Ephraim Hardcastle
EX-Boris mistress Jennifer Arcuri’s disclosure that she and Johnson recited Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 together ‘like a weird sense of foreplay’ will infuriate Carrie Symonds. Friends say that when she and the PM first dated, not long after his relationship with Arcuri ended, he recited the same sonnet to her during trysts. Perhaps Boris, joining Dilyn in the Downing Street doghouse, might recite the poem’s first line: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.’ Woof!
HAVING only missed three royal Maundy money distributions in her reign, the Queen will not be at Westminster Abbey tomorrow for the annual ceremony. It’s been cancelled for the second year because of the pandemic. In earlier plagues it was always held with the Lord High Almoner despatched to protect the monarch. The current Almoner, John Inge, Bishop of Worcester, must be thankful that the Queen hasn’t been on the phone.
CAN Her Majesty be content with the renewed, if jaded, campaign to remove hereditary peers from the Lords? Under threat are two of her officers at Westminster, the Earl Marshal Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Great Chamberlain. Dumping the fig leaf of the hereditaries because they are ‘undemocratic’ makes a hereditary monarchy harder to defend. Might she echo predecessor Queen Victoria’s reaction to Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore: ‘We are not amused’?
RECENTLY elevated Charles Moore, Lord Etchingham, argues that hereditary peers represent good value, claiming only £26,000 a year compared with the average MP – whose salary, pension, expenses and staff cost more than £300,000. He adds: ‘I am not saying that peers deserve more or MPs less. I simply observe that the peer price is small.’
WILL Claire Bloom, pictured in her prime, ever be free of Philip Roth, the ex-husband she demolished as a ‘vile, misogynist egotist’ in her vitriolic memoir Leaving A Doll’s House? His latest biographer Blake Bailey reveals that he wrote a 100page vicious point-by-point rebuttal of Bloom to be published 30 years after his death. As Roth died in 2018, this surely is revenge served very cold indeed.
CHANNEL 5’s forthcoming Paul Burrell documentary curiously doesn’t feature an interview with him. ‘Paul Burrell chose not to take part in this programme,’ explains a closing credits statement. ‘Paul believes that he has remained faithful, loyal and true to Princess Diana.’ Is Burrell, who continues to trade in Diana tittle-tattle, angling for an invite to July’s Kensington Palace statue unveiling with William and Harry?
TRAINER Jamie Osborne takes an ungallant pop at his jockey daughter Saffie while promoting the new Racing League on Radio 4’s Today, saying: ‘You don’t want to be carrying too much dead wood in your team.’ Saffie interjects: ‘That was a dig towards me... don’t worry there’s nothing emotional about him.’ Osborne senior gruffly confirms: ‘At least, she’s learnt something.’ Weighed in!