Ephraim Hardcastle
THE Prime Minister’s vow that police can now go ‘as high as they like’ investigating paedophile crime – hinting that sexual misbehaviour by eminent figures was covered up – suggests the monarchy is no longer sacrosanct. The late Soviet spy Anthony Blunt – Surveyor of the King’s Pictures who was stripped of his knighthood when his treachery was revealed – was said to be a visitor to the Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London, to which young people were lured. My source says: ‘Some courtiers are concerned that Dame Lowell Goddard (the New Zealand judge heading the inquiry) might not be deferential when it comes to considering if other members of the royal household were involved.’
ADDING to the gaiety of the nation, Carolyn Leckie – ex-Scottish Socialist Party – suggests the ‘shooting estates of the rich’ s hould be t urned over to t he reintroduction of wolves. Accounts vary, but the last Scottish wolf was shot around 1780. Of course, no one would suggest Carolyn’s plan has more to do with punishing landowners, or that it is linked to the full moon at the end of the month – a period often associated with wild nonsense.
ROCKER Jerry Lee Lewis celebrates his 80th birthday at a dinner in Boisdale, Canary Wharf, in September – 57 years after he first visited London. On that occasion, Louisiana-born Lewis, then 23, caused an uproar by presenting his third wife (and cousin) Myra who was only 13 – both are pictured. His concert tour was cancelled. Married seven times, he remarked of first wife, Dorothy: ‘I was 14. My wife was too old for me – she was 17.’ A relic of the pre-Operation Yewtree era.
JAMES Bond’s latest outing – Spectre – again features 007 in an Aston Martin. Purists point out that in original Ian Fleming books, Bond was on a miserly civil servant’s salary and struggles to keep 1930 4.5-litre Blower Bentley on the road. Fleming – scion of the Scottish banking family – gave Bond a Scottish father and imbued him with both a taste for the good life and a canny Scots nose for a bargain.
VETERAN pop tart Madonna, 56, muses: ‘I like to compare myself to other kinds of artists like Picasso. He kept painting and painting until the day he died. Why? Because I guess he felt inspired to do so... and that’s how I feel.’ Pablo Picasso died aged 91 in 1973. I hope the thought of nonagenarian Madonna in her fishnets doesn’t put you off your breakfast.
AFTER bikini-clad Ursula Andress emerged from the Caribbean in the 1962 Bond movie, Dr No, the famous scene was parodied by comics Morecambe and Wise. ‘Is there anything you boys have been missing?’ inquired their scantily-clad ‘Ursula’. ‘You haven’t got a chip pan?’ wondered Eric. The late pair – immortalized in the local Madame Tussaud’s waxworks – would be tickled to hear that Miss Andress, now 79, will appear at Blackpool in October. She’s offering autographs and photos for £50, in aid of the charity Our Disappearing Planet.