HELLO and welcome to Sleb Safari’s College of Further and Higher and Higher Education in partnership with Jackie Wilson.
This week we’re learning about book keeping and budgeting and, as any good teacher would, Sleb Safari has chosen a practical example to help you make sense of the lesson.
Step forward Johnny Depp, actor, ‘musician’ and star of not one, not two and not even three Pirates of the Caribbean films, but six. Count them. It’ll be good practice for the book keeping.
Johnny has been having some difficulty of late with his outgoings and we could all learn from his mistakes. Lesson number one: you don’t want to spend $2 million a month.
As we chat Johnny is suing his financial managers for mismanagement of his earnings and they are countersuing, claiming his financial downfall was of his own doing.
"He has refused to live within his means, despite... repeated warnings about his financial condition," their countersuit claims.
According to court documents Johnny spends $2 million a month.
How is he managing to burn that much in a month, Sleb Safari hears you ask. Has he opened a retirement home for pirates somewhere in the Caribbean? Well no, not quite, but let’s take the pencil from behind our ears, reach for the back of a fag packet and do the sums.
First off, he spends £120,000 every month on personal security. Snap! Sleb Safari doesn’t like to be hassled when it’s out and about either and it’s always nice to have someone to open doors.
On top of that he has a £14.3m yacht, but not a pirate ship, 14 homes and an island in the Bahamas which are valued at £60m and has monthly outgoings of £240,000 to maintain a staff of 40.
Those houses aren’t going to clean themselves.
He also has 12 storage units stuffed full of his art collection and memorabilia. Now we know who was bidding against Nicolas Cage for that dinosaur skeleton.
Other monthly outgoings include a whopping £159,000 on private planes and £24,000 on fine wine “that he had flown to him around the world for his personal consumption”
Quite right, there's no guarantee that your five-star hotel is going to have a Tesco within walking distance.
Sleb Safari’s absolute favourite thing that Johnny blew his money on was a £2.4m custom-built cannon that blasted out the ashes of writer Hunter S Thompson. Now come on, that’s quite the send-off. Sleb Safari would ask the court to hang on to that cannon until it’s time for Sleb Safari’s ashes to be scattered. It’s always wanted to go out with a bang.
The court documents also state that he wasted £3.2m on a failed record label. At least that explains his band.
Students, Sleb Safari hopes this has been a valuable lesson in how not to conduct your affairs. If you are insistent on copying such flagrant displays of wealth please remember that you will need very Depp pockets.
The Jump is back
REJOICE, The Jump is back on our screens. Did you watch it last night? It's a bonkers winter sports reality TV show that sees celebrities stretchered off an Austrian mountain with broken limbs and all sorts.
Among those taking part is Big Brother 2010 winner Josie Gibson who capitalised on her reality TV fame by following the well-trod path of losing a lot of weight and releasing fitness DVDs.
Josie had her concerns about taking part in The Jump (Channel 4, Sundays at 7.30pm. Watch it) but a life changing injury was not her worry.
"I don't like waterslides so I'm imagining that the skeleton and the jump are a bit like that," she said.
"I've got this fear that I am going to be sick in my helmet and it all goes in my eyes."
Sleb Safari had never considered that before but now that it's had some time to think about it it can see that this would indeed be worrisome and on the scale of horrible things that can happen to you on The Jump ranks somewhere between sprained wrist and bruised ribs.
JK Rowling slays trolls
JK ROWLING is always a delight on Twitter with her kindness to those who deserve it and her put downs of trolls.
She's been kept busy of late due to her opposition to new US President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban. She's been getting flak from Trump fans and has handled it with aplomb.
When one person tweeted: "Glad I caught this interview... I will now burn your books and movies too" JK Rowling replied: "Well, the fumes from the DVDs might be toxic and I've still got your money, so by all means borrow my lighter."
High five, JK Rowling.
Social Media Smut
Can't wait to see this film
