Ephraim Hardcastle

STARS including Sir Elton John began a boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2014 when its owner, the Sultan of Brunei, implemented anti-gay laws in his homeland, where Muslims make up two-thirds of the 440,000 population. Sir Elton and his partner David Furnish announced: ‘We can’t lie in a suite at the Beverly Hills and ignore the fact that the hotel is stained with the blood of gay people.’ Now some celebs are trickling back there. ‘Visitors who are either out or maintain close ties to the LGBTQ community have returned to the hotel,’ says The Hollywood Reporter. It’s feared the #MeToo anti-sex harassment campaign might likewise fade. What’s the hotel’s appeal? ‘I once spotted [author] Gore Vidal and a friend coyly observing a group of Russian prostitutes there,’ says a regular guest. SIR Michael Caine, 84, presents a new documentary film, My Generation, about the ‘Swinging Sixties’, talking to the likes of actress Joan Collins, 84, fashionista Mary Quant, 83, and photographer David Bailey, 80. Aren’t they from the 1950s generation – unlike another interviewee, 1960s model Twiggy, 68, pictured in 1966? HOLLYWOOD director Steven Spielberg, 71, after half a century in the movie business, is asked how he’ll mark the occasion. ‘I will probably go off my diet and have a hot fudge sundae, that’s all I need,’ he says. Indeed so, according to Forbes magazine he’s worth £2.5billion. A MERRY-looking Sir Rod Stewart, 73, merits a clip around the ear from his attractive Amazonian wife, Penny, after flippantly informing US journalists who asked about the sudden death at 46 of Cranberries star Dolores O’Riordan: ‘We’re all dropping… I’m not feeling too well myself.’ WHILE embattled Ukip leader Henry Bolton, 54, bemoans his ill-fated romance with blonde former model Jo Marney, 25, following her offensive comments about royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle, Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames, 69, offers his usual, sweet-natured counsel, tweeting: ‘What an appalling little squirt is that Henry Bolton. Why doesn’t he just shut up instead of blubbing?’ SELF-absorbed Speaker John Bercow, wished a happy birthday by politicians in the Commons – he’s 55 today – is told by shadow leader of the House Valerie Vaz that Capricorns (like himself) ‘have a secret desire to be admired... by the world at large. It couldn’t be more apt.’ Secret? Hardly in boastful Bercow’s case, surely. INSALUBRIOUS Tower Hamlets, London, declares itself a Donald Trump-free zone after a motion proposed by councillor Ohid Ahmed who says he hopes this will convey ‘a clear message’ to the US President. Reminds me of an Irish paper, the Skibbereen Eagle of West Cork, warning Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in 1898 that it would ‘keep its eye’ on him.