Ephraim Hardcastle
ANNOUNCING (again) that he got only ‘a C and two Us’ at A-level, multimillionaire TV host Jeremy Clarkson says he is ‘building a large house with far-reaching views of the Cotswolds’, adding – in reference to the current exams crisis – ‘and I didn’t even get the chance to insist the Government gave me three As instead’. With support like this for beleaguered Boris’s handling of the exams fiasco, how long before we see a Lord Clarkson swelling the band of the PM’s payback-peers?
HARRY and Meghan’s new home city of Santa Barbara boasts a Frog Shrine and restaurants promising ‘the best frog legs’. As it happens, H&M’s previous abode, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, refurbished at a cost of £2.4million, horrified Queen Victoria. After breakfasting there, she said that she found the abundance of ‘disgusting’ frogs ‘quite dreadful’. Frogmore the merrier, I say.
WITH Spitting Image returning to our screens, Tory elder statesman Norman Tebbit, whom the show portrayed as a skinhead, pictured, tells The Oldie: ‘The really important thing about my puppet was that he was always a winner.’ Reputedly aggressive Millwall FC supporters once insisted on escorting Tebbit across the concourse to the Euston station cab rank, he says. ‘The effect on other travellers was remarkable. They scattered in all directions.’
AS Spain’s King Felipe attempts to shore up his throne after his scandal-prone father Juan Carlos retreated into foreign exile, his teenage daughters are taking centre stage. Princess Leonor, 14, who will be the next Queen of Spain, and the Infanta Sofia, 13, have been deployed at summer engagements. Felipe is copying the British monarchy’s playbook by slimming down the royals to a core four – himself, Queen Letizia, Leonor and Sofia. George VI put himself, Queen Elizabeth and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret – ‘Us Four’ – centre-stage after Edward VIII abdicated in 1936.
PRINCESS Anne, 70 tomorrow, is, like her father, prone to risque remarks. Attending the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1971, which she won, she was asked by presenter David Coleman on air if early-morning exercise was the secret of her success. ‘Actually, it’s late at night,’ replied the saucy 21-year-old princess to audience guffaws.
POP crooner and world poverty campaigner Bono, 60, is shrewdly keeping a low profile as his wife, Ali Hewson, 59, opposes a new housing development near their elegant home outside Dublin which, she says, would interfere with their direct access to the beach. The sufferings of the saintly.
A NEW biography of France’s First Lady, frisky-looking Brigitte Macron, 67, scorned by some for her mini-skirts, says her grandmother is to blame. As a young teen, Brigitte once appeared for approval in front of her mémé in a floor-length dress, prompting the old lady to respond: ‘You look like a dusty pensioner in that – show off your legs!’ Which the late Karl Lagerfeld called ‘the best in Paris’.