Hardcastle Ephraim
NOW 93, the doyen of publishing, George Weidenfeld, is composing a new volume of memoirs. Married four times, he has escorted society beauties ranging from Lady Antonia Fraser to writer Barbara Amiel. He was ‘a Nijinsky’ when it came to pleasing ladies, it was said. After seducing and marrying author Cyril Connolly’s flighty wife, Barbara Skelton, he decided he’d made a mistake: ‘Barbara imported a cat to Chester Square and hired a drunken butler who left taking all my shirts with him.’ Afterwards, he talked Connolly into remarrying Ms Skelton. His lordship is assisted by William Shawcross, the Queen Mother’s polite biographer, who is too tame a chronicler for so colourful a life, surely.
LONDON mayor Boris Johnson, having conquered America, has now charmed the grudging French. Paris Match swoons: ‘Next to him, conservative Paris seemed as dry as a utility bill. He makes London the new Rome, the most exciting city in the world.’ Who’ll prick the rapidly inflating Boris balloon?
SKY presenter Eamonn Holmes, pictured, interviewing the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, prior to his enthronement, inquired, as if he were a lottery winner: ‘Has it sunk in yet?’ Similarly crass questions by Holmes include asking a self-confessed sex addict who claimed she required congress six times a day: ‘Have you thought of making a business of it?’
WINSTON Churchill’s often-unemployed grandson, Rupert Soames, 53, is chief executive of Aggreko, a Glasgow firm supplying temporary electrical power to armies, tsunami victims and pop festivals. ‘He is a mucking-in, buccaneering sort of toff, rather than the condescending and insipid kind,’ enthuses The Economist. For relaxation, Rupert keeps pet ferrets.
CHANCELLOR George Osborne tweeted a message and a picture featuring himself and a young couple, saying: ‘Just met Emily and Rick. Great couple who bought flat through shared equity. Want to help many more like them.’ A charming way of publicising the new housing measures – or a smarmy PR stunt? You be the judges of that.
PINK Floyd star Roger Waters, calling for an international boycott of Israel by fellow musicians, claims he persuaded Stevie Wonder not to perform for the Israeli Defence Forces, saying: ‘I wrote to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called up and said, “I didn’t quite get it”.’ Is it to Waters’ eternal credit that he’s boasting about it?
AS a reward for cosying up to the SNP at the last election, the Scottish Sun was tipped off about the independence referendum date. It ran the story as an exclusive to launch the Sun’s Sunday version. Except, er, it was wrong. The date whispered by the Nats was indeed the 18th, but of October rather than September. What’s that phrase about long spoons and supping with the Devil?