Ephraim Hardcastle
SHOULD Spain’s newlyexiled former king Juan Carlos require a sympathetic shoulder to cry on he could speed-dial his old friend Selina Scott. Friendship blossomed when she filmed a 1993 fly-on-the-wall documentary. They became so chummy that Juan Carlos’s long-suffering wife Sofia reportedly became needlessly irritated. Spanish media, jealous of Selina’s access, published video grabs from the documentary showing the king gazing down from his yacht just as Selina’s swimsuit strap slips tantalisingly from her shoulder... Another photo was captioned: ‘The King and the Pretty Reporter.’
SELINA also fronted a similar documentary on the monarch’s brother-in-law King Constantine of Greece. Exiled in London, the deposed royal once turned up at dawn at the BBC’s Lime Grove studios to see Selina presenting Breakfast Time, announcing himself as King of the Hellenes. The security man phoned through to Selina, asking Constantine: ‘Where did you say you were king of?’
SPORTS broadcaster John Inverdale has been embarrassed by his endorsement of FunRaising Events after describing the firm in a YouTube advert as no ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ organisation. Alas, the company, which provided silent auctions at charity dinners, has gone bust with £2.7million debts and boss Jodie Bracken declaring herself bankrupt. A case, Jonners, of ‘here yesterday, gone today’?
AMBER Rudd, pictured, has been teased by daughter Flora over her work on 1994 rom-com Four Weddings And A Funeral, for which she was grandly titled ‘aristocracy co-ordinator’. Mum neatly retaliates by reminding her daughter that as a three-year-old she was ‘one of the lovely little kids dancing around in a beautiful little sailor dress’ in the wedding scene, adding: ‘They cut you from the actual film.’
POET Laureate Simon Armitage has formed a garage band, LYR – a direct descendant of his school rock ensemble Tess And The Durbs. ‘We were all reading Tess Of The D’Urbervilles at the time,’ he explains. Not a pastime pursued by Laureate predecessors Lord Tennyson and William Wordsworth. Though John Betjeman did record four ‘rap’ albums including Betjeman’s Banana Blush.
THE late John Hume’s forebears hailed from Scotland. His great-grandfather Sam Hume was a Presbyterian settler from Berwickshire who emigrated to Donegal in the mid-19th century. Berwick man Alec Douglas-Home, who pronounced his name similarly, once inquired: ‘I always wondered if we were related.’ Hume replied to the former Tory PM: ‘Not a chance. Your lot were always non-U.’
A TOTAL Film magazine analysis of Daniel Craig’s injuries as James Bond in Skyfall describes a uranium shell fired at his chest, explaining: ‘Sorry, but Bond would not have survived until the end of the film.’ The fatal shot was in the seventh popcorn-munching minute of the flick. Cue closing credits!