Ephraim Hardcastle
UNFETTERED from royal restrictions, Meghan is free to sell her jam and pursue commercial work – prompting the question: Why did the late Queen refuse Harry and Meghan’s proposal for a new style of monetised royalty? Could it stem from Sophie Wessex’s decision to continue working in public relations after her marriage to Edward? The Queen approved of this new type of working royal but changed her mind two years later when Sophie was caught being indiscreet about her royal connections when trying to impress potential clients. It’s an experiment no one is in a hurry to repeat.
SPICE Girl Mel B, pictured, recalls sitting beside Charles, then Prince of Wales, when he attended the premiere of the group’s 1997 movie Spice World. ‘He was laughing his head off, and I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh my God, this movie is amazing, everyone is like really enjoying it,”’ she remembers. ‘I said to Charles: “You’re really enjoying it, aren’t you?” and he went: “I’m a good actor.” RUDE!’
SLOW Horses star Gary Oldman still mourns his mother Kathleen who rejoiced when he won an Oscar in 2018 for his role as Churchill in Darkest Hour. ‘She would always say to me, “Oh, you’re going to win an Oscar one day, darling.” I’d just say, “Yeah, you never know. One day, Mum,”’ he tells Saga magazine. ‘And I think she held on. I really do. I won the Oscar and she died. She let go. Her mission accomplished.’
BBC Breakfast host Naga Munchetty, pictured, makes the unprompted admission that she has slept in the nude ever since she was a teenager. Will her late colleague Bill Turnbull (a buttoned-up flannel pyjamas man if ever there was one) be turning in his grave?
ANGLICISM’S latest delightfully daft cleric, the Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, calls for more anti-whiteness, adding that ‘“whiteness” does not refer to skin colour per se’. Mind you, she does admit on her X feed that she went to her optician last week. New glasses for the archdeacon, please!
PIG farmer and Charles in The Crown Dominic West tells Bath Life about his affection for his first sow. ‘We slaughtered her and now we can’t eat her,’ he wails. ‘Poor Marla...’ Marla? ‘Yes – the boar was red and ginger, so we called him Donald. And so the sows are named after his wives. We’ve got Melania and Ivana left...’