Ephraim Hardcastle
SADLY for those of us keen on an in-the-flesh peek at France’s wellpreserved first lady, Brigitte Macron, 64, she won’t accompany her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, 40, on his visit here today. A Gallic source tells me what we’re missing: ‘Brigitte was a massive hit in China last week, wearing a sleek, sexy red coat honouring the Chinese flag and charming everyone in a land that venerates the elderly. She ended the week as the most searched-for keyword on the top Chinese search engine.’ Another challenge for put-upon theresa May, 61, who visits China at the end of the month?
NOW romancing screen sexpot Dakota Johnson, 28, pictured in the film Fifty Shades Of Grey, is politicallycorrect Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, 40, entirely comfortable with her acting roles? She’s a star of the supposedly erotic movie series and recently finished the third. Her grandmother, Tippi Hedren, who is 88 tomorrow, star of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror film, The Birds, says of them: ‘I see the trailers. That’s all I have to watch.’
KNIGHtED for serving David Cameron and jogging behind the ex-PM on workouts, somewhat arrogant tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne is pictured asleep while his colleague Kenneth Clarke addressed the Commons. Former Labour defence secretary Fred Mulley was sacked for dozing in the chamber. What made matters worse, he was speaking in a debate at the time. He also dozed while watching an RAF flypast with the Queen.
WHY do punters persist in betting that Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg will replace Theresa May, making him the bookies’ 4-1 favourite? Conventional opinion at Westminster is that the wealthy, fogeyish, Roman Catholic father of six is a natural backbencher, doesn’t want to be a minister – far less PM – and has found his natural home as chairman of the Tory backbench Brexit group. And yet…
WItH Harry and Meghan in Cardiff, will William’s visit to a London hospital be eclipsed? Not if Kate is with him, perhaps. But she’s not due to be there. Yet virtually all of the Duchess of Cambridge’s public engagements in 2017 were in London, with no visits to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland – or even to Cornwall. As the next Princess of Wales, Kate is also the next Duchess of Cornwall, which will provide her and William with a multi-million-pound annual income until they inherit the even bigger Duchy of Lancaster.
PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s alleged weight – 17 stone, says his doctor – has critics jeering that he’s much heavier. George the Prince Regent, who was caricatured as the most obscenely obese man in Britain 200 years ago, was around 17 stone for most of his adult life. He would have himself weighed in secret at the wine merchants Berry Bros. & Rudd in St James’s Street. For breakfast, he’d have two steaks, two pigeons and 12 egg yolks, all baked in a mammoth pie. Trump’s favourite eaterie, McDonald’s, of Happy Meals fame, had yet to be invented. Email: peter.mckay@dailymail.co.uk