Ephraim Hardcastle
THE Queen is spending her first weekend at Balmoral perhaps gently bracing herself for the arrival of son Andrew and former wife Sarah. Last year they were the most frequent family visitors to her Highland retreat with Fergie taking full advantage of the absence of Prince Philip, a man who rarely held a grudge but made an exception by banning his ex-daughter-inlaw. Both are likely to robustly lobby HM to rehabilitate Andrew and facilitate his eventual resumption to full-time royal duties. Her favourite son knows that she provides the only route back before Charles becomes king. Might the Queen sweetly urge them to decamp and spend some of the summer time in Fergie’s new Mayfair digs, said to cost up to £7million?
REVIEWING the new biography of Daily Mail founder Lord Northcliffe in the TLS, AN Wilson recalls a disputed tale of him sympathetically offering Edward VII’s mistress Alice Keppel £1,000 in used notes to help her out of a tight spot. Wilson mischievously compared it with Prince Charles accepting carrier bags of 500 euro notes worth more than £1million for his charity from a Qatari sheikh. Did the Duchess of Cornwall, great-granddaughter of Mrs Keppel, make the connection too?
RACHEL Johnson, pictured, danced so frenetically at her brother’s wedding party that she lost a toenail in the conga.
‘I was taught the slut drop by Liz Hurley years ago’, she writes in The Spectator.
‘She demonstrated how to collapse on the floor like a broken deckchair on the count of three. My problem at Daylesford [House, location of the party] was getting up again – not a challenge shared by my sister-in-law [Carrie].’
PRINCE Charles rewards wealthy donors with invitations to receptions or dinner. Those who helped him buy Dumfries House have a bench, border or flower bed named in their honour. But he pays tribute to his favourites with busts in his beloved Highgrove Gardens which feature Debo Devonshire, former bishop of London Richard Chartres, composer Sir John Tavener, Sir Roy Strong and Sir Laurens van der Post. If former cash for honours valet Michael Fawcett has been immortalised his bust is well hidden in the shrubbery.
CAROLINE Kennedy, President Biden’s Australian ambassador, visits the Queen’s Solomon Islands this weekend mounting a charm offensive to persuade the administration to reject an imminent deal with the Chinese to provide armed police and troops to ‘assist in maintaining social order’. After serenading the Lionesses to victory, is the original Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond was inspired by JFK’s daughter) about to save one of HM’s thrones?
LITERARY agent Robin Dalton has died aged 101. She was not invited to the 1947 wedding of the Queen to Prince Philip despite her lover the Marquess of Milford Haven being best man. But she did provide his wedding present to the couple, one of the first Decolas, a self-loading record player. Fancy!