Ephraim Hardcastle
THE duchess of Cornwall’s Cenotaph appearance with the Queen and Prince Philip on the Foreign office balcony is a break with tradition. Usually standing alongside the duchess of Cambridge and the duchess of Wessex, her joining the monarch is a signal that the old order is changing. It’s from this new perch that she will view her husband on Cenotaph duty when he becomes king – the same place from which the Queen Mother watched her husband and then daughter perform this sombre duty.
ON Thursday, Prince William visits the London HQ of Google, where tax avoidance measures on a £1billion turnover results in a meagre payment of £36million to the Treasury. The ostensible reason for William’s visit is to ‘raise awareness’ of an anti-bullying campaign. Might he also manage to raise a donation for the Royal Foundation run by himself, Kate and Prince Harry? Google has a motive for ‘making nice’, as the Americans say.
BoB Geldof ’s decision to return his Freedom of dublin award until Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi returns hers might embarrass his fellow Irish blowhard, U2 crooner Bono. Will he now feel he has to return his Freedom of dublin honour? He wrote a ditty, Walk on, in tribute to the Myanmar leader, who is accused of allowing Muslims to be persecuted.
REPLACING the disgraced Kevin Spacey in the upcoming movie All The Money In The World, veteran star Christopher (The Sound of Music) Plummer, 87, has a lively (if more conventional) amatory history. He has admitted ravishing one of his leading ladies during a party attended by her husband and excusing his caddish behaviour by saying: ‘I always found him a dull creature anyway.’
THE BBC’s man for all seasons – literary critic, special correspondent and retired Today presenter James Naughtie – anchored Radio 4’s Cenotaph coverage, replicating TV presenter David Dimbleby’s respectful tones rather well. But surely the corporation’s most popular contributor on the day was blonde bombshell newsreader Sophie Raworth, who, I am told, scattered walking frames and wheelchairs in Whitehall as veterans demanded ‘selfies’.
TALK of gender fluidity prompts broadcaster david ‘diddy’ Hamilton to recall introducing The des o’Connor Show on Thames TV in the 80s. ‘I said there’s something for everyone. For the ladies there’s des o’Connor. For the men there’s Joan Collins. And for those who haven’t made their minds up yet there’s Lionel Blair!’ Poor Lionel, 88, is surely unamused by such jokes.