Ephraim Hardcastle
SHOULD Harry seek US citizenship, he could apply for an EB-5 visa requiring him to invest £1.4million in an enterprise employing at least ten americans. His only hurdle is having to provide five years of financial details. Royals don’t like anyone checking out their bank statements. alternatively, he might try for an O-1 visa for ‘individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement’. But would his D in a-level geography go against him?
BORIS, making no secret of his struggle to make do on his £150,000 salary, might envy the Queen’s top factotums. Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Michael Stevens trousers £215,000. The soon-to-be-former Lord Chamberlain, Lord Peel, is paid the same while HM’s Master of the Household Tony Johnstone-Burt, according to the new Sovereign Grant report, manages on a PM-sized stipend of £150,000.
DISCUSSING the boom in the sex doll trade during lockdown, ITV’s This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby unveils life-size mannequin Bella – pictured with Holly – and discloses a preshow case of mistaken identity, adding: ‘Can I just say, a member of our crew came in this morning to the studio and thought it was me sat on the sofa when the lights weren’t fully up. Shocking!’
ROBERT Harris, a close friend of the late Harry Evans, once invited Sky’s Adam Boulton and Channel 4’s Jon Snow to lunch to meet their hero. ‘After they arrived together Harry somehow became convinced they were a gay couple,’ recalls Robert. ‘Later he drew me aside, slightly bewildered asking: ‘How long have they been together?’
NO Covid-19 lockdowns visible in the diocese of the Bishop of Barchester Dr Proudie, as recreated in the Trollope Society’s new map of Barset. Based on anthony Trollope’s original sketch map and references in the Barchester series, the fictional diocese still has its own virus in the form of slimy curate Obadiah Slope.
SOCIALITE Manoli Olympitis, in his memoir Marked Cards, recalls Norman Mailer claiming over dinner he could instantly raise $2million for Germaine Greer’s pension fund. How, she asked. Beckoning to nearby photographers, Mailer asked her to pose performing a below-waist sex act on him, explaining: ‘Then we syndicate the [photos] worldwide.’ A crestfallen Greer could only shake her head and exclaim: ‘Oh, Norman.’
HUMOURIST Richard Heller, in his lockdown memoir The Prisoner Of Rubato Towers, fantasises about the Queen playing Scrabble and mimicking Chris Grayling while fretting so much about the economy she has put the country in Prince Philip’s name. Hasn’t she suffered enough, Richard?