Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCESS Eugenie’s wedding to handsome tequila salesman Jack Brooksbank on Friday October 12 – including a coach ride through Windsor – moves the Queen’s former personal chef Darren McGrady, 56, to remark cheekily: ‘The horse and cart ride is over the top for a ninth in line. More people would turn out to see Steptoe and Son.’ Orf with his head!
GRUMBLES over the £2million cost to the taxpayer of Princess Eugenie’s wedding are unfortunate but, as I’ve pointed out, the Queen could hardly refuse a granddaughter the carriages and glitter enjoyed by her grandson Harry and his bride Meghan in May. Nor will it be easy when the time comes to deny Eugenie’s sister, Princess Beatrice, the same wedding folderols. As the daughters of Prince Andrew, the girls are affected by his ‘second son’ position in the royal line of succession. But is there a way of cutting the taxpayer out of the event? Yes, HM lifting her ban on media organisations bidding for exclusive access. Hello! paid £500,000 for the rights to Peter Phillips’s wedding ten years ago. Alas, that caused an uproar, too.
SIR Paul McCartney, 76, with an estimated £820million fortune, says he’s proud of being working class, adding in an interview: ‘It’s how I was brought up. I am working class. I like the working class! They’re funny. They’re clever. And they work. Which is rather interesting. Because not everyone does. I like working.’ In his own line of work, of course.
DIANA’S brother Earl Spencer, 54, posts this picture of himself and third wife Karen, 46, commenting: ‘Eight years ago this evening I was bullied into going on a blind date by an old friend. Thank you, old friend.’ While wishing them well, I am reminded of showbiz writer Donald Zec remarking three months after nine-times-married actress Zsa Zsa Gabor wed No 6, Barbie Doll designer Jack Ryan, in 1975: ‘Who said it wouldn’t last?’ They divorced in 1976.
COMIC John Cleese, 78, says: ‘I had lunch with (ex-Monty Python colleague) Michael Palin, 75, last week at his (London) club The Athenaeum. He’s so nice that I fell asleep during my main course.’ The definition of a double-edged compliment.
FORMER TV news anchor Selina Scott, 67, ‘interviewed’ Grand National hero Bob Champion last week while both were guests on BBC1’s The Real Marigold Hotel TV show. Is she reminding TV producers what they’re missing? Prompting Champion, 70, to recount his successful 1979 battle with cancer, she told him: ‘I had no idea you’d gone through all of that.’ Really? In 1984 – at the height of her TV fame – his cancer battle was turned into a hit movie starring John Hurt.
FAMOUS for playing a New Orleans prostitute in the 1978 movie Pretty Baby, star Brooke Shields, then 12, now attends the New York Academy of Art. At a party, students were asked either to show their sketches or strip off. Now 53, Brooke opted for the latter, as we might expect.