Ephraim Hardcastle
In her final months as prime minister, Theresa May managed to lengthen her tenure past those of gordon Brown, neville Chamberlain and the Duke of Wellington. speculation about toppling Boris Johnson means he must survive until mid-november to avoid coming last behind george Canning. He died in office in 1827 after only four months.
RENEWING her acquaintance with Corporal Cruachan IV, the regimental mascot at Balmoral, the Queen was relieved at his good behaviour. Last year the shameless Shetland relieved himself in the royal presence and in 2017 he tried to eat her bouquet. Why wasn’t he demoted to private?
STRICTLY’s Danny John-Jules mocks the show’s jinx where dancing contestants indulge in affairs with each other, telling BBC2’s Victoria Derbyshire: ‘When I walked through the door I said, “I’ve come for the curse! I’ve been trying to get rid of the missus for three years!”’ Does wife Petula langlais find this hilarious?
THE return of Spitting Image revives uncomfortable memories for David Steel, pictured mercilessly lampooned as a weak midget in David Owen’s pocket. ‘It was funny but it was wrong,’ he says, insisting that he and Owen were firm friends. But he added: ‘The drip, drip, drip made it a damaging portrayal.’
JAMES Runcie, BBC Radio 4’s arts commissioning editor, eulogises daughter Charlotte’s memoir salt On Your Tongue as ‘a bloody good book’. so good it was selected for Radio 4’s coveted Book of the Week slot. not guilty, insists James, saying: ‘I was not in the room when it was done.’
POSH thespian Simon Williams, now playing a financial adviser in The Archers, fondly recalling landing the role of upper-class James Bellamy in the 1970s series Upstairs, Downstairs, credits his public school, saying: ‘If I’d learnt anything at Harrow, it was how to put on a wing collar and be bloody-minded with servants – it’d be a shoo-in, surely. It was my lucky day.’
LIVERPOOL’s Teutonic manager Jurgen Klopp tells Radio 5 live he watches reruns of the Us sitcom Friends to improve his english, explaining: ‘It’s very easy to understand... it’s easy to follow for germans.’ surely his next mission is to learn scouse.
EX-EASTENDER Shane Ritchie, about to tour in John Osborne’s classic The Entertainer, grandly claims he’s more qualified to play Archie Rice than Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh, saying: ‘The one thing I have over them is that I’ve played theatres where it’s been really difficult.’ As they might ask in the Queen Vic: ‘Is he having a giraffe?’