Ephraim Hardcastle
ANY hopes Boris entertains of having safely weathered Storm Cummings could be dashed with the imminent approach of Hurricane Arcuri. His former American chum Jennifer has accepted an invitation to speak from her home in Orange County next month at a Like Minds online conference in London. She has been mute since the Independent Office for Police Conduct ruled out an official investigation – but suggested the ex-London mayor might have had an affair with the former model. Says a Like Minds source: ‘Jennifer will break her silence.’ Boris might need more than a reinforced PPE kit to emerge unscathed.
INCREDULOUS Royal eyebrows elevate at Debbie McGee’s claim that late husband Paul Daniels got a lift to London in one of the Queen’s helicopters, piloted by Prince Andrew. HM is extremely fastidious in the allocation of Queen’s Flight birds to family members. When Mrs Merton asked Debbie what first attracted her to the millionaire magician, she didn’t say it was his access to a Royal chopper.
AT William and Harry’s prep school, Ludgrove, Edward, Duke of Kent was forced to confess to boring a hole in a toilet cistern to drench a fellow pupil. Headmaster Alan Barber was not expected to ‘swish’ a Royal. But Barber called his mother, Princess Marina, and was given permission to cane the Queen’s cousin. Years later, Edward discovered the culprit was Robin Douglas-Home, later boyfriend of Princess Margaret.
GWYNETH Paltrow, pictured, rescues Justin Welby’s church-starved faithful. Her unintentionally hilarious brand, Goop, has a new perfume featuring the smell of ‘centuries-old floorboards of an ancient European chapel’. Called Edition 01 – Church, might it provide consolation until the pews are liberated from lockdown?
GLENDA Jackson asks son Dan Hodges: ‘Are you going to be doing more stuff defending Cummings?’ He replies: ‘Yes.’ Her response? ‘Then you’re an idiot.’
WIMBLEDON offers £35 towels and £34 T-shirts emblazoned with the 2020 Championship logo. Maybe they’ll sell as well as Edward VIII’s Coronation mugs, for the crowning which never happened.
DOMINIC Cummings’s ‘wonky’ eyesight recalls the late racing correspondent Sir Peter O’Sullevan who, still driving aged 90, had to undergo an annual eye test. Told by his optician that there had been a slight deterioration in his eyesight and he would have to inform the DVLA, O’Sullevan acted swiftly, explaining: ‘I immediately changed my optician.’
FORMER Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne tweets: ‘Thinking about appealing against my speeding offence, as I now remember I was just testing my eyes. One rule for Tories, and...?’ At least he can’t be jailed for lying about his prescription.