Ephraim Hardcastle
DISCONTENT among the residents of Nansledan, Prince Charles’s idyllic village on Duchy of Cornwall land at Newquay. Some aren’t happy with HRH’s ban on fast-food outlets. One homeowner’s complaint about the arrival of a Friday evening mobile pizza vehicle has led to its official banishment. Says one resident: ‘Many of us are up in arms over the ban on the van.’ Trouble in Paradise?
GREAT British Bake Off judge Prue Leith admits offending her son, newly elected Tory MP Danny Kruger, 45, by lecturing him about his parenting skills. Apologetically, she says of Danny, formerly a close adviser to Boris Johnson and speechwriter for David Cameron: ‘He was really upset and I absolutely understand why, because you don’t ever tell somebody that their children aren’t perfect.’ Rattle fallen out of pram, Danny?
SNUBBING the National Television Awards Piers Morgan resumes his feud with presenter David Walliams. ‘I’m enjoying not enjoying it,’ he tweets. ‘Walliams dying on his fat smug a*** is most amusing.’ Nothing to do with Morgan’s breakfast excitement being beaten to the award by Holly Willoughby, pictured, and Phillip Schofield for This Morning?
WILL the Pet Shop Boys rescue the UK from Eurovision ignominy? Confirming that he’s been asked to write a song for Europe, Neil Tennant says firmly: ‘We would never enter personally.’ Instead, he’s asked One Direction to perform the Pet Shop Boys’ song Winner as the UK entry. So Harry Styles will have to take the blame for nul points?
RITA Tushingham recalls the Sixties precursor of MeToo called DOM. Rita, starring in BBC’s The Pale Horse, explains: ‘Actresses didn’t have control then unless you were quite firm. It was just hidden. A DOM, they used to call it – “oh, he’s a Dirty Old Man”.’
ART historian Bendor Grosvenor nods his head vigorously in agreement with Mary Beard that many Renaissance paintings were intended as soft porn for the elite, adding: ‘It is our age that invented hard porn and the commodification of the female nude.’ Come on Bendor, name the guilty men (and women)!
GLUMLY recalling being bald before the age of 20, Sir Patrick Stewart admits that he had an unsuccessful encounter with a wig before conceding: ‘That’s it. Romance is dead for me.’ The Star Trekker, 79, hasn’t done badly. His American third wife Sunny Ozell is 38 years the suave old devil’s junior.
BETTING tycoon Stuart Wheeler recalls – in his recent memoir, Winning Against The Odds – playing cards with Lord Lucan two nights before his 1974 disappearance, and claims that it is ‘just possible’ Lucan is still alive. Odds on he isn’t, Stuart.