Ephraim Hardcastle
thE King awaits a reply to his invitation to President Biden last april for a state visit to london in 2024. With time running out before November’s presidential election, my source whispers it’s hoped the visit could form part of Biden’s trip to Europe in June to attend the G7 summit in Italy. But there is a snag. the Palace wants the visit to take place pre-G7 and not afterwards. Why? Because it clashes with Royal ascot, where the King seems determined to match his late mother’s high attendance record. Don’t tell Sleepy Joe!
MIGHT Rishi Sunak’s weekly 36-hour fast interest the King? His Majesty rarely eats lunch, preferring a daily mini-fast lasting from after breakfast until his four o’clock boiled egg and soldiers. And a source says that with Lent just a fortnight away, he will be preparing to be even more abstemious. Apparently he forgoes the afternoon egg for 40 days, which is said to be a big test of his willpower. haS lord Sugar’s pal Claude littner been given the elbow from the apprentice? a stalwart of the BBC show, which resumes tonight, Claude featured in only one episode last year due to illness. Now, hale and hearty Claude tweets: ‘Sadly I won’t be back. It’s not my call.’
SIENNA Miller, 42, admits to brooding over the 14-year age gap between her and boyfriend Oli Green. ‘I don’t think you can legislate on matters of the heart. I certainly have never been able to,’ she tells Vogue. Shouldn’t Sienna, pictured, invoke Joan Collins’s mantra? When Joan, 90, was asked about the 32-year gap between her and hubby Percy, 58, she replied: ‘If he dies, he dies.’
RaDIO 3 Essential Classics presenter Georgia Mann had to wade barefoot from Eel Pie Island to her parked car after a thames flash flood blocked the path. Requests for a turntable spin of handel’s Water Music will be given short shrift.
REFLECTING on the passage of time, Stephen Fry, 66, once described as an idiot’s notion of a cleverclogs, announces: ‘Personally, I’m not interested in longevity for myself... I’m not someone who wants to live longer than the rest of my friends.’ Has Fry mentioned this to husband Elliott Spencer – 30 years his junior?
PRISCIlla director Sofia Coppola once showed her then boyfriend Quentin tarantino a storybook picture from her 2006 movie Marie antoinette, featuring doughnuts with a pink glaze. tarantino recalled how she liked ‘the shade of pink and I want Marie antoinette’s sofa to have that quality’. ‘and when I saw the film, sure enough, I wanted to eat the goddam furniture,’ he said.
BIOGRAPHER Roger Lewis has been dining out on his tale of Welsh actor Richard Burton’s retort when a fan asked if he was Celtic – pronouncing it ‘seltic’. He replied: ‘It’s pronounced keltic, you sunt.’