing Street reception. James Cleverly apologised for making the remarks just hours after the Home Office announced plans to crack down on spiking – putting drugs into another person’s drink or directly into their body without their knowledge. But campaigners said his comments were likely to be “upsetting and triggering” to victims of spiking and sexual assault, and called for an overhaul of attitudes that normalised “banter” about date rape and coercive control. Cleverly told guests at a Downing Street reception that “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit”, the Sunday Mirror reported. He also laughed that the secret to a long marriage was making sure your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there”. Conversations at Downing Street receptions are usually understood to be off the record but the Sunday Mirror said it broke convention because of Cleverly’s position and the subject. A spokesperson for the home secretary said: “In what was always understood as a private conversation, James, the home secretary, tackling spiking made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke – for which he apologises.” But Cleverly’s remarks have detracted from the government’s messaging on spiking and sparked calls for the home secretary to resign. Jemima Olchawski, the chief executive of leading women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, said the comments were “sickening”. “We know that ‘banter’ is the excuse under which misogyny is allowed to thrive. How can we trust [Cleverly] to seriously address violence against women and girls?” she said. “We deserve better than this from our lawmakers and he should resign.” Alex Davies-Jones, the shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said: “‘It was a joke’ is the most tired excuse in the book and no one is buying it. If the home secretary is serious about tackling spiking, and violence against women and girls, then that requires a full cultural change. The ‘banter’ needs to stop and it has to start at the top.” Police receive an average of 561 reports of spiking a month, with the majority being made by women, typically after incidents in or near bars and nightclubs, according to a Home Office report. Between May 2022 and April 2023, there were 6,732 reports of spiking in England and Wales – including 957 reported incidents of needle spiking. Ministers stopped short of making spiking a specific crime earlier this week, but pledged a variety of measures to tackle the issue, including training door staff to spot potential perpetrators and victims, and investing in research into spiking testing kits to help venues and police quickly detect if someone’s drink has been spiked. Anna Birley, from the group Reclaim These Streets, which campaigns for better safety for women, said that Cleverly should do more than apologise. “Women cannot trust this government to keep them safe while there is a home secretary who thinks sexual assault is funny,” she said. “Women’s safety is no joke, and a government serious about tackling violence against women and girls would have a zero-tolerance approach to misogyny from its frontbench.” She added that by making the remarks and minimising complaints about them the home secretary was contributing to rape culture. “It’s not enough to apologise – James Cleverly should be deeply ashamed and needs to hand in his resignation letter,” she said. The comments were also likely to upset many of the victims that the new policies set out to help, said Katie Russell, CEO and co-founder of Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds. “I think the fact that he felt these comments were appropriate to make, even in the spirit of jest, in such a public and official capacity really reflects how seriously rape culture still has a grip on our society,” she said. “The comments themselves were appalling and could be very upsetting, triggering and retraumatising for anyone who’s experienced drug rape, drugging or sexual violence of any kind – which is very many people.” But Cleverly had also made comments alluding to coercive control, she added. “Again, that is not a topic that anybody should be joking about, certainly not someone representing us as an elected official and a senior member of government.”