Ephraim Hardcastle
GEORGE Clooney’s sudden illness just before shooting his latest movie, The Midnight Sky, was much more serious than originally thought... and was dealt with brilliantly by the Berkshire NHS. ‘It was shockingly painful,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know what it was, I thought I was having a heart attack because I’d never had a heart attack and I thought, “Well, maybe this is it.’ George was rushed to A&E from the £10million Sonning-on-Thames mansion he shares with wife Amal and three-year-old twins Ella and Alexander. ‘I was in the emergency room in Reading for a couple of days. They told me it was pancreatitis, which I didn’t even know what the hell that was and they put me on morphine. I was really sick.’ Generous George showed his appreciation with a whopping £200,000 gift to the NHS.
EX-ATHEIST AN Wilson describes Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby as a ‘prize Charlie’ for closing churches at Easter before directing fire at his Roman Catholic counterpart Vincent Nichols for failing to deal with clerical child abuse. ‘It is impossible to think of any period when the country had two such utter chumps in charge of the rival churches,’ he writes, sweetly, in The Times. ‘Where on earth did those responsible for appointing bishops find these duds?’ Cardinal Nichols can’t even excommunicate Wilson. He’s a born-again Protestant.
DOLLY Parton, asked by the late Des O’Connor what was the naughtiest thing she had ever done, replied: ‘Me and my girlfriends once went to Tom Jones’s house in Los Angeles, took off our tops and streaked across the front lawn.’ Flummoxed, Des diverted attention to her dainty feet. Dolly, pictured, smiled sweetly. ‘Nothing grows in the shade.’
RECALLING being the target of the late Harold Pinter’s ire, Sir Nicholas Hytner now claims on Radio 4: ‘Harold had a great way in abusing. It was a kind of badge of pride to be abused by him.’ Is he sure? Once spotting Hytner in a restaurant, Pinter bellowed in front of fellow diners: ‘You’re a f****** liar, and you’re a f****** s***!’
ROD Stewart’s notorious parsimony is highlighted by the disgraced former pop star Jonathan King, who blogs: ‘Normally I pay for all meals. I’ve dined with Rod Stewart eight times over the years and paid every time, as I pointed out to him and his wife when I bumped into them in Morocco. This amused his lady very much. Rod replied “I’ll buy tonight then,” to which I answered: “Why change the habit of a lifetime?”’
SPORTS correspondent for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gary Richardson, chose the festive lull to reveal that of the 473 horses he and colleague Rob Bonnet tipped throughout 2020, only 81 were first past the post. Anyone placing a £1 bet on the nose of each lost £136. Gary boasts more winners than Rob. He’s threatening a steward’s inquiry.