Hardcastle
NEWSNIGHT’S Jeremy Paxman is to perform an hour-long, one-man show, Paxo, at the Edinburgh Festival. He’ll discuss ‘underpants and the human condition’, but admits: ‘Some fool said you only regret the things in life that you don’t do but I’m regretting this already.’ Will Paxman become a modern-day Vicar of Stiffkey? He was the exhibitionist clergyman who expired in 1937 after sticking his head into the mouth of a lion during a seaside show. OUT-of-the-loop Leader of the House Andrew Lansley suffered a severe, tenminute mauling on BBC TV on Tuesday night after being put up by No 10 to defend Culture Secretary Maria Miller, just prior to her resigning. Lansley’s Cabinet perch – ‘it’s his last,’ I am advised – is considered to be a result of employing the 20-something Dave as a gofer at Conservative Central Office in the 1990s. I’M told Nairn-based movie superstar Tilda Swinton, 53, pictured, responds to unsolicited emails with a quirky, automated reply saying: ‘Hello, I am away until 01/01/2070 and unable to read your message.’ Long may Tilda remain in demand. But I remind her of 19th century poet Ernest Dowson’s haunting line: ‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses...’
17 STAFF at 15 Central Park West, the ritzy Manhattan apartment building, can expect to collect up to £14,000 in tips during holiday periods and the manager earns £360,000, it has been revealed. Resident Sting paid £17million for his duplex apartment with its own lift (which he tore out). Like other aspiring apartment owners at 15 Central Park West, the Geordie crooner and tantric sex expert had to undergo humiliating financial and personal scrutiny, described as ‘brutal, ludicrous, anal’, before he was accepted by existing occupants. WHILE Chancellor George Osborne positions himself to succeed David Cameron – should a vacancy arise! – his rival, London mayor Boris Johnson, encounters stiff opposition in Lincolnshire, where he is mooted to replace veteran Tory MP for Louth, Sir Peter Tapsell. Now the redoubtable, weekly Louth Leader carries a letter, from ‘Tony Rawle’, saying: ‘Whilst it is probably well past time that our octogenarian MP, Sir Peter Tapsell, stood down, it is with some shock, even disgust, that I hear that the rumour mills are suggesting that this is to allow a “shoo in” for that clown, The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. This blithering, blustering fool is suited to the environment and atmosphere of cosmopolitan London and the suited spivs in the city. But surely the sensible and down to earth people of Lincolnshire, and particularly Louth and Horncastle and Mablethorpe will see beyond this farce. His thirst to be PM knows no bounds, I urge the people to say NO to Bo Jo.’ Do you suspect Osborne fans are behind it? MARIA Miller’s City lawyer husband, Iain, lists his recreations as: ‘Children, wife, Sunderland FC and managing the stress caused by each of them.’ How apt. His team was thrashed 5-1 by Spurs this week and is struggling to stay in the Premier League. As is his wife.