Ephraim Hardcastle
RADIO 1 reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan, 37, speaking on Radio 4’s Today show, alleged sexual ‘harassment’ by a senior colleague ‘more than twice my age’ who told her over dinner, ‘I’m unbelievably sexually attracted to you’. Another senior former corporation boss ‘started sending me lewd messages about his sexual desires,’ she said. Today interviewer Sarah Montague wondered if ‘a pass constituted harassment’. Farcically, Ms Montague then had to read out a statement saying: ‘The BBC press office won’t comment on staff matters. They have robust policies covering grievances, bullying and harassment.’ Did anyone tell Jimmy Savile?
FORMER ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer (@SirSocks) tweets: ‘Let us pray that (Mrs) May’s dash to Brussels tonight is not her road to Canossa.’ Tory MP and Brexiteer Bernard Jenkin takes it upon himself to explain: ‘Canossa (in northern Italy) is where Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV did penance in 1077, standing bear-headed in the snow for three days, to reverse his ex-communication.’ Bear-headed?!
SPEAKING on Irish radio, Sir Richard Branson, pictured at an event for his Virgin Airways, says disrespectful male behaviour towards young women ‘is one of the cruelest things you can imagine,’ calling on, ‘every person to just stand up and stamp it out.’ Irish Times intellectual Fintan O’Toole wonders (rather unfairly, surely) how this squares with Sir Richard’s ‘signature move – grabbing beautiful young women, lifting them off their feet and, in some cases, turning them upside down?’ Discuss!
THE monarch will be in Hyde Park tomorrow to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Her father talked the then government into retaining a traditional unit of horsedrawn artillery. Recently the Ministry of Defence, with far more horses than tanks, sought to axe the troop but were thwarted with the Queen’s support.
PADDINGTON Bear’s dance with the Duchess of Cambridge was a rare event. ‘She won’t risk any comparisons with Diana, whose dance partners included President Ronald Reagan, Neil Diamond, Wayne Sleep and John Travolta,’ alleges my Kensington Palace source.
COMMENTING on new NHS guidelines requiring GPs to ask patients to declare their sexuality, dotty broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, 69, announces: ‘I’m desperate to tell my GP about my sexual orientation, but I can’t get an appointment.’
IN 2002, I reported that Harvey Weinstein had flown two young actresses from America and installed them in hotels here, merely to appear as extras in his film, The Importance of Being Earnest. My conclusion then – ‘Isn’t Mr Weinstein a sweetie to sponsor young talent in this way?’ – might have to be revisited.