Ephraim Hardcastle
HOW would William and Kate fare under the new ‘purity test’ at St Andrews University? Both graduated there in 2005, before the diktat which now denies degrees if students are unwilling to take – and pass – tests on their privilege and unconscious bias. William would have had to deal with his ‘personal guilt’ of not only being white but immensely privileged and destined for a job only accessible by accident of birth. Kate’s privilege derives not only from her comfortably well-off parents but because she said ‘I do’ and instantly became a duchess, princess and a queen-in-waiting. Will offspring George, Charlotte and Louis be clamouring for a Scottish degree?
INTERVIEWING leading economist and Manchester City fan Sir Howard Davies, Today presenter Nick Robinson ‘outs’ himself as a supporter of rivals Manchester United. Surely no need? Cheshireborn Robinson has long enthralled listeners with his fascinating apercus about his football allegiance. He concluded his interview by lamely quipping Davies was a ‘supporter of the wrong team in Manchester’, prompting co-host Justin Webb, noting Robinson’s crass insult to Boris the day before, to add: ‘I was surprised you didn’t tell him to stop talking, Nick.’ Cue alarming hyena-like laughter from Robinson. Has he been told he doesn’t front ‘The Nick Robinson Show’?
FORMER Danish PM Helle ThorningSchmidt, aka Mrs Stephen Kinnock, pictured, accuses exFrench president Valery Giscard d’Estaing of groping her. How shocking! But not perhaps a surprise to Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron, who seethed when vivacious Helle was televised sitting between their husbands at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Says a mourner: ‘Her flirting with Barack and David was Olympic-class.’
FEISTY TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp takes exception to the BBC, reporting online that she ran out of petrol between Oxfordshire and London this week (after Kirstie made the details public on Twitter). She now tweets: ‘Dear BBC News, please NEVER tweet something of mine again, it seems it attracts the attention of some really horrible people and makes Twitter a pretty scary place.’ Kirstie, a word in your shell-like: ‘Stop tweeting!’
BEFORE wealth and fame as a Python, Michael Palin tried his hand as a songwriter, explaining: ‘I’d just married and our first child was on the way and I could have used a million. Or even a hundred. Which is how I came to write The Last Time I Saw You Was Tomorrow for Roy Orbison.’ After listening to the song, Orbison gave it the thumbs down. ‘He didn’t see its potential’, adds Michael, ruefully. ‘The potential to ruin his career.’
RECALLING the horror of blind dating, Kathy Lette – finally loved up with guitarist Brian O’Doherty after her split from husband Geoffrey Robinson – had to weed out ‘cross-dressers and necrophiliacs’, adding: ‘I’d meet a potential Romeo for a coffee. If his opening conversational gambit was along the lines of, “Does this look infected to you?” or “I’m not just a Scientologist, I also sell genital wart cream”, I’d excuse myself to powder my nose.’