Hardcastle
KATE Winslet’s daughter Mia, in her cameo appearance in Scoop as a palace maid yelled at by Rufus Sewell’s Prince Andrew over her misplacing one of his bedtime teddy bears, was spared the reality of the Duke’s party trick. Before his exile from royal duties, Andrew tormented junior servants by removing his toy monkey from his collection and hiding it in various locations in Buckingham Palace to see if staff would spot it. Woe betide them if they didn’t, as that meant they hadn’t been doing their jobs properly. That particular avenue of pleasure is now lost to him. But at least, in the absence of anyone to meet and greet, he has the monkey and 71 other cuddlies for company.
WHEN Lord Cameron met Donald Trump over dinner in Florida, did they discuss the possibility of Trump’s return to the White House next year? Options for the UK schmoozing a re-elected President Trump will be limited. He has already received a state visit to London and had a ceremonial visit to Windsor for tea with the late Queen. But what he would really like, says a source, is a gong. Trump loves shiny things and receiving an honorary knighthood (only bestowed, so far, on Presidents Eisenhower, Bush Snr and Reagan) would, as Cameron might say, make him purr.
FLORENCE Pugh’s famous falling out with Don’t Worry Darling’s director Olivia Wilde – the actress (right) missed a press conference to promote the flick at the Venice Film Festival – is celebrated by Chloe Sevigny, star of a new TV series about the feud between writer Truman Capote and a coterie of New York socialites. ‘When Florence was upset with Olivia, that whole scandal was pretty exciting,’ Chloe tells Radio Times. ‘I liked that she didn’t attend and was seen walking around with a cocktail [somewhere else] instead – if you’re going to do it, go big like that.’
LAMENTING his failure to play the romantic field, Gyles Brandreth recalls in his 1969 Oxford student diary one damsel he would have thrown caution to the wind for. Meeting DJ Simon Dee at the Randolph Hotel, he writes: ‘I found him drinking champagne with a beautiful actress/model, Joanna Lumley. She is very lovely: I glimpsed her in her crisp white bra and panties.’
GB NEWS boss Angelos Frangopoulos, using a studio microphone to tell assembled staff at the channel’s Paddington offices of forthcoming redundancies, suddenly had the sound turned off when irate technicians attempted to ask questions. What’s happened to the home of free speech?
NEW royal book Power And Glory mentions Canadian beauty Osla Benning, who stepped out with Prince Philip before he set his cap at the late Queen. She once ‘complained loudly’ in a disco about a boyfriend (presumed to be Philip) whose habit was ‘to always carry his torch in his pocket’ which was ‘so uncomfortable when dancing’.