Ephraim Hardcastle
HoW would the royals cope with the current exam results shambles? Harry, after all those expensive years at eton, managed two A-levels – B in art and D in geography – after pulling out of a history of art A-level. Charles got into Cambridge with just two A-levels – history and French. Anne got three before deciding to be a full-time royal. Andrew also got three prior to joining the Royal Navy. edward got nine o-levels and three A-levels and a 2:2 Cambridge history degree before graduating to be Lord Lloyd-Webber’s bespoke tea boy.
WHILE the Queen’s absence from Saturday’s VJ commemorations – Charles was at the National Memorial Arboretum and William at Horse Guards – presages the monarchy slowly changing hands, HM is quietly insisting she will take part in November’s Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph. The reason for her determination? This year marks the centenary of the unveiling of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s stone Cenotaph on Whitehall by her grandfather George V. On that day the King also went to Westminster Abbey to attend the burial of the Unknown Warrior. Whether the Queen can pay her own homage at the Abbey remains to be seen.
PRINCeSS Anne has received birthday promotions from mum to general and air chief marshal. earlier this year Prince Andrew was denied his birthday elevation to admiral, prompting speculation that HM might spare his feelings by not promoting Anne. Not doing so reinforces suggestions Andrew won’t be returning and consolidates Anne as the only royal woman to wear uniform on parade despite never having served.
MEGHAN Markle’s protracted whinge about her life in the Royal Family contrasts starkly with fellow actress Sophie Winkleman, aka Lady Frederick Windsor, pictured, who says: ‘My husband’s entire family have been utterly wonderful to me since day one.’ And Sophie’s mother-in-law is Princess Michael of Kent, the royal previously known as Princess Pushy.
WHooPI Goldberg, boasting to Radio Times about her viewing room with ‘gigantic’ 72in TV, adds: ‘It’s my room. It smells like me. If I burp, I don’t have to be embarrassed. I might have smelly feet sometimes, but it’s my feet.’ Too much information, Whoopi!
AVID football fan Angela Merkel will avoid any Franco-German tensions when she joins Emmanuel Macron on his Mediterranean holiday on Thursday. It’s just after the Champions League semi-finals – RB Leipzig v Paris SG and Lyon v Bayern Munich. The French president has already been teasingly tweeting the Berlin chancellor about the result, ignoring one Paris radio wag who notes: ‘France doesn’t have a very good record against the Germans when it comes to fighting on two fronts simultaneously.’
NeVeR a fan of Gavin ‘Private Pike’ Williamson, former Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames tweets: ‘The thing is, you must understand he is completely unreliable and very stupid.’ Speaks very highly of you, Soamesy.