Ephraim Hardcastle
PHOTOS of the Duchess of Cambridge in Army fatigues indicate that Kate, famously reluctant to take on military roles, is at last ready to step up and maintain the strong links between royalty and the Armed Forces. It also fuels the rumours that she is to take on higher-profile roles, with the colonelcy of the Grenadier Guards said to be heading her way. The Queen is dithering on filling that role out of respect to Andrew, who had the post removed from him. But the Grenadiers would give Kate a warm welcome – as they did to their first female royal colonel, Princess Elizabeth in 1942. The delusional Andrew still thinks he can get the role back, but he should abandon hope. ‘The lads wouldn’t wear it,’ advises one officer in the Bill Browns.
TIMELY endorsement for the beleaguered heir from Old Etonian Dominic West who is portraying Charles in The Crown. ‘I love the man. He’s a force for good, he really is an extraordinary man.’ Royal cheque or would you prefer cash, Dom?
UNAVOIDABLY unable to perform his annual BBC Wimbledon punditry, Boris Becker, undoubtedly watching the tennis on TV from his cell at Huntercombe Prison, isn’t the first famous German to be imprisoned at the Oxfordshire jail. Originally a Second World War internment camp, it briefly held Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, before he was incarcerated in the Tower of London by Winston Churchill following his parachute landing in Scotland.
AS THE 25th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches, the Duchess of York, pictured, gushes about how much she misses her, saying: ‘ I will mark the day thinking of her, I think of Diana often.’ But no mention of their estrangement for the last year of Diana’s life after Fergie unwisely claimed in her 1996 memoirs: ‘Diana helped me by giving me all her shoes (and less happily, her plantar warts).’
UNFORTUNATE timing for society bible Tatler: Among the Social Power Index couples in the new issue are ‘two of the most powerful and well-connected people on the planet’, Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall. Haven’t they just disconnected?
WILL BBC Remoaner-in-chief John Simpson ever cease bellyaching about Brexit? His latest misinformed bleat came on his TV programme Unspun World when he said: ‘It’s six years since, in a result that surprised just about everybody, the people of the United Kingdom voted by a very narrow margin to leave the European Union.’ In fact, the BBC’s own eve-of-referendum opinion poll analysis showed ‘both Leave and Remain on 45 per cent’.
AS Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, Miriam Margolyes says she trousered more money than at any other time in her career. Asked if there was magic in the JK Rowling stories, she replies: ‘The intangible magic was when I went to the bank.’