Ephraim Hardcastle
THE Queen’s initial reluctance to send a message to the moon with Apollo 11 might be linked to Prince Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales just weeks before. Palace watchers speculate that HM feared the gesture – described by her advisers as a gimmick – would take the limelight away from her son’s historic coming of age. And Prince Philip wasn’t a space enthusiast either. On a Salford walkabout, a teenager told him he wanted to be a space explorer. Philip replied, sweetly: ‘You’re too fat to be an astronaut.’
WILL there be weeping in the hallowed halls of the aristocracy at the cessation of Debrett’s Peerage? After 250 years and 150 editions, the posh person’s bible is going digital and offering readers a 10 per cent discount on the £450 price of the final print edition. Form an orderly queue, your grace!
DEPARTING PM Theresa May is tipped to recommend the entire England cricket squad for honours. This will nettle England’s women’s squad, who won the World Cup – for the fourth time – in 2017. Their reward? Sharing just one OBE and two MBEs. If Theresa opens the gong drawer for the men, her imminent departure from Downing Street will be greeted by a jumbo raspberry from the sisterhood.
AMERICA’S Reluctant Prince, a new biography of JFK’s son John F Kennedy Jr, claims Princess Diana sought parenting advice from him, wanting to nurture William and Harry in the same way Jackie Onassis raised him and sister Caroline adding: ‘She asked if John would meet with her boys.’ Poignantly, she died shortly afterwards – and John Junior perished in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard 20 years ago this week.
LEWDNESS disclosures among the puppeteers on ITV’s seventies children’s show Rainbow contrast with the lack of debauchery on the BBC rival Play Away. Attracting huge audiences between 1971 and 1984 it featured a callow song and dance man called Jeremy Irons, pictured on the show. Whatever happened to him?
ANNA Soubry blames former colleague Chuka Umunna for the failure of election flops Change UK, telling ITV he failed to step up to lead the breakaway group adding: ‘I think he made a terrible mistake... I thought he was my big buddy. He has never called me. Which I think is very sad.’ Come on Chuka, do the right thing.
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme presenter Mishal Husain asks former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom if Squeaker Bercow will be investigated for bullying and harassment in Parliament. She refuses to say. Andrea was more outspoken at last month’s press gallery lunch, waving a ‘B******s to Bercow’ sign.