Ephraim Hardcastle

THE Queen is unlikely to give Donald Trump an honour during his visit. But shouldn’t he give her an award? HM has laurels from more than 60 countries, but none from the US. Tony Blair got both the Congressional Gold Medal (2003) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009). Surely the monarch, who has met every US president since Harry Truman (apart from Lyndon Johnson), deserves one from our ex-colony? MUCH Kensington Palace headscratching at the BBC graveyard Sunday night slot for Prince William’s mental health chat with footballers. Such a coup would once have been TV gold. Says a BBC source: ‘William talking mental health is no longer box office, ditto Charles on climate change. Now getting Meghan to open up on mental health – or any other issue...’ HIRING an ‘intimacy coordinator’ for sex scenes between Daniel Craig and Bond girl Ana de Armas, pictured, contrasts with Sir Roger Moore and Madeline Smith’s canoodling in 1973’s Live and Let Die. Madeline recalls the chastity-belt presence on set of Roger’s third wife Luisa, who floated ‘spectre-like around our bed ... there was no possibility of hanky panky’. BRITAIN’S Got Talent’s first winner Paul Potts tells Radio Times that he had to give the taxman 35 per cent of his £100,000 prize money because he’d used a skill rather than won a quiz. Had Simon Cowell added some questions, might Potts have been able to keep all the loot? GRILLED by Today’s Martha Kearney about leadership ambitions, Health Secretary Matt Hancock remarks: ‘It’s flattering that people have asked me to put my name forward.’ ‘Is your reticence’, asks Kearney mischievously, ‘because a recent poll of Tory members showed you had only 1 per cent support?’ Hancock counters: ‘No, because the contest hasn’t started yet.’ A low blow! SAVAGED by critics, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s The Victorians found favour with fellowBrexiteer historian Andrew Roberts who gushed it was ‘full throated, wellresearched and well-written’. Should Andrew have gone to Specsavers? SIR Tim Rice tweeted on the UK’s Eurovision disaster: ‘Poor Michael Rice was singing a song written by three Swedes and one Canadian/Brit. The main writer was also the Swedish entrant! This is stark staring bonkers. If we must enter a terrible song at least make it ours. Get a grip, BBC.’ GYLES Brandreth’s reminiscences of transsexual pioneer April Ashley prompts a letter in The Oldie recalling that when Lord Rowallan’s son Robert Cameron Corbett heard of April’s engagement to his brother Arthur, he declared: ‘Many congratulations. Can I be a bridesmaid?’ Email: john.mcentee@dailymail.co.uk