Ephraim Hardcastle
FASHION designer Jenny Packham, remaining steadfastly tight-lipped about her most famous customer, the Duchess of Cambridge, reveals that she advises her VIP clients not to follow the Queen’s example of constantly appearing in brightly coloured outfits. Explaining that HM wears her highly visible coats, dresses and hats ‘to be seen and remembered’, Jenny tells the Wellbeing of Women charity: ‘I went to a function at Buckingham Palace and I have to admit, did I see the Queen or did I just see the passing of colour? But the main thing is everyone goes home saying they have “seen the Queen” and she has achieved that and is remembered for that.’ Jenny, sister of TV naturalist Chris Packham, adds: ‘I always say think about colour, don’t do it top to bottom like the Queen does.’
JEREMY Paxman outs himself as a dining companion of the late Princess Diana, revealing she’d invited him to lunch at Kensington Palace. ‘It was just me and her,’ he recalls. ‘I think she was just a bit lonely. She used to invite people for lunch because she did not see people. It is rather like us in lockdown.’
RAISED eyebrows that Jenny Seagrove, 63, pictured, has been cast as Hamlet’s mother Gertrude opposite Sir Ian McKellen, 81, in the title role. No Poirotlike skills required to deduce that Jenny’s long-term partner is Bill Kenwright, the show’s producer. Rarely is there a Kenwright stage production – ranging from Noel Coward to Alan Ayckbourn to dramatisations of Brief Encounter – that doesn’t feature prominently the gorgeous Jenny. Talented as she undoubtedly is, isn’t it dandy to be sleeping with the boss!
FORMER restaurant critic Jonathan Meades insults Boris and Carrie’s Downing Street dining habits in The Critic ranting: ‘The Prime S***’s infantile exhortation to the little people to eat more fish whilst he, The Expensive Fiancee, Wilf The Unfortunate and Dilyn The Potentially Rabid group-gorge on JCBurgers delivered by the cwt in Daylesford trucks is no more than usually vacuous and will doubtless involve him dressing up as a fish, a fish-gutter, a trawlerman, Captain Birdseye, a Moray stinker and Poseidon, a poor man’s Lucy Worsley.’ Translation into English in the next issue Jonathan?
PRESS ethics inquiry chairman Sir Brian Leveson has been embarrassingly named as one of two top judges who tried to prevent anti-Establishment barrister Marc Beaumont becoming a Queen’s Counsel. A complaints committee investigation has found that the Queen’s Counsel Appointments Commission received a damaging letter from Leveson, then president of the Queen’s Bench Division, before Beaumont’s unsuccessful 2016 application. Lord Hendy QC, who represented Beaumont, claimed it ‘smacks of the sort of blackballing system of the past’.
MIRIAM Margolyes, busy recording voiceovers at her Tuscany lockdown retreat, was once paid £300 by the Ann Summers erotic shop chain for her dulcet tones. ‘I did a couple of sex tapes,’ she admits. ‘I was Sexy Sonja... I have to stress they were audio tapes, they were not visual.’ Reconnaissants pour les petites miséricordes, Miriam?