Ephraim Hardcastle

DONALD Trump and Kim Jong-un seem obvious candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize – except that their de-nuclearisation deal might collapse. So Nobel bigwigs are fortunate that nominations for this year’s prize closed in February. They were ridiculed for rushing to give the prize to President Barack Obama in 2009, the first year of his presidency, before he’d done anything. It’ll be more embarrassing for him if the Trump/Kim deal succeeds – and they go unnoticed by the Nobel committee. SURELY it was undiplomatic of President Trump, 71, to say to photographers while with Kim: ‘Get a good picture everybody, so that we look nice and handsome and thin?’ Kim, 34, has ballooned in weight by over six stone since becoming North Korea’s ‘supreme leader’ in 2011. But so reportedly has junk-food addict Trump, 16stone 12lb with a body mass index reading of 30.3 (officially obese) when elected president in 2016. PRONE to being ridiculed, pop star Lily Allen, 33, says in an interview promoting her new album, No Shame: ‘I find communicating on a grander scale easier than on an intimate one. I have real problems with intimacy. If somebody says, “Get on stage and sing Smile in front of 100,000 people,” no problem. If they said, “Sing Smile in front of ten people,” massive problems. I don’t care about p****** off the masses.’ We’ve noticed! US Defence Secretary James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, 67, joined British opposite number, Gavin Williamson, for Trooping the Colour but it wasn’t an experience he’s likely to repeat, says my source, adding: ‘The general, who saw active service in Iraq, the Gulf and Afghanistan before running US Central Command, found little in common with the 41-year-old former fireplace salesman who apparently keeps a pet tarantula. Whoever put Trooping the Colour in the general’s diary will hear about it.’ SERIOUSLY ill with lung cancer, former East-Enders star Leslie Grantham’s final ambition – to become a publisher of children’s books written by celebrities – has faded. Following his own, 2016 kids’ fantasy, Jack Bates & The Wizard’s Spell, Leslie, 71, signed up magician Paul Daniels to write a sci-fi novel called Wizbit about an alien illusionist. Daniels died in 2016 before it was completed. FOLLOWING the recent death at 102 of Mary Wilson, the Betjeman Society is calling for a ‘re-evaluation’ of her poetry. Lady Wilson and Poet Laureate John Betjeman were friends. Had her husband Harold not become Prime Minister she might have got the job. When it became vacant in 1968, she was a serious contender, but the position is awarded by the Queen on the recommendation of the PM. That meant it was difficult for Wilson to suggest his wife, so the job went to Cecil Day-Lewis. When it next became vacant, in 1972, Tory premier Edward Heath appointed Betjeman.