Eden Confidential

■ TV’S Kirstie Allsopp, whose father is the 6th Lord Hindlip, wouldn’t object to a title of her own.

The 52-year-old, who often airs her campaigning views on the likes of childcare and sexual equality, wouldn’t want to be an MP as ‘I wouldn’t know which party, for a start’. But she would fancy joining the Lords. ‘[Being a] peer? That’s a different story... And not because I want to be Lady Allsopp.’ But she adds: ‘If you want to campaign on an issue, you’ve probably got more likelihood of change outside Parliament.’

■ JUST A Minute host Nicholas Parsons is to be given 24 hours by the BBC to celebrate his life on Christmas Eve. Radio 4 Extra is to devote the whole day to programmes featuring the broadcaster, who died in 2020 aged 96. He would have turned 100 this year. ‘Can you believe it?’ his daughter Suzy tells me. ‘It would have put a smile on his face.’

Parsons hosted the Radio 4 show for more than half a century. Let’s see if the Beeb can avoid hesitation, repetition or deviation in the tribute . . .

■ BRITAIN’S most famous lexicographer, Susie Dent, has an embarrassing confession. ‘I’m terrible at Scrabble,’ the Countdown star says. ‘People always assume I’m going to be brilliant at it.’ Her colleague on the Channel 4 show enjoys playing her. ‘Colin Murray wears it as a badge of pride that he beat me at Scrabble,’ she says. ‘He used to have the winning scorecard up on his fridge.’

■ GREEN Wing star Stephen Mangan still bears the emotional scars of his expensive education, he says. The actor, 55, attended Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Hertfordshire, whose alumni include Rudyard Kipling and film director Christopher Nolan.

‘When I went, we still had fagging — the little boys were servants to the older boys,’ he explains.

‘We had outdoor toilets, which were below freezing in the winter months. And we had to go and sit on the loo and warm them up so the sixth-formers didn’t get cold bottoms. Giving 17- year- olds power like that over 13-year-olds is horrendous.’