Ephraim Hardcastle
THE absence of a date for the State Opening of Parliament – due next month – is blamed on Mrs May having only three non-Brexit Bills for the Queen’s Speech. Most likely option? The Lord Chancellor reading the threadbare text – something that has only happened four times, when HM was pregnant or abroad. Keeping her out of the parliamentary mess won’t have the Queen reaching for the Dubonnet. In 2017, the last time she had to read Mrs May’s script, she had to cancel Garter Day and miss some of Ascot, two mainstays of the royal calendar.
CHARLES and Camilla, preparing their travelling yeoman for a trip to Germany next month, won’t be visiting Coburg’s Rosenau Palace, birthplace of ancestor Prince Albert, despite his looming bicentenary. Queen Victoria’s bicentenary next month (she was born in May 1819, he in August) is being observed in a relatively downbeat way by her descendants. Why the lack of official celebration? Says my royal source: ‘They don’t want to shout too loudly about it – not because of the German connection, but because snowflakes might get agitated about colonialism and empire and want to start pulling down statues and renaming streets.’
THE flames of Notre Dame have reinforced plans for a scaled down Westminster Abbey coronation of Prince Charles, supporting health and safety arguments against a replay of the Queen’s 1953 elevation. Then 8,000 dignitaries were crammed in, some atop scaffolding, without adequate escape routes. Says my source: ‘A few hundred seats will be added to the abbey’s 2,000 capacity. There will be no coronation theatre.’
DAME Judi Dench, pictured, preening her whiskers to play Old Deuteronomy in the movie version of Cats, has had feline tuition explaining: ‘I was privately cattrained. The trainer came down to the house. I was able to be a cat here in my own room. You have to be very, very, serious “to do cat”.’ Break a paw, darling.
MARGARET Thatcher, whose jewellery comes under the hammer at Christie’s next month, sometimes wore imitation pearl earrings, as Lord Hesketh’s wife Claire discovered in the guest bedroom of her then home Easton Neston. ‘Lady Saatchi was the last person staying,’ explained Lady H. ‘She would never have worn anything so hideous … oh dear – it was Margaret and Denis beforehand…’
CONTESTANTS on BBC gameshow Pointless, shown a picture of Green Party co-leader Sian Berry, were asked to name ‘a famous Berry’. Not a single player had a clue who she was. What’s the point of hapless Sian?
NO love lost between fellow Sixties icons Sir Michael Caine and David Bailey. Sniffs Bailey: ‘You never had a conversation with him – you listened to him. A lot of people get like this after they become famous, but Caine was like this before. The only subject he wanted to talk about was himself.’ As Caine didn’t say: ‘Not a lot of people know that, David.’