Hardcastle Ephraim
BBC Radio 4’s today programme wants to offer Meghan Markle a platform guest editing the show. Meghan, in Californian exile, is keen to get her BLM, charity and environment messages across to a British audience in an undiluted form. Securing her appearance for one of the end-of-year editions would provide a triumphant swansong for departing editor Sarah Sands. the touchy duchess couldn’t do worse than husband harry. Guest editing in 2017, he was asked by presenter Sarah Montague to sum up his message to the nation. his response: ‘er, I dunno.’
YESTERDAY’S formal confirmation of Stephen Cottrell as Archbishop of York John Sentamu’s successor comes at a troubled time for the Church. Last month Bishop Cottrell admitted to deep distress and sorrow for mishandling accusations of domestic abuse by one of his priests when he was Bishop of Reading. And Archbishop Sentamu was one of six bishops named as not dealing properly with allegations of child sexual abuse in 2016. Another, Bishop of Oxford Steven Croft, gave permission for ex-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey to be an honorary assistant bishop. Carey later faced criticisms of his role in dealing with accusations of abuse by the late Bishop Peter Ball, once the confidant of Prince Charles. Carey quit the role last month after Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, asked him to consider his position. Deep waters.
BBC Radio 4’s Martha Kearney, pictured, flirts with Chancellor Sunak on air saying: ‘Your flourish signature, which appears a lot these days... some people are saying it looks like you’re about to launch your own rosé wine.’ Rishi politely points out: ‘as a teetotaller, I’m not sure I’d be able to enjoy that.’
BELFAST MP Sammy Wilson argues that Rishi Sunak’s half-price meals will help not only restaurants but also dressmakers, because everyone will eat so much, they will need new clothes. Such things would not have bothered big Sammy in his younger days, when he was an enthusiastic nudist.
EX-OBSERVER editor Donald trelford recalls reading the Spectator at Cambridge: ‘I can still remember, 60 years on, this opening of a taper column, “the wearing of trousers,” said the Minister of Defence, “can have a deleterious effect on the male organ.”’ trelford’s own trousers never did him any harm. he fathered a daughter in 2014 when he was just three and a half years shy of 80!
RECALLING his minor role in the Eighties mini-series Wagner, Gabriel Byrne describes sitting down to dinner in dumbstruck awe with stars John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Richard Burton. ‘Listening to them talk was fascinating,’ he says. ‘Richard asked me to pass the salt − that was my contribution.’
CINEMA-GOERS still wince at David warner’s gory decapitation by a sheet of glass in the Omen. now the horror film’s director, Richard Donner, reveals that he kept the severed head in his car, adding: ‘I passed David on the motorway going home one day. I picked his head up. and I think he passed out in the back seat.’