Ephraim Hardcastle
WHETHER Prince Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle move into a Kensington Palace apartment or not shouldn’t greatly affect his father’s plan to radically downsize Royal accommodation when he becomes King. Central to that scheme involves the new King Charles continuing to live in Clarence House and moving all the KP Royals into the vacant Buckingham Palace, developing an event space and museum on the Kensington site. But what will he do with the rest of his property? To add to Clarence House, Birkhall and Highrove plus two other Duchy of Cornwall properties he will inherit Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham and Balmoral. That’s well over 2,000 rooms for an elderly man with a wife and two grownup children.
A 1972 letter from Sir Sean Connery, 86, to feminist Germaine Greer has emerged in which the Bond star requests her phone number, claiming ‘I have an idea for a project which could be interesting and fun.’ Germaine, now 78, never took the Scot up on his offer but his prehistoric views on the fairer sex would not have met with her approval. He once told Playboy magazine there was nothing wrong with hitting a woman, explaining: ‘An open-handed slap is justified, if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning.’ Charming.
WHAT will Philip May make of the gift dispatched to his wife by Peter Stringfellow? The fervent Tory and table dancing aficionado has sent her a box of frillies from After Midnight, his saucy lingerie range, explaining: ‘Judging by her crocodile shoes Theresa is a foxy lady.’ Surely Stringy, 76, father of Rosabella, three, and Angelo, 18 months, should be concentrating on Babygros?
ROMANTIC writer Santa Montefiore, pictured, tells Woman&Home magazine that she has been seeing ghosts all her life. Has she been in touch with her sister Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, 45, who died suddenly last month from a perforated ulcer? Says Santa, 47: ‘I know she’s in spirit. I have a really strong belief that she’s moved on. Knowing that about someone is a massive comfort on one level, but it doesn’t replace the person who you can’t hold or hug or talk to any more.’
NOVELIST Julian Barnes admired the late English abstract painter Sir Howard Hodgkin. Or did he? Viewing one of his paintings for BBC2, Barnes says: ‘This is a blazing picture about joy and then sort of behind every joy there is melancholy,’ adding: ‘Might be complete b*****ks.’
THIS Sporting Life author David Storey, who has died aged 83, took grave exception to his 1976 play Mother’s Day being described as ‘a stinker’ by the Guardian’s Michael Billington. Encountering him in the bar of the Royal Court he repeatedly cuffed him on the back of the neck so hard Billington’s glasses went flying. With each blow he enunciated ‘I-di-ot.’ Isn’t life grand!