Ephraim Hardcastle

FORMER top spook Sir Jonathan Evans, who stepped down as director general of MI5 last year, has a new job with Facewatch, a smartphone app that shares pictures of wanted criminals. Evans also enjoys cushy posts at HSBC bank and management consultants Accenture. Sir Jonathan’s pledge as DG to ‘engage with the public’ – he was the first MI5 chief to give an interview – certainly appears to be paying off. VANITY FAIR editor Graydon Carter’s retirement is imminent, according to Rupert Murdoch’s biographer Michael Wolff, also a columnist on the mag. Having edited the Conde Nast monthly for 22 years, the bouffant-haired Canadian, 64, is now ‘taking valedictory bows everywhere’. There will be no shortage of applicants to succeed Carter, whose salary is said to be $3million. Wolff reckons the job will go to someone from London. ANGELINA Jolie is reported to be telling ‘friends’ that old pal George Clooney is moving too fast with his engagement to lawyer Amal Alamuddin. Perhaps she fears Clooney and his fiancée will challenge herself and Brad Pitt as America’s top celebrity humanitarian couple – Jolie is a UN refugee goodwill ambassador, while Alamuddin is a UN commissions adviser. Alarm bells rang when Clooney, 53, and Alamuddin, 36, were said to have made a ‘no kids’ deal so they can travel the world on good works. Which Jolie sees as her and Pitt’s territory. Look out! FAMOUS for playing leather-clad ‘anthropologist’ Cathy Gale in The Avengers in the Sixties, Honor Blackman, pictured in the role, assesses the popularity of the cult TV series: ‘It was such a ground-breaking show. One expects fan mail from men, but for the two years I was in The Avengers I got a lot of fan mail from women too. The black leather appealed to the fellas, and for the women I was proving that a woman can be the equal of a man physically and intellectually.’ Quite so. Incidentally, isn’t it odd that evergreen Honor, 88, remains gongless? Her successor in The Avengers Diana Rigg bagged a Damehood in 1994. THE museum at Arundel Castle, home to the Duke of Norfolk, is exhibiting a history of the castle’s famous cricket ground. Guests who have played there include the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles. In 1978, his grace welcomed the late actor Oliver Reed, who arrived to play for the Sussex Martlets in a chauffeur-driven limousine, emerging from the car clad in a 16th-century suit of armour. Waving a two-handed sword at his team-mates, Olly boomed: ‘Behold, the Black Knight has arrived!’ IS the BBC in danger of overdoing its coverage of next month’s Chelsea Flower Show? Its ‘exciting line-up’ for the event includes no fewer than 11 presenters. RE the BBC chairman vacancy, who does Beeb veteran Sir Terry Wogan favour? He tells me: ‘What about Brucie? He’d certainly keep people on their toes.’ Remind me in future not to defer to Sir Terence on matters of national importance.