Ephraim Hardcastle
THE late art biographer John Richardson is the subject of a scathing TLS piece by poet James Fenton, who quotes him saying: ‘New York is a wonderful city because you can easily find a corpse at any time of the day or night.’ Why he might require a corpse is not explained. Speaking of the Ritz in Madrid, Richardson said one should demand a set of rooms where the traffic noise was loudest – handy, he said, ‘for covering up the screams’. Fenton says: ‘A certain notoriety, not to say a whiff of sulphur, hung about John Richardson.’
REFERENCING unflattering media coverage about his new TV show, Piers Morgan responds: ‘Being lectured by The Guardian about popularity is like being called talentless by Kim Kardashian. Worry about your own crumbling sales, dwindling finances and increasing irrelevance, you ludicrous bunch of kale-munching, sandal-clad, woke whiny wastrels.’ Well, you can’t say fairer than that!
HAVING quit his £360,000 BBC job, Andrew Marr, 62, says: ‘I’m glad to get my own voice back.’ Some may wonder why it took him 21 years – performing on radio and TV, having books he wrote turned into documentaries – to come to this decision. Could it have been the money?
WHY is the BBC wheeling out big guns for its Platinum Jubilee coverage – if David Dimbleby, Clive Myrie, Huw Edwards and Sophie Raworth can be so described? It’s anxious to avoid a repeat of the Diamond Jubilee coverage described by Stephen Fry as ‘mind-numbingly tedious’. Who will forget the cringe-making river pageant led by the Queen and Prince Philip, pictured in the royal barge Spirit of Chartwell, and hosted by minor celebrities that made comedian Julian Clary protest on Twitter: ‘Please make it stop.’
RARELY short of a trenchant opinion, TV’s property queen Kirstie Allsopp comments on the fuss about Boris Johnson’s claim not to have heard of TV presenter Lorraine Kelly: ‘I’m sure the PM knows who Lorraine is when he thinks about it, but I am baffled as to why anyone thinks it matters? I don’t want or expect our PM to sit around watching TV in the day.’ Indeed so – providing he’s perched before the box at 8pm, when Kirstie’s Location, Location, Location is shown on Channel 4.
REUNITED with lawyer ex-husband Geoffrey Robertson at a family feast to celebrate their son Jules’s best actor award at the Rome Independent Film Awards, author Kathy Lette tweets: ‘The only thing not on the menu? Humble pie!’ A dish rarely served chez Lette, surely.
APROPOS of the Platinum Jubilee, Prince Charles envisages a balcony appearance in June, with the Queen, himself, Camilla, William, Kate and possibly the Cambridge children. ‘What no one wants is Charles and Camilla on the balcony waving to the crowds in HM’s place,’ says my source.