Pick of the week’s Gossip

The Queen has a secret code for escaping boring conversations, according to royal historian Hugo Vickers. Shifting her trusty Launer handbag from one hand to the other indicates to staff that she is ready to move on from a conversation. Twisting her wedding ring is the regal equivalent of an SOS, indicating that she wants to be moved along at speed. “It would be done very nicely,” Vickers told People magazine. “Someone would come along and say [to you], ‘Sir, the Archbishop of Canterbury would very much like to meet you.’” Martin Clunes is challenging the taxman after being told he cannot offset the cost of plastic surgery against his income. The star of Doc Martin and Men Behaving Badly had tried to claim an unspecified cosmetic procedure against tax, on the grounds that it was essential “for the purposes of his acting trade”. When HMRC refused, he lodged an appeal. He then asked the tax tribunal judge to grant him anonymity, lest he should “become the target of mockery and jokes”, but his request has been refused.

Joan Collins has homes in New York, Hollywood, Saint-tropez and London, and a personal fortune of around £24m – but don’t ever accuse her of being rich. “What’s rich?” she demanded during a frosty interview with Michael Buerk, published in the Radio Times. “I’m not exactly rich, no. Rich, as Robert Wagner said to me, is having f*** you money. I don’t have that and I’ve a lifestyle to support.”