Ephraim Hardcastle
SHOULD the Duke and Duchess of York finally cease dithering and confirm their decision to remarry, the King has made it easier for them. A source whispers that Charles has indicated to Andrew and Fergie that he would give his blessing. Although Andrew no longer needs the King’s permission to marry (only the first six in line do), HM’s endorsement is important to the beleaguered Duke. My source adds that it would be likely to take place in the small royal chapel of All Saints, near Andrew and Sarah’s home at Royal Lodge and the site of Princess Beatrice’s pandemic-era, low-key wedding in 2020. A far cry from the Yorks’ lavish royal wedding in 1986.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL’S comedian daughter Grace, 30, describes her father’s ritual each time he boards the Euston-Preston train to watch his beloved Burnley play. ‘He takes the shoelaces out of his shoes,’ she explains. ‘He gets a car from Preston to Turf Moor where he puts his shoelaces back in his shoes. Why? Because he did that once in the 1980s and on that day Burnley won.’ Since Burnley last triumphed in the FA Cup final in 1914, isn’t the gesture as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike?
WOE that the selfexiled Duchess of
Sussex is unavailable to stand in for her sister-in-law
Kate and drink a
Guinness at next month’s shamrock presentation to the
Irish Guards. Meghan has form. During an official visit to Dublin with Harry in 2018 she drank Guinness with her lunch at Delahunt restaurant. She developed her taste for the tipple in 2013 – long before she met Harry. When accepting the Bram Stoker Medal for Entertainment from Trinity College, she gamely took part in a ‘pint pulling competition’. Meghan, pictured, poured a perfect Guinness which she daintily sipped to raucous cheers.
DOWNING Street-approved BBC chairman Samir Shah’s plan to resolve the fuss over Gary Lineker’s political tweets has been delayed. Samir is still waiting to be approved by an Order of Council from King Charles at the Council meeting postponed by the Monarch’s prostate surgery.
REFLECTING on discredited Nicola Sturgeon’s teary performance at the Covid Inquiry, Andrew Neil witheringly concludes: ‘Nicola Sturgeon is the Richard Nixon of Scottish politics. Wins by a landslide then is humbled and discredited forever by a career-destroying cover up.’
NOTTING Hill director Richard Curtis dismisses suggestions his films have attracted foreign visitors to England. ‘They are always disappointed,’ he says. ‘Nobody looks like Hugh Grant – not even Hugh Grant, who looks increasingly like Sir Ian McKellen on a bad day.’
PRUE Leith’s husband John Playfair was asked at the Dominion Theatre premiere of The King and I why he always accompanies the missus. He said: ‘I stick to her like glue. She has low morals. She might go off with another coffin dodger.’