Ephraim Hardcastle
VLADIMIR Putin’s macabre flirtation with the threat of nuclear war prompts the question: How would the royals be protected from an Armageddon-like conflict? Operation Candid envisaged the Queen and Prince Philip being whisked to a bunker with the Home Secretary. Why the Home Secretary? So they could hold an emergency Privy Council meeting, appointing a new PM if the premier didn’t make it to his secure location. Thus Charles and Camilla could find themselves incarcerated in a secret location with Suella Braverman. And what about Rishi? He would be holed up with William and Kate.
DIANA’S private secretary Patrick Jephson accuses The Crown of ‘making up’ the princess’s confession to the Queen about her Panorama interview, saying he phoned Her Majesty’s private secretary Robert Fellowes to alert HM. ‘The only person in the Queen’s office at the time was Her Majesty’s press secretary [Charles Anson],’ Jephson says. Peter Morgan, creator of The Crown, must have been dozing when Jephson, a paid consultant on the show, told him so.
ELIZABETH Debicki’s cleavage-revealing black gown worn at The Crown premiere reprised the dress worn by 19-year-old Diana Spencer at her first official engagement in London with fiance Charles in 1981. At the time ITN was criticised for showing a close-up, freezing a frame with a light pen around an area of her breast, asking: ‘Is this Diana’s nipple?’
ULRIKA Jonsson, pictured, raises her sexual periscope in pursuit of new love, telling Bella magazine: ‘I guess I’ve been dating a lot of younger men, I’m not ageist, by any means. I’m an equal opportunity dater, so by all means apply.’
She adds: ‘I’m 55 now but still feel 15. I genuinely feel as naughty and silly and ridiculous as I ever did.’ You said it, Ulrika!
WESTMINSTER Abbey’s bells ring out on Monday to mark the King’s birthday. But schedule changes mean this accolade is limited to the monarch, his heir and their spouses. It means the bells will remain silent for Harry’s birthday – an honour he should have started to receive this year as the King’s son. Charles acceded to the throne on the Queen’s death – a week before Harry’s big day.
DAVID Dimbleby reveals a near-drowning experience when he fell into the North Sea from brother Jonathan’s sailing dinghy. ‘He made a mistake,’ David tells comedian Matt Forde’s podcast. ‘It capsized and tipped over and I fell into the water.’ Half-submerged, he was clutching the back of the boat when rescue seemed imminent. But the fellow sailor, recognising Jonathan, engaged in conversation: ‘Oh, the last time I saw you, you were making a speech in Liverpool.’ Adds David forlornly: ‘There I was hanging on.’
THE Queen saw the funny side when eggs were thrown at her in New Zealand in 1986, quipping: ‘New Zealand has long been renowned for its dairy produce, though I should say that I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.’
Email: john.mcentee@dailymail.co.uk