Ephraim Hardcastle
FORMER Tory Minister Justine Greening once conducted a telephone conversation with Nick Clegg entirely in song titles. When Clegg, deputy PM at the time, called her, she was with Kylie Minogue lyricist Peter Waterman and trilled: ‘Especially for you, Nick, I’m going to get that done.’ Clegg had no idea she was quoting a Kylie song. She continued: ‘I put my hand on my heart and tell you it’s going to get done.’ Baffling Clegg, she then worked in ‘Ten Good Reasons’ and ‘Sealed with a Kiss’. Isn’t she a great loss to the front bench?
NEXT week’s Remembrance Sunday centenary of Lutyens’ Cenotaph will be the first devoid of a single senior royal with battle honours. While Charles and William are expected to attend, neither saw active service. Prince Philip, now retired, served in the Second World War and was mentioned in despatches at Matapan. While the Queen (Auxiliary Territorial Service, WWII) will be watching from a balcony, the most recent royals to have been i nvolved i n wars, Andrew (Falklands) and Harry (Afghanistan) are now benched.
BBC newscaster Simon McCoy was alarmed when he heard his partner Emma Samms, pictured, banging on a door of their Cotswold home screaming to be released. Little did he know, she was rehearsing a hostage scene for the US drama General Hospital. She explains: ‘Having never been around “acting” before, he was actually rather traumatised by my apparent – and very loud – distress. And he tells me he very nearly opened the door to let me out. Bless him!’
HERBERT Kretzmer was given a moving send-off at Golders Green crematorium yesterday with wife Sybil, two children and two grandchildren joined by Don Black and Cameron Mackintosh. The music titans had to compete with Herb’s own compositions She and Goodness Gracious Me. His heart-rending Bring Him Home from Les Mis provided an appropriate farewell anthem for the legendary lyricist and former Mail TV critic.
VERTICALLY-challenged security minister James Brokenshire calls himself ‘The Hobbit from the Broken-shire’ according to Peter Cardwell’s new book, The Secret Life of Special Advisers. Cardwell says baby-faced Brokenshire was ‘dwarfed’ by his police protection team and when he took his family to a theme park, he ‘lightheartedly asked if he was tall enough for the rides’. Cardwell adds: ‘He was always glad that titchy Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns’ –5’ 2” in his socks – was in the Cabinet at the same time. It meant James wasn’t the shortest man in official photos.’
THE rule of six torpedoes Jonathan Ross’s legendary Halloween party, usually one of the hotter tickets in Luvvieland. Covid rules mean that if Wossie, wife Jane and their three children are present, there is room for just one other. Who might it be? Elton sans David? A single Spice Girl?