Ephraim Hardcastle
ETON’S Provost William Waldegrave fears that illegal immigrants will catch the virus and be too frightened to seek help and infect others. His solution? Boris should grant an amnesty, adding: ‘This would seem to be the ideal time to have such an amnesty, for the good of the people concerned and the health of the wider community.’
HEAVEN forbid that the modern day plague should persist until the eventual coronation of King Charles. Held without a congregation in Westminster Abbey how would the Archbishop of Canterbury maintain a two metre distance anointing the Sovereign’s head, hands and chest with holy oil? Discuss.
SPARE a thought for Saint Corona, pictured, martyred in the third century after intervening in the flaying alive of Victor a Christian Roman soldier .The Romans promptly strapped her to two trees and she was torn apart. And Victor? He was beheaded. She’s the patron saint of intervention, though in her case, it seems to have backfired.
PLAYING Caroline, Countess of Brockenhurst in Julian Fellowes’ new TV period drama Belgravia, Dame Harriet Walter insists of her 2011 damehood: ‘I don’t behave like a dame or insist anyone calls me one,’ adding: ‘I partly accepted the honour to offset the many “Sirs”.’ How heroic!
THE enforced closure of hair salons might be a cause for concern to lavishly-coiffured Tory MP Michael Fabricant. While he acknowledges ‘some enhancement of the follicular area’, only his hairdresser knows where fact fades and fiction begins.
THE Prime Minister’s publicity-hungry father Stanley meets with a backlash after shamelessly plugging his 1982 novel The Marburg Virus, which he insists can teach us about dealing with the current pandemic. Journalist Andrew Hunter Murray cuttingly tweets in response: ‘Newsflash: the baton for “Most opportunistic member of the Johnson family” has been grabbed by Stanley in some style.’
LADY Colin Campbell sees a money making opportunity offering self isolation in her stately home Castle Goring. She has six bedrooms available on two floors of the Sussex pile. Gregarious Georgie won’t inflict sea shanties on her guests but they might have to listen to her babbling on about her friendship with Princess Diana.
FURTHER cheering news from Covid-19 survivor Tom Hanks in self quarantine with wife Rita Wilson in Queensland. ‘Two weeks after our first symptoms and we feel better,’ he tweets. ‘Going to take awhile, but if we take care of each other, help where we can, and give up some comforts... this, too, shall pass.’