Ephraim Hardcastle
PAINTING the Duke of Cambridge for the National Portrait Gallery was not the happiest of assignments for artist Nicky Philipps. While William was charm personified, Nicky painted what she saw – replicating his abundant head of hair. ‘That was in 2008 and I got savaged for giving him too much hair. The poor chap lost quite a lot of it in 2009,’ she tells ITV documentary Keeping Up With The Aristocrats. ‘I don’t know what happened then but it all fell out!’
HAS the Windsor Castle-based Queen discerned the smashing of a glass ceiling in nearby St George’s Chapel? From September 2023, HM will hear the dulcet tones of girl choristers after the historic relaxation of the all-boy rule in royal churches. Director of Music James Vivian says: ‘I am absolutely delighted that this opportunity is being extended to girls.’ It’s only taken 700 years!
PIERS Morgan startles Andrew Marr’s temporary replacement Sophie Raworth, pictured, by endorsing her onair to replace the departing Marr. Rather than smile appreciatively, Sophie stutters and hurriedly changes the subject. Does jolly hockey sticks Sophie consider a thumbs-up from Rupert Murdoch’s consigliere as about as useful to her career ambitions as a chocolate teapot?
EAMONN Holmes has forgiven impressionist Jon Culshaw for depicting him on his BBC show eating a sofa and jockey Frankie Dettori, using the catchphrase, ‘I was fierce hungry, so I was’. GB News anchor Eamonn, who complained to the BBC, now says: ‘I talk to Jon all the time.’
FORMER chairman of Marks and Spencer Lord Paul Myners, who has died, saw off Philip Green’s hostile £9.1billion bid for M&S in a mudslinging financial battle in 2004, when a furious Green said he had wanted to give Myners ‘a proper f ****** kick in the head’. Myners got his own back in 2020 when Debenhams collapsed. He called Green ‘an asset stripper’ adding, sweetly: ‘He doesn’t invest in his businesses, he milks them.’
APROPOS of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin nervously sharing a bed, Amis had a curious encounter with Francis Bacon in Cardiff in 1955, when the gay painter showed him ‘a magazine of homosexual soft porn’ and asked if he was interested. Amis declined, saying afterwards: ‘I wonder whether perhaps Bacon had come all this way to meet me on the off-chance.’
DOWNING Street party prober Sue Gray is now the butt of jokes with podcaster Jane Garvey. When describing a Christmas present she had ordered which wasn’t delivered on time, she says: ‘Sue Gray is investigating.’ And referring to the man in the old Milk Tray TV advert who broke into a woman’s bedroom, she adds: ‘Another one for Sue Gray, I would have thought.’