Ephraim Hardcastle
JONATHAN dimbleby, standing down as host of radio 4’s Any Questions after 32 years, won’t be receiving a bon voyage card from Prince Philip. The royal codger hated dimbo’s memorably controversial 1994 Prince Charles biography, which portrayed him as an unloving dad. It prompted Prince Philip’s friend Gyles Brandreth to write: ‘That Prince Charles should voluntarily talk to a broadcaster and journalist about family matters … seemed, to his parents, sheer foolishness … his father thought him “bloody stupid”.’
ON DISPLAY at Buckingham Palace yesterday at the knees-up for the 50th anniversary of Prince Charles’s investiture was the regalia he wore for the ceremony at Caernarfon Castle including the ornate coronet, designed by goldsmith Louis Osman. At a rehearsal, the coronet was found to be far too large. The Queen told Noel Coward that she struggled not to laugh, adding: ‘It extinguished him like a candle-snuffer.’
POSING alongside Boris Johnson at a Cancer research charity event in Piccadilly, fellow Brexiteer elizabeth Hurley, 53, prompts memories of her saucy, seemingly nude appearance holding up a Union Jack cushion to cover her modesty, pictured, and challenging remainers: ‘Bring it on you ranting luvvies, fat-cat bankers and multinational corporations … you are showing yourselves in all your mean-spirited, round-headed, elitist glory, and what an unappealing lot you are.’ Surely a refund from the charm school is in order Liz?
GUARDIAN columnist Polly Toynbee, 72, recalling her brief stint as a nursery worker when researching minimum wage jobs, tells Radio 4’s Today: ‘People don’t recognise you when you’re wearing a lowly uniform. There I was, trundling down Whitehall with a double buggy and three kids on reins, but I was wearing the tabard of the nursery … who should pass by but Peter Mandelson … he completely didn’t recognise me in humble uniform.’ Perhaps Mandy was traumatised, Polly!
LADY Weidenfeld, widow of the celebrated publisher and boulevardier, defends the Berlin State Opera’s music director, daniel Barenboim, over allegations of bullying (which he denies). ‘What he has given to the world of music as a great pianist and conductor should inspire gratitude in us all,’ she writes in The Times. Annabelle Whitestone, 72, a former concert manager, knows what she’s talking about. At 31, she became the consort of world famous 90-year-old pianist Arthur rubinstein and in 1992, aged 46, she married highly cultured George Weidenfeld, then 73. Barenboim is bound to be cheered by her support.
CRITICISING Meghan Markle’s lavish celebrity New York baby shower, Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, 60, pontificates: ‘Discretion is the key.’ Hardly a strength of blabbermouth Burrell!