Mischa the shopkeeper

Billy Connolly

Promoting his film Brave, says he was taken aback by the derogatory reaction to the number of red-haired characters in the movie and feels sorry for the way “gingers” are treated.

“It’s taken me by surprise, this animosity about red hair,” he declares. “Nicole Kidman, Prince Harry, and that lassie from the Spice Girls all have one fabulous thing in common. If you have a special ginger in your life give them a cuddle and applaud the beauty of flame-haired people.”

has a formula for relaxing from her so-stressful TV commitments (she’s the judge on yet another talent show, Superstar, which started last night). Her favourite diversion is twiceyearly trips to Champneys with a group of five girlfriends where they “get drunk and smuggle butter in”. She giggles: “I always phone up the manager and say, ‘We’re not coming for a health weekend – we’re coming to get bladdered and eat.’ ” And her companions have to be female. “Because at heart I’m a girl’s girl. I don’t think I have a single straight male friend.”

Amanda Holden

As an avowed admirer of the female form,

naturally applied for tickets for the women’s beach volleyball at the Olympics. Sadly he will not be settling into his seat in the Whitehall venue, armed with his binoculars and a Mars bar. “I didn’t get the tickets,” sighs the frisky Hugh. “I can’t think what it is about that sport that appeals!” winks the old charmer.

Hugh Bonneville

The road markings are appearing all over London for the lanes which will be reserved for limos swishing VIPs to the Olympics. These Sovietstyle pathways for the powerful will leave lesser mortals seething as they sit in traffic jams, warns London MP who tells me: “No one disputes that heads of state will need high security, but Londoners will be appalled that these lanes will be used every day by thousands of guests of commercial sponsors. Life in August for those working in the capital will be massively disrupted just so Olympic hangers-on can be fast tracked.”

Mark Field,

The sardonic chatter in Whitehall has it that the reason the Government did not include the Gurkhas in the Army cuts is that the PM would do anything to avoid the wrath of

Cameron still winces at the memory of the AbFab star waving her kukri as she whipped up sympathy for her campaign to give the Gurkhas the right to live in Britain.

Now Miss Lumley is planning a trip to Nepal when she will present to a school a figurine of Rifleman Tul Bahadur Pun VC, whom she credits with saving her father’s life in Burma in 1944. The sculpture by Robert Jones is part of a collection commissioned by the Gurkha Museum.

The soldiers’ doughty defender says firmly: “My father Jimmy served with the Gurkhas; that’s why I love them, they’re part of my family and I wanted to do right by them because they’ve done right by us.”

Joanna Lumley.

Madonna’s The Anglo-Irish actress MISCHA BARTON picked up some rather bad habits when she went to Hollywood, finding fame in the teen series The OC (and appearing in nearly 30 films, most of them forgettable). The willowy daughter of a City financier went into rehab after being arrested for drink-driving and was then sectioned in a psychiatric clinic to treat her erratic behaviour. Now, happily, Miss Barton, 26, tells me she is “focused” in a new direction, working with her mother to open a shop in East London’s Spitafields selling handbags and knickknacks which she has helped design.“It’s stressful because the store has got to open in time for the Olympics,” she said at a party for the new Aston Martin, the Vanquish (where not even her cleavage could distract perspiring petrolheads as they slobbered over the £190,000 car).“Choosing the right location was tricky because London is really complicated. If you go too far west it can be too posh but then too far east isn’t right for my brand either, but I think Spitalfields is spot on.”