Ephraim Hardcastle
HUGO Vickers has had his royal historian’s hooter pushed out of kilter by fellow biographer Andrew Lownie’s book on the Duke of Windsor. Vickers, who has written two tomes on the subject, complains of the title Traitor King: ‘I seem to be the only person who does not look forward to this. One of these “traitor” books. It’s been done before. Not convinced.’ Counters Lownie: ‘I suggest people make judgments when they have read it.’ Says a Windsor bibliophile: ‘Hugo doesn’t like his “official” history The Private World of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to be spattered with mud from Andrew’s book.’ Seconds out! Ding dong!
THE passing of Philip leaves the Queen and Prince Charles as the only royals who can issue Royal Warrants. Philip had 35 including Boots, Truefitt and Hill, who sent a hairdresser most weeks, and Bibliophile Books, an independent specialist in out-of-print titles. Awarded for five or ten years, most will now wither gently on the vine.
DAMIEN Hirst might have wondered why the queue for his new exhibition was shorter than that for the fizzy drinks machine he installed near the entrance at the Gagosian gallery. Cheeky art lovers were snapping up Hirst-signed Coca-Cola cans for £1 and then selling them for up to £2,000 for a pair on eBay. Says gallery visitor Roberto LeBlanc: ‘I’ve never seen a drinks machine emptied so quickly – never mind the culture vultures, this was like real vultures descending.’
SPECTATOR political editor James Forsyth, focusing on Covid and Russia, remains mute on the ongoing Allegra/Cummings/Boris/ Carrie farrago. Married to Boris’s sidelined press secretary Allegra Stratton, James could surely share with readers how his missus was bounced out of the £2.6million media suite before she cleared her throat for her first briefing. And what of Mrs Cummings? That’s Mary Wakefield, pictured, the magazine’s commissioning editor. Lots to discuss… but not in the Speccy.
APPOINTED minister for children at the start of the pandemic, few politicians have worked as hard as Chelmsford Tory MP Vicky Ford. Yet she is airily dismissed as ‘dippy Vicky’ in ex-Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan’s memoirs. Ulster-born Vicky’s dad died in her childhood; after Cambridge, she was vice-president at JP Morgan, then district councillor, Euro MP, Westminster MP, minister and somehow also found time to raise three children with husband Hugo. A darned sight less dippy than Dippy Duncan, I’d say.
SEBASTIAN Coe, leading London’s bid for the 2012 Olympics, declined to attend the final presentations by rival cities, preferring to lie on his hotel bed listening to jazz by Jimmy Rowles. ‘The athlete in me said, “Well you would not go and watch other athletes warm up. Why would I do that?”’ he tells BBC Radio 2’s A Day Without Jazz is Like a Day Without Running.
DISCUSSING playing Hamlet with theatrical master Sir Derek Jacobi, Gyles Brandreth describes his youthful attempt at the prince: ‘Humility was certainly the order of the day. I was so bad, the audience threw eggs at me, genuinely. I went on as Hamlet and came off as Omelette.’