Ephraim Hardcastle

DAVID Cameron escorted his mother, Mary, to yesterday’s Oldie of the Year lunch at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand where she received the Mother Knows Best award. Without wishing to detract from Mrs Cameron’s new distinction, the point was to get the ex-Prime Minister there. Why did they bother? He had nothing to say for himself, except that he has only got as far as becoming Prime Minister in the memoirs he is writing. Considering how it ended, is there much more for him to say? THE late Jimmy Young’s 1979 interview with Margaret Thatcher confirmed him as a serious broadcaster and endeared her to more voters. How did it come about? The story involved Chariots of Fire star Nigel Havers, then a BBC trainee working for Sir Jimmy’s producer, Mike Hollingsworth. According to Hollingsworth, Havers was about to be fired. But he saved his job by persuading his father, Attorney General Michael Havers, to secure Sir Jimmy’s encounter with Mrs T. ‘In return for my reinstating young Nigel, his dad set up the interview with the new PM,’ recalls Hollingsworth. FORMER Goodies star Bill Oddie, 75, pictured, is seen trying to boost his flagging ‘libido’ with the help of a special potion while filming a new BBC 1 documentary in India. Father of three, Oddie, who is married to second wife Laura, takes an ‘external application’ called Fortoil, explaining to viewers: ’You have to massage it well into the affected part.’ Who says the licence fee’s no bargain? THE memorial service for the Earl of Snowdon in April is to be held in St Margaret’s, Westminster rather than the much larger Westminster Abbey next door. It appears that the Queen’s former brother-in-law isn’t expected to draw a big enough crowd. Surely this is being unduly pessimistic. A major turnout by the Royal Family is expected, which is bound to raise numbers. The abbey was packed for Terry Wogan’s service in 2016, Richard Attenborough’s in 2015 and Sir David Frost’s in 2014. They expect a big demand for tickets for comedian Ronnie Corbett’s in June. WHAT Donald Trump really wants is an honorary knighthood like those awarded to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush. Non-presidential Americans such as former defence secretary Caspar Weinberger, ex-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, and former New York mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg got honorary Ks. Actress Angelina Jolie became an honorary dame. Even Henry ‘The Fonz’ Winkler, of TV’s Happy Days, was given an honorary OBE. DELIGHTED by the Tate Britain retrospective of his life’s work, for which £19.50 tickets are required, artist David Hockney, 79, says: ‘It has been a pleasure to revisit works I made decades ago.’ Happily for him, his arch critic Brian Sewell is no longer with us. His considered view: ‘Hockney is a vulgar prankster.’