Ephraim Hardcastle
SELF-important-sounding BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt shouts at Boris Johnson on air: ‘A new coal mine in Britain! We started the industrial revolution, we should close the mines!’ While the BBC’s Nick Robinson tells the PM to ‘stop talking’, Rowlatt demands that Johnson closes coal mines. Some will approve. Others may wonder if there’s anyone in charge at the BBC these days.
WHEN he and Alfred Hitchcock had ‘dressing-room bungalows’ at Universal Studios, Sir Michael Caine recalls, ‘I said one day: “I saw [Hitchcock’s 1951 film] Strangers on a Train... and there wasn’t one shot of a train in the entire movie!” He said, “Whose viewpoint on the train would that have been?”’
FRANCE’S Europe minister Clement Beaune, 40, says ‘the language of force’ must be used against the UK over the fishing dispute. Beaune reputedly possesses ‘a fine appreciation of the English spirit’. How so? He was an intern for six months at our Foreign Office in London. Merde!
STRIKING Irish comedy star Aisling Bea, pictured, responds to a backlash against her English accent in her new movie Home Sweet Home Alone, saying: ‘I’m pretty sure I’m doing a job next year that’s going to be a Manchester accent. So everyone hold on to your Twitter knickers.’
TESLA boss Elon Musk is so wealthy he could spend $1million a year for 100,000 years and still be richer than Bill Gates, who is worth $136.1billion, according to the US finance magazine Forbes. The pair are among the 745 billionaires in America (there were 614 in 2020). Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Roy (brother of Walt) Disney, and a member of Patriotic Millionaires, points out: ‘Billionaires may be brilliant – and I don’t doubt Elon Musk’s IQ – but they don’t do anything on their own.’
OSCAR-nominated actor Richard E Grant is unusually forthright about his work. Asked if his poorly received 1991 comedy Hudson Hawk – often cited in ‘worst ever’ movie lists – is ‘unfairly maligned’, he replied: ‘It remains as terrible as it always was!’
CANCELLED by The Old Vic over his un-woke views around trans rights and the #MeToo movement, can Terry Gilliam rely on his usually outspoken Monty Python colleague John Cleese for moral support? Cleese once said: ‘I don’t think Terry Gilliam has ever said anything I agreed with.’ And Gilliam has remarked about Cleese: ‘John has never changed. He just got fat, that’s all.’
HEADS of state arriving in Glasgow for Cop26 were greeted by HM’s lord lieutenants for Renfrewshire, City of Edinburgh, Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire and Arran, each using a selection of deputies to share the load – a total of 54 presidents, one Highness, one Serene Highness and two Captains Regent. The latter are the joint heads of state of San Marino, pop 34,000.