Ephraim Hardcastle
HAVING only just emerged from selfimposed seclusion, the Duchess of Cornwall will today launch the new aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales but isn’t expected to do any walkabouts. She fared badly in the polls during Diana’s remembrance with some of her correspondence said to be very unpleasant. Staff have been weeding out the more egregious examples. My source says: ‘Camilla has never got over the terror of being caught-up in riots on the way to the 2010 Royal Variety Performance. She and Charles were separated from their security detail, their car was pelted with eggs and after the show they were returned home in the back of a police van.’ ANNOYING Irishman Bob Geldof is the headline speaker at tomorrow’s anti- Brexit People’s March for Europe in London. Also spouting is Melvyn Bragg’s daughter Rev Marie- Elsa Bragg, 51, pictured, who describes herself as Duty Chaplain at Westminster Abbey. How grand! Says my man in the cloisters: ‘She is an occasional volunteer welcoming visitors, praying with those in need and taking part in some services, on £20 subsistence per day. It implies that she has some sort of senior role. She hasn’t.’ WHEN Channel 4’s Jon Snow quizzed John le Carre, 85, in 2010 the spy writer declared it his last ever interview. Last night the old scribbler was preening himself on stage at the Royal Festival Hall chatting to Snow again as he feverishly promoted his latest Smiley opus. He also talked at length to the BBC’s Jim Naughtie, 66, a small consolation for Jim who had his planned BBC2 le Carre documentary cancelled because the writer demanded editorial control. What’s the betting that the ‘publicity shy’ le Carre will be promoting his next book on I’m a Celebrity….? DAME Diana Rigg’s role in ITV drama Victoria, portraying the Duchess of Buccleuch as a demented old crone, has raised historical eyebrows. The real duchess was actually eight years younger than Victoria so would have been in her early 30s when she became the queen’s Mistress of the Robes in the 1840s. Is ITV trying to replicate Downton Abbey’s Maggie Smith’s as the aged Dowager Countess of Grantham? At least Downton writer Julian Fellowes never claimed daft Violet was based on fact. BON vivant and horse racing aficionado Piers Pottinger, 63, co-founder with Tim Bell of the multi-million pound PR outfit currently imploding after accusations of causing ‘racial discord’ in South Africa remains serene in his Singapore office as head of Bell Pottinger’s thriving Asian division. He says: ‘I am fine out here. Damage has been done but we survive. The most fun I have had this week was at the dentist.’ PRINCE Charles, not a noted theatre-goer, took on the patronage of the Old Vic this week. Usually this is the preserve of royal ex-luvvie Prince Edward. A forthcoming Old Vic production is Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide, described in the blurb as a play which ‘unflinchingly explores a dystopian society of repression, insurrection and forbidden love.’ Very far from the home life at Clarence House.