Hardcastle
RIShI Sunak needs to act to ensure Paula Vennells’ CBe is annulled. Simply returning the gong means nothing. When Carla Lane, creator of The Liver Birds and Butterflies, died in 2016, many mourners at her funeral were surprised to see her named ‘Carla Lane OBe’ on the order of service. She had been appointed OBe in 1989 but returned it in 2002 as part of her protests against animal cruelty. Because the monarch was never asked to annul it, she remained OBe for life.
SOME who returned medals still have their honour as they have never been rescinded, including Michael Sheen OBE, Alan Cumming OBE and John Lennon MBE. When Lennon sent his back in 1969, the gong and Lennon’s accompanying letter to the Queen were stuffed at the back of a cupboard. During a clear-out, they were rediscovered in 2009 and offered to Yoko Ono. She declined. The letter, now part of the Royal Archives, could be worth a small fortune. When a draft of Lennon’s letter, signed ‘With Love’, was discovered at a car-boot sale in 2016, it was valued at £60,000.
SANDI Toksvig tells the Cambridge Union about her purchase of a red Mustang. Parked near Waterloo station with the roof down, she heard a woman walking past say: ‘Oh look. There is that lesbian.’ ‘I was crushed,’ admits Sandi. ‘I put the roof back on and shortly afterwards I sold the car.’ But she has her uses, adding: ‘I met a brilliant neuroscientist the other day at Cambridge and she could not wire a plug. I had to help her. I was like dial a dyke.’
UBIQUITOUS BBC presenter Amol Rajan, appearing on the Dish podcast, asks hosts Angela Hartnett and Nick Grimshaw whether they listen to Radio 4’s Today – before cheekily confessing: ‘Because I don’t.’ Announcing he isn’t keen on ‘grim stuff’ in the news, Today host Amol, pictured, adds: ‘At the weekend I listen to Radio 1 and Radio 6 Music. I’m just happier.’ Nothing like loyalty to your own show, Amol!
FOR film aficionados, an exquisite injoke in One Life about Nicholas Winterton’s rescue of children from the Nazis. Winterton, alias Anthony hopkins, is reunited with his Two Popes co-star Jonathan Pryce in a restaurant. They quibble over the wine list. hopkins asks for a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape...
RECALLING the vicissitudes of playing a dead body on stage, former Upstairs, Downstairs actor Simon Williams says many recently slain thespians devise action plans to pass the time, such as an ardent Arsenal fan who had a long spell dead on stage. ‘He slipped an earphone under his wig so he could listen to a crucial game,’ recalls Simon. ‘When his team scored in extra time, the corpse punched the air, crying “yes!”’