Ephraim Hardcastle
NATIONAL Trust boss Dame Helen Ghosh, 61, who asked thousands of the charity’s volunteers to anonymously disclose if they were ‘gay’ or ‘trans’, is to become the first female master of Oxford’s Balliol College. Why are so many academics keen to be governed by those Sir Roy Strong calls ‘the Blair government in exile’? Lord (Chris) Smith, having twice presided over the flooding of Somerset as chairman of the Environment Agency, was bequeathed Pembroke College, Cambridge. Ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who steered his paper to financial ruin, was installed at Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall. It seems that nothing quite succeeds in academe like failure. HARRISON Ford, 75, tells GQ magazine that after accidentally punching co-star Ryan Gosling in the face making Blade Runner 2049, he went to Gosling’s dressing room with a bottle of Scotch, poured him a glass and left with the remains of the bottle. He explained: ‘What did he f***ing expect, the whole bottle? You know, I figured one drink would fix it. That was enough.’ Is Ford from Aberdeen perchance?
JEREMY Corbyn is given energetic support at PMQs by Dawn Butler MP, 47, pictured, who sits beside the Labour leader making sure her adoration for the old booby is understood by TV viewers. Sometime expenses-scandal figure Butler made a great show of nodding and mouthing the word ‘exactly!’ when Corbyn spoke, or ‘shame’ when he detailed Tory crimes. Poor dear looked affronted and puzzled when PM Theresa May demolished his arguments. Is there a doctor in the house?
LABOUR MP Christopher Evans, 41, researching Fearless Freddie, his biography of tragic boxer Freddie Mills, published today, says he sought out entertainer Bruce Forsyth before his death to ask him about his relationship with the late pugilist, saying: ‘Sir Bruce spoke at Freddie’s funeral and was a close friend.’ However, the entertainer was unable to shed any light on who shot Mills in 1965 – his body was found in the back of a car in Soho. Or substantiate underworld gossip that Mills was a serial killer who had murdered six London prostitutes. How could Evans think family entertainer Sir Bruce could shed light on these sordid matters?
FORMER BBC documentary maker Kevin d’Arcy says in his new book, Adventures in the Garden of Democracy, that Jonathan Dimbleby’s late mother, Dilys, asked him at a Dorchester Hotel literary lunch for help in kick-starting her son’s career, explaining: ‘As you are a journalist you ought to know that at the moment Jonathan is living in a tent in a field and wearing the most awful jumpers.’ Not the household-name broadcaster and official biographer of Prince Charles? Surely there’s been some mistake!
GOADED for years by fellow cook Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, 42, responds: ‘He’s been taking the p*** out of me for so long I don’t even hear it any more. It’s like when you go to the country and smell a cow pat and after two minutes you don’t smell it any more.’ Boys! Boys!