A Mackintosh in the reign? No thank you!

IT’S yoga mats at dawn for Meghan Markle, pictured, and Made in Chelsea’s Millie Mackintosh after the latter, a friend of Markle’s before she met Prince Harry, revealed the Duchess of Sussex dropped her like a stone after the couple started dating. ‘I messaged her and said, “Hey I hope you’re OK, thinking of you” and she sent me this really abrupt message, that was really unlike any of our communications before,’ Mackintosh told a podcast. ‘My take on it is that... she thought, “Right, I’m gonna be royal now, I don’t need Millie in my life”.’ I wonder how many others experienced similar treatment from the frosty Duchess?

SOUND the trumpets! Unfurl the banners! For lo, the long-awaited Edinburgh Tram Inquiry report is about to be published. I say long-awaited – you could have travelled to Saturn and back and still had time for several round the world cruises in the time it has taken for this report to be produced. Indeed, both the Chilcot Inquiry and the Nuremberg trials took less time. I do hope it will be worth the wait.

WHO could have predicted that the Coronation’s breakout star would be none other than Penny Mordaunt, resplendent in turquoise, carrying a sword with a back so ramrod straight you’d think she’d been doing it all her life and sailing magnificently through Westminster Abbey as if she were on the prow of a ship? Apparently Mordaunt took painkillers beforehand to help with the strain of holding that sword for so long. Now that’s dedication to King and country!

PS: ON THE Coronation front, were you one of the many thousands who baked a broad bean Coronation quiche last weekend? Well, if my pal’s detective work is correct, it turns out the King and Queen may just have turned to an intriguing source for recipe inspiration. My intrepid friend texted me a picture of page 102 of the Fortnum & Mason Cook Book, which features a broad bean tart. The author of said book? None other than food writer Tom Parker Bowles, son of our new Queen.