Ephraim Hardcastle
AMBER Heard’s court ordeal may have ended with a Soho celebration, but should she put further champagne on ice? She faces an accusation of perjury in Australia. Former Australian deputy PM Barnaby Joyce wants Amber to answer allegations that she lied when she and Johnny Depp were charged with breaching quarantine regulations after illegally importing pet Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo in 2015. Joyce – alerted by the evidence of Depp’s then personal assistant Kevin Murphy in the London High Court libel case that Heard had pressured him to lie and say it was his fault to ignore quarantine rules rather than her – now asks: ‘What is the point of having laws if they are not pursued?’ Be warned, Amber – Joyce has form. He threatened to euthanise Pistol and Boo for not having the correct paperwork.
LAST night’s ITV Princess Anne documentary was narrated by Tobias Menzies, who plays the Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown. In the programme the Princess Royal says she never watches the Netflix show. No escape, Anne!
WINNIE-the-Pooh, pictured, exiled in New York Public Library with Piglet, Kanga and Tigger after the death of creator AA Milne, might be coming home. Teddy bear collector Gyles Brandreth, a friend of Milne’s late son Christopher robin, says: ‘They were Christopher’s childhood toys and he told me it would be lovely if they could come home to England for a holiday. I am following a very diplomatic route to get them back for a post coronavirus vacation.’ Couldn’t we swap them for Julian Assange?
LEFT-wing poster boy Owen Jones’s Guardian piece supporting the Twitter boycott over anti-Semitic tweets by grime artist Wiley was mistakenly accompanied by a photograph of fellow British black rapper Kano. Apologising, Jones tweets: ‘I’m absolutely horrified.’ Let’s hope this howler renders him mute for a while.
DOMINIC Cummings’ secret diary, describing his ‘explosive’ reaction on Boris’s death and subsequent reaction when he found out he was still alive, is being published by prestige imprint Faber in october. of course it’s a spoof, but Dominic brace yourself. The author is Arthur Mathews, co-creator of Dougal, the daft priest in Father Ted.
THREE months after the death of former Eton headmaster Eric Anderson, confidant of the Queen Mother, teacher to three future PMs and theatrical mentor to Prince Charles, his widow Poppy pays a poignant tribute to the number of sympathy letters from Old Etonians. ‘If it were snow,’ she tells the Old Etonian Association Review, ‘it would be a blizzard.’
Joan Collins, still remembered for her Cinzano adverts with the late Leonard rossiter, admits she was made to drink the tipple while filming, adding: ‘I got so drunk by lunchtime I had to lie down and have three coffees. Before I could go back, I said, “I can’t drink it,” so they gave me some ribena and water.’