Ephraim Hardcastle
HAS Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle been caught in a turf war between the Lords and Commons over access to Palace of Westminster terraces? After the issuing of an edict limiting which guests MPs can take into the Strangers’ Bar, the Commons retaliated by barring members of the Lords from using the Commons terrace. Baroness Fox was one victim, denied access and told she had to be invited by an MP. Then a peckish Speaker Hoyle popped in to the River Room, a self-service cafeteria with access to the Lords terrace. Guido Fawkes reports that when he walked the short distance to the terrace he was asked to leave as he didn’t have access privileges. While Sir Lindsay remains tight-lipped about the affair, isn’t it surely a case of out of Order, Order?
PERPETUALLY thirsty bottom nipper Chris Pincher’s role as a whip necessitated regular audiences with the Queen, including the occasion in October 2019 when he went to Buckingham Palace to hand in his wand of office as Treasurer of the Household (a junior whip position). When arrangements were being made, the Palace was advised by a Whitehall mandarin: ‘Hide the handsome footmen. He has a roving eye.’
BREWDOG founder James Watt, determined to make his craft beer business a £1billion company in 2017, asked his assistant to electronically transfer an investment cheque for ‘tens of millions’ from his lawyer to his bank account. ‘For some reason, there was a typo in the account numbers,’ he recalls. ‘The sort code sent it to a bank in St Petersburg. The money was lost for four days.’ Is it any surprise that after retrieving the dosh James took himself off to an American wood for five days of intensive therapy?
KATE Winslet is as chuffed as a Brownie Gold award winner after holding her breath longer underwater than any other of the cast or crew of James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar: The Way Of Water. ‘Seven minutes and 14 seconds, baby,’ yelps a delighted Kate, pictured. ‘But the most amazing thing for me as a middle-aged woman was to learn something not just new, but superhuman!’ Not superhuman enough to rescue a freezing Leonardo DiCaprio after the Titanic went down, Kate.
MARTINA Navratilova’s forced Covid departure from the BBC Wimbledon coverage fails to trigger palpitations among producers. They still have more than two dozen pundits led by Sue Barker and John McEnroe. As well as an additional 15 commentators. Explains a spokesman: ‘We provide the live commentary feed for the world’s broadcasters of six to seven courts, which is the main reason for that total.’ Adding: ‘And Boris Becker hasn’t been replaced.’
GLENDA Jackson’s mentor, the delightfully daft director Peter Brook, who has died, cast the then unknown actress as a French assassin in 1967’s Marat/Sade, encouraging the cast in rehearsal to chase her pretending to be hounds or concentration camp guards to induce a breakdown. It didn’t work: ‘Let’s just have a cup of tea instead,’ Glenda told Peter.