Bicycle bandit mugsV&A boss for his mobile

DESPITE becoming a successful radio and television host, Fearne Cotton admits she still harbours misgivings about her lack of higher education.

‘I come from a workingclass background. It was all little moments of chance and luck to get anywhere near working in the industry,’ says the 39-year-old mother-of-two. ‘And I do often feel insecure that I didn’t go to university.

‘When I’m talking, I feel so paranoid that I’m going to be tripped up or found out.’

Nicholas coleridge, ebullient chairman of the V& a Museum, has become the latest victim of london’s crime wave.

he was mugged last week opposite the Royal hospital chelsea and the assailant cheekily bicycled off with his mobile phone.

‘i was talking on the phone and standing by the kerb to try and get a better line on the mobile,’ recalls coleridge. ‘When this guy swooped past and punched me on the side of the head and my iPhone was whisked from my hand.’

Former fashion magazine bigwig coleridge (pictured below) has an unerring eye for sartorial detail and passed on a description of his assailant to the police.

‘he looked about 19 and was in a white synthetic hoodie.’ however, his mugger has still to be apprehended.

‘he had a thin, feral face,’ adds coleridge.

‘as he rode away he turned around with a look of triumph and glee before pedalling through a red light towards Pimlico.’

Despite his tribulations, coleridge has a grudging respect for his assailant’s bravado. ‘he was very impressive — a swerve of his bike, a punch of the temple and the snatching of the mobile. ‘For the next 48 hours my hand reached out for my phone only to realise i hadn’t got one. To find oneself without instagram, social media or contact lists was like a trip back to the 1980s.’

Father-of-four coleridge, 64, who is married to healer Georgia, is made of strong stuff as readers of his entertaining and adventurous diaries The Glossy Years will know. he travelled across Russia to iran in his gap year and spent ten days in a sri lankan jail after being arrested while making a documentary about Tamil terrorism.

last summer, after contracting covid-19, he spent ten days at his local Nhs hospital in Worcester and described lying in a ‘ strange, semisedated dream world, oblivious that Georgia had taken a call from the doctor to tell her to prepare for the worst.’

although never on a ventilator, he received oxygen daily and spent three weeks recuperating. ‘it was my first stay in a hospital, but i was beyond feeling scared.’