Ephraim Hardcastle
DONALD Trump breached protocol when he jumped the gun in confirming his state visit to Britain in June. As the Queen is host, the proper procedure was for Buckingham Palace to announce the trip. But HM won’t be losing any sleep over the matter. One courtier observed that at 93, the Queen is long used to being let down by politicians.
WHEN Princess Diana wore a dress designed by Prince Charles’s former lover Lady (‘Kanga’) Tryon at 1985’s Live Aid concert it was a signal she had forgiven Charles for his canoodle. On Easter Sunday, the Duchess of Cambridge wore the diamond oak leaf and acorn earrings specially created for her wedding in April 2011. Was this a subtle sign that her marriage to Prince William is as solid and happy as it was eight years ago?
COUNTDOWN princess Rachel Riley, pictured, dares Jeremy Corbyn to sue her for calling him an anti-Semite, tweeting: ‘It would mean an actual court scrutinising the mountain of evidence we have, and him having to answer for it under oath, in public. YES PLEASE!’
CHANGE UK candidate Gavin Esler, 66, was once less than gentlemanly towards a female colleague. The former BBC man bragged: ‘The bravest thing I’ve ever done is tell someone I worked with that unless she did something about her personal freshness problem, none of the crew would work with her’, adding, sweetly: ‘Meeting terrorists in Northern Ireland and paramilitaries in Latin America was easier.’ What a charmer!
GEORGE Clooney’s visit to his Irish cousins in County Laois prompts relatives to wonder: If only George, pictured, had an Irish grandparent then his son Alexander, aged 22 months, could qualify to play for the Irish football team when he comes of age.
BIOGRAPHER Hunter Davies is handing over the last of his Beatles memorabilia to the British Library, but he is holding on to Sir Paul McCartney’s swimming trunks from a 1967 holiday in Portugal. ‘I have a fantasy that, when Paul dies (many years from now, we hope), they might be able to clone him, using a sample of his DNA from his cossie,’ he tells The Oldie.
LORD SUGAR suffered a sense of humour failure when a tweeter, responding to his pledge to quit Britain if Jeremy Corbyn becomes PM, offered to drive him to the airport. He replies: ‘No, I won’t need a lift. I’ll get my driver to take me in my Rolls-Royce to the private aviation section of the airport and get on my private jet and wave goodbye to you.’