Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCE William’s two-day visit to new Zealand, beginning today, is an important one for the Queen. She didn’t sign the book of condolences at new Zealand house after the Christchurch shootings – although she had an engagement only half a mile away – dispatching harry and Meghan instead. She also asked Princess Anne’s husband Tim, who happened to be in new Zealand, to deliver her condolences locally, instead of sending her own governor general. This prompted new Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern to formally request a royal visit. So William is there to make amends.
DONALD Trump will be welcomed by the Queen without any member of the Royal Family giving him the cold shoulder. There is, however, a precedent for displaying royal disapproval of a controversial head of state. HM’s cousin Lord Mountbatten refused to meet the Japanese Emperor Hirohito during his three-day state visit in 1970 out of respect for British soldiers killed in the Far East. Mountbatten, as Asian supreme commander, accepted the surrender of Japan’s forces in 1945. No Japanese dignitary attended his 1979 funeral at his request.
The death at 98 of Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, recalls his daughter MarieAstrid’s supposed 1977 romance with Prince Charles, headlined by the Daily express: ‘Charles to marry Astrid – official.’ It was baloney, the relationship scuppered by her Roman Catholicism. Spuriously adding ‘official’ to the headline was considered rash. The editor responsible never lived it down. MarieAstrid, 65, became Archduchess of Austria.
ALL My Sons director Jeremy Herrin was distracted at Tuesday night’s Old Vic gala opening, starring Jenna Coleman, pictured, by a profusion of chirrups, beeps and brrrrrings as audience members forgot to switch off mobile phones holding their e-tickets, an innovation of the theatre. Jeremy glared furiously and tut-tutted at the offenders. Paper tickets were much quieter.
OUT next month in France, a book about President emmanuel Macron’s seduction by his teacher, and later wife, Brigitte, then 37, when he was 16. entitled And he Was Just Seventeen, after a Beatles lyric, the book by Sylvie Bommel promises new material about the affair of Macron and Brigitte. Qui pique la curiosite!
MORAL Maze stalwart Claire Fox’s candidature for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party prompts the question: Will the BBC drop her from the highbrow Radio 4 show? If they do, then what about other Brexiteers in the line-up – Michael Portillo, Giles Fraser and Melanie Phillips? Time for an edition dedicated to the morals of Remaining?
PERFORMING his one-man show in the US, John Cleese, 79, barks: ‘Climate change? Who cares? You can all fry as far as I’m concerned.’ And on his Python colleagues: ‘I can tell you the truth: none of them were really very good... I mean, Palin had glimmerings of talent.’ Shouldn’t curmudgeonly Cleese obtain a refund from whatever charm school he attended?