Ephraim Hardcastle

COURTIERS now fret over how princess-inwaiting Meghan Markle should describe herself on her marriage certificate. Actress? Campaigner? Public speaker? Happily, royal marriage certificates do not have to be published – an exemption under the Marriage Act 1949. This is why we don’t know how Kate Middleton described herself when she married Prince William. On her children’s christening certificates, she is Princess of the United Kingdom, but she wasn’t that on her wedding day. THE Duke of Kent is expected to attend a masonic dinner at the Garrick Club tonight. He’s been the Most Worshipful Grand Master of Freemasonry in England since 1967. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of a lodge at Buckingham Palace. The Mulberry Lodge was to be the Royal Household Lodge but the Queen blocked that, as well as the use of part of the royal coat of arms in their logo. NO-NONSENSE interviewer Andrew Neil tears a strip off lightweight trade minister and former Remain supporter Greg Hands, 52, when the latter is vague about Government Brexit negotiations. ‘Do you know what you’re talking about? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?’ Neil snaps. A flustered Hands waffles: ‘I’m the trade minister.’ Prompting Neil to fire back: ‘That’s what worries me.’ WHILE touring US breakfast TV studios to promote their new film The Leisure Seeker, Dame Helen Mirren, 72, pictured, and her co-star Donald Sutherland, 82, were discussing sleeping problems, according to The New Yorker magazine. When the actor revealed that he battled to get his head down, Dame Helen advised: ‘Marijuana, darling – that should help.’ APROPOS women’s suffrage, the first woman to be elected an MP wasn’t Nancy Astor in 1919, although she was the first to take her seat. Constance Gore-Booth, known as Countess Markievicz, was elected in 1918 as a Sinn Fein MP but refused to take her seat. Presented as a debutante to Queen Victoria in 1887, she later embraced Irish nationalism and in 1916 she was ordered to be shot by firing squad for killing a policeman during the Easter Rising. After the sentence was commuted ‘solely on account of her sex’, she protested: ‘I do wish you lot had the decency to shoot me.’ IT WAS all sweetness and light when Clint Eastwood, 87, posed at his latest LA premiere with six of his children including film actor son Scott, 31. Clint was initially reluctant to acknowledge he was Scott’s father after the boy’s birth in 1986. The result of a fling with mistress Jacelyn Reeves – who Clint secretly romanced while the partner of actress Sondra Locke – young Scott’s birth certificate stated: ‘Father declined.’