Hardcastle Ephraim
AMBER Rudd is a female trailblazer, breaking the ‘men only’ rule by being elected to Pratt’s Club. This follows the decision of club owner Bill Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire’s heir, to end the ban on women in a bid to invigorate the basement institution peopled by mostly motheaten Tories. Apparently, 40 of them have either resigned or threatened to do so as a result of her election. But there is a downside for the former home secretary, who will now have to call all male serving staff ‘George’ and all females ‘Georgina’, a Pratt’s tradition.
WOULD the late George Michael be relieved that King Charles has endorsed the Royal Mint’s tribute coins to him? For, at the height of his fame in 1991, George endured Royal disfavour when he refused a request from an eight-year-old William to sing at a Kensington Palace party . ‘William asked me ‘‘would it be OK if I sang a song,’’’ recalled George, adding that Elton John had been playing the piano. ‘I had to say ‘‘no’’. I was too embarrassed to sing in front of a group of strangers.’
HAS Kate Winslet, playing a daft head of state in Sky’s spoof The Regime, channelled three winks PM Liz Truss? Kate, pictured (left) along with Liz, claims the character, a fictitious leader of an unnamed central European country, is her own invention, adding: ‘I have never come across anyone like her.’ But her chum Cate Blanchett insists: ‘I saw a soupcon of Liz Truss’.
WITH Joe Biden’s German Shepherd, Commander, guilty of biting White House staff 24 times, a retired Royal flunkey claims the dog has single-handedly beaten the collective nibbling record of the late Queen’s corgis. The snappy happy pets could do little wrong in HM’s eyes, even after she received stitches from intervening in a dog fight. Recalling then prime minister John Major’s audience with the monarch when he discussed the introduction of the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, the former courtier claims he asked the PM a tongue in cheek question about adding the Royal corgis to the list of offenders. The Queen was not amused.
AS foreign secretary, James Cleverly earned a reputation for attending junkets all over the globe. Instead of attending to his duties yesterday in the Commons at Home Office questions, Cleverly was in San Francisco to meet social media firms and hold an ‘in conversation’ event. Today the (not at) Home Secretary is off to New York to make a speech about immigration.
WHEN Coronation Street butcher Fred Elliott, played by John Savident, who has died aged 86, was being dispatched by Corrie’s undertaker, Roy Hudd’s Archie Shuttleworth, an unscripted development occurred. Recalls The Stage: ‘Filming was brought to a halt when Hudd suffered a minor heart attack as he made an adjustment to Fred’s coffin. Savident, realising Hudd was in pain, jumped from the coffin to assist his fellow actor. What odds on the pair enjoying a celestial giraffe about the incident?