Hardcastle
CHARLES and Camilla’s use of the well- sprung Diamond Jubilee Coach for the outward Coronation trip to Westminster Abbey puzzles royal courtiers. Why? Because the royals have opted for the teethrattling Gold Coach for the longer postcrowning return. William IV described his trip as akin to ‘tossing in a rough sea’ and Victoria complained of the ‘distressing oscillation’. So why use it for the longer journey? Because, I’m told, Camilla – a notoriously bad traveller – does not want to arrive for her crowning green around the gills. At least George VI insisted on the wheels being rubberised. Camilla might want jumbo moon buggy-sized tyres for unfettered waving.
WHILE royal butler Paul Burrell’s 2002 trial for allegedly stealing items belonging to Diana collapsed after the Queen’s intervention, his Mills & Boon-like wish to meet William and Harry to share Diana’s so- called ‘ truths’ remains thwarted by the case. One ‘truth’ Burrell is remarkably mute on is paedophile Jimmy Savile’s spurious role in helping him walk free. Savile told his biographer Dan Davies: ‘I helped him get out of that court case.’ Seeking ‘quality time’, Burrell wrote a letter to Savile’s secretary, stating: ‘I need some sound and wise advice from him as he always knows the right answer.’ To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: You’d require a heart of stone not to laugh.
PREPARING for his new series Wild Isles, where he climbs 68 steep concrete steps to the top of Skomer island, off the coast of Wales, Sir David Attenborough endured repeated trips up and down the 22 stairs at his Richmond home. But producer Alastair Fothergill wasn’t taking any chances with his 96-year-old star, telling Radio Times: ‘I had a doctor with a defibrillator on standby.’
OSCAR nominee Cate Blanchett’s role in
David Hare’s West End production of Plenty was too much for men in the audience, claims Hare. He says of the intense performance of Cate, pictured: ‘When the scene came up in which [her character] asks a young man to impregnate her and to have a relationship which is purely about taking his sperm and making a child with absolutely no emotional context whatsoever, there were still men who walked out angrily.’ Only men, David ?
HOW does Petronella Wyatt feel about Boris giving dad Stanley a knighthood? ‘Utterly shameless and utterly disrespectful,’ she snaps. ‘You cannot use the honours system as the family gift shop.’ Shouldn’t Boris reach for the shelf marked ‘damehoods’ and give his mistress (retd) a gong?
WITH top black American comedian Chris Rock mocking the Sussexes’ discredited claims of racism against the Royal Family, Piers Morgan sarcastically inquires: ‘If Chris Rock disbelieves Princess Pinocchio’s racism claims, does that make him a racist? Asking for a friend.’