Hardcastle
FINGERS crossed that Rishi Sunak has more success after wheeling King charles out for a Windsor Tea with eU commission president Ursula von der leyen than former PM Theresa May. Floundering with Brexit, Maybot dispatched senior royals across the bloc with little obvious success. William and Kate were sent to Paris to charm Francois Hollande just two months before he was replaced by emmanuel Macron. And charles and camilla went to Ireland to woo Taoiseach enda Kenny who was suitably impressed. Unfortunately, four weeks later he was gone and replaced by the obstructionist leo Varadkar.
HISTORIAN Andrew Lownie claims there are at least 500 files pertaining to the Royal Family which remain secret despite a legal obligation to deposit them in The National Archives. Says Lownie, who has spent £250,000 of his own money trying to access Lord Mountbatten’s diaries at Southampton University: ‘The files surrounding the murder of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 remain closed,’ adding: ‘After I located a wartime FBI file that claimed Mountbatten was “a homosexual with a perversion for young boys” I requested his other files, only to be told they had been destroyed. When asked when that destruction had taken place, the US authorities responded, “After you asked for them.”’ Deep waters.
MOUNTBATTEN biographer Philip Ziegler, who has died aged 93, became fascinated with witchcraft at Oxford, confessing that he would like to have practised the dark art. A suitable victim might have been the Queen Mother who Ziegler went to his grave blaming for denying him a knighthood because of his portrayal, in the official biography of edward VIII, of her part in the abdication.
ADMITTING to the light fingered removal of a bracelet from the set of Peaky Blinders as a memento, Sophie Rundle, alias Ada Shelby, confesses to coveting a specially tailored mulberry coloured leather trench coat. ‘ I was like, “Surely I can have this?”’ Sophie, pictured, tells Radio Times. Thwarting her wish, the BBC said: ‘It cost more than you were paid for the whole series.’ Adds Sophie: ‘I still dream of that coat.’
MAKING herself available for dozens of interviews to promote her rom-com What’s love Got To Do With It? Jemima Goldsmith wails that her eventful love life has become a source of juvenile amusement with some radio stations. ‘literally, one of them asked me about the difference in pillow talk between Russell Brand and Imran Khan,’ she bawls. ‘I think I did what I always do – sort of laughed it off, and then made a joke of it.’ Surely Jemima’s trysts, like the German sense of humour, are no laughing matter?
CARRY On star Joan Sims, caught short during filming at Pinewood, complained to co-star Sherrie Hewson about the absence of a toilet in her caravan, barking: ‘“Pass me that polystyrene cup!” And she lifted her skirt and was having a wee and Kenneth Williams walked in.’ Recalled Sherri: ‘He completely ignored what she was doing and just went, “No tea for me thank you!” And he just walked off outside!’