Ephraim Hardcastle
IN HIS new book on prime ministers, Sir Anthony Seldon highlights major overcrowding in Downing Street prompting the question: shouldn’t Boris and Carrie move out of the flat above the shop to allow a major refurbishment? The PM and retinue could be temporarily accommodated in Kensington Palace’s Apartment 1. It remains unoccupied after the Duke of Gloucester moved out to make room for newlyweds Harry and Meghan. The 21-room residence, adjacent to William and Kate’s larger home, has the added advantage of recent lavish redecoration saving Carrie the trouble of speed dialling rattan queen Lulu Lytle. And the cherry on the cake? It is strategically near Carrie and Boris’s preferred nosherie Daylesford.
VANITY Fair claims Harry and Meghan will temporarily step back from work on their multi-million-pound deals after the summer birth of their daughter, suggesting a herculean spring workload as the couple fulfil obligations to Netflix and Spotify. Should we be bracing for a virtual tsunami of woke bulletins from California?
RETIRING Lord Speaker Norman Fowler, famous for not pronouncing his ‘r’s, debunks the claim that, as Margaret Thatcher’s health secretary, he exclaimed ‘cwikey!’ when an official explained oral sex to him. ‘The tale is wonderful,’ says Norman, ‘but not true.’ He adds that he did indeed say ‘cwikey!’ – but in shocked response to being told how many couples engaged in such fruity practices. Cwikey, that many? Or cwikey, that few? We should be told.
REUNITED with ‘lifelong friend’ Dame Joan Collins in California, fellow British star Jane Seymour, right, enthused: ‘ There’s nothing like a Dame!’ Is she miffed at not having a damehood? ‘Yes, well, that would be nice,’ she says. ‘I’m an OBE. Maybe they don’t feel I’ve earned it yet. There’s not much more I can do.’
WHAT would Princess Diana’s Coleherne Court neighbour Keith Waterhouse make of English Heritage’s commemoration at her pre-nuptial Earls Court flat? The late Billy Liar writer and esteemed Daily Mail columnist surely deserves similar recognition. As thirsty Keith spent much of his time in neighbouring O’Neill’s, now The Bolton, might EH attach the blue plaque to the saloon bar wall?
A GALLIC drinking game inspired by President Macron’s new lockdown involved a penalty of one sip each time preening Emmanuel appealed to ‘mes chers compatriotes’ in his TV address. Urging them to support ‘le combat’ cost two sips; ‘les sacrifices’: three; ‘notre personnel soignant’ (nurses): five. When he got round to ‘le vaccin’, the rollout of which he has spectacularly bungled, several were on the floor. The ‘penalty’ for that? Down in one.
PERHAPS fortuitously for Andrew Morton, neither the Queen Mother nor Princess Margaret remain alive to question the claim in his latest royal biography that Margaret commandeered her mother’s wheelchair, prompting the Queen to exclaim: ‘For God’s sake, Margaret, get out. That’s meant for mummy.’ Pinch of salt Andrew?