Ephraim Hardcastle
RUPERT Everett, 58, tells Radio Times of his unusual admiration for the Queen: ‘What is lovely about the Queen is that you look at her and you can see every single facet of your own life. So you are looking at yourself when you look at her. And that’s lovely. And as she gets older, you get older – it’s like having a dog that doesn’t die.’ I’m not sure I follow him but it sounds charming.
THE BBC declines to say how many employees it sent to Glastonbury. In previous years between 250 and 400 presenters, producers and technicians were dispatched. ‘Glastonbury is a major British cultural event and last year 18.9million people watched some of the BBC’s extensive television coverage,’ says a Beeb spokesman. Maybe they sent so many people they’ve lost count!
DAME Edna Everage’s creator Barry Humphries, 83, pictured, reviews for the Times Literary Supplement a new edition of The Australian National Dictionary, explaining: ‘Female breasts are “norks” or “funbags”, and in days gone by commemorated a famous mail bag robbery of 1863 in the New South Wales town of Mudgee: “She’s got norks on her like a pair of Mudgee mail bags.”’ Indispensable!
RADIO 4 presenter Sarah Montague, 51, rebukes a Today show guest, Jeremy Paxman, 67, for repeatedly interrupting her during a discussion on the lack of water in British streams. ‘Listen to the question, Jeremy!’ snaps colonel’s daughter Montague. The old brute, there as an alleged expert on rivers, complains: ‘It’s a very long question.’ Ms Montague: ‘Just shoosh!’
DAME Moira Gibb’s indictment of exArchbishop of Canterbury George Carey in covering up for paedophile bishop Peter Ball sets the satanic cat loose among the ecclesiastical pigeons. Oddly, Carey’s 2004 memoirs – widely criticised for his indiscretions about his royal duties – contained no reference to either Ball or the subject of abuse. He called his book Know The Truth! Neither Carey nor Ball can be defrocked as there is no mechanism for it in the Church of England. But the Queen could strip the former of his Royal Victorian Order gold chain.
PRINCE Harry’s recent bursts of spilling out his innermost thoughts to the media before dashing off to Africa have caused consternation among courtiers, I hear. The Buck House gang refer to Harry’s Kensington Palace handlers as ‘the kindergarten’. When Charles’s own team became dysfunctional in 2002 the Queen intervened and sent in Sir Michael Peat to sort things out. They hope that when Charles is in charge he will ‘do something’ about the monarchy-rocking younger generation. Alas he has his own far worse problems after the new depiction of himself and Camilla as victims of the late Diana’s alleged capriciousness in Penny Junor’s riveting new book.