Ephraim Hardcastle
WILLIAM’S bingo calling intrigued some Cardiff care home residents. He used a technique favoured by the Royal Family at Sandringham Christmas entertainments. Calls include ‘On one’s own, number one’, ‘Golden Jubilee, number fifty’ (a trick repeated for silver, ruby etc), ‘Two swans, twentytwo’ and ‘Her Majesty the Queen, seventeen’. William developed a liking for the game while at Sandhurst, where his call ‘Knock at the door, number four’ was greeted with shouts of ‘send for the butler!’ by the cadets.
SINN Fein president Mary Lou McDonald reveals that Prince Charles sent her a get well soon message when she was suffering from Covid-19. Pity she discloses this in an interview justifying the IRA’s murder campaign and saying she’d have taken part if she could.
POINTLESS adjudicator Richard Osman tells Radio Times that going head to head with daily government pandemic press conferences is a mixed blessing, explaining: ‘If we’re up against Matt Hancock our ratings shoot up, but when it’s Rishi Sunak we’re in trouble. He’s very much the Bradley Walsh of the Cabinet.’
CULTURE Secretary Oliver Dowden defiantly tweets: ‘Dom Cummings followed the guidelines and looked after his family. End of story.’ Harry Potter author JK Rowling, pictured, replies: ‘I know ending stories and this ain’t it, chief.’
ALAN Yentob Zooms Bob Geldof at the start of Saturday’s BBC2 documentary on the Boomtown Rats, expressing fake indignation at Geldof’s unkempt appearance. ‘Why are you looking like that?’ he asks. ‘Why are you not dressed properly. You haven’t shaved!’ Neither had Yentob. At least this curious encounter was after the watershed.
DONALD Trump’s London envoy Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson, insisting chlorinated chicken be included in any US/UK trade deal, has less to say about the continued sale of Johnson’s baby powder in the UK after its withdrawal in the US amid strenuous denials that it can cause cancer. Woody is a great-grandson of the founder of the healthcare giant.
IS this an entry from Boris’s secret diary? ‘Doesn’t it seem odd that... Cummings is always going? Carrie went into fits of laughter, and as for myself, I fairly doubled up in my chair, till it cracked beneath me.’ Not Boris but Charles Pooter in 1888’s The Diary of a Nobody.
TORY peer Daniel Finkelstein recalls David Cameron’s confusion over the meaning of LOL, believing it meant Lots Of Love rather than Laugh Out Loud, adding: ‘As a result he sent me a message that read, “So sorry to hear about the death of your dad. LOL”.’