PETERBOROUGH

Mark Francois: the Movie!

It had to happen. Mark Francois’s selfpublished memoir, Spartan Victory: The Inside Story of the Battle for Brexit, could now be turned into a film. Francois, the chairman of ERG, has sold 5,200 copies of the book and TV producers are interested. One friend tells me: “He has been exploring the possibility with several production companies.” Francois is apparently envisaging a show along the lines of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led drama about Dominic Cummings’s Vote Leave campaign ahead of the EU referendum. But who will play him?

New Lord nerves

Andrew Roberts, below, may have looked suave when introduced to the House of Lords, but the historian, henceforth to be known as Lord Roberts of Belgravia, was a jumble of nerves. When it came to signing the register of new peers, he managed to write his name in the space reserved for thinktanker Sheila Lawlor, who took the path immediately after him. The whole register will now be out of sync. Historians might relish such anomalies but clerks are driven to distraction by them.

Noddy’s Christmas repeats

Noddy Holder, right, quit British band Slade in 1992, yet to this day fans remind him of his screaming “It’s Christmas!” during their 1973 festive Number One hit Merry Xmas Everybody.

Noddy, now 76, says: “People say I’m synonymous with Christmas. I like the fact that we’ve got an enduring Christmas song. Every day, wherever I go, somebody will shout it. In December when I’m out and about I get it 20, 30, 40 times a day. What’s funny is they all think they’re the first to do it. But I don’t mind, I’m used to it now. It once happened to me on a beach in Australia.”

Rees-mogg’s 18th-century gags

Jacob Rees-mogg’s noble attempts to cheer up political cartoonists by reading jokes from a battered copy of the 18th-century Joe Miller’s Jests or the Wits Vade-mecum fell flat this week. He told guests at the Political Cartoonist of the year awards at St John’s, Smith Square, in Westminster: “You laugh enormously at the cartoons you see and the jokes that you hear whereas I laugh at things like: ‘Why does a drunken man like whales? Because he is rocky.”

A heckler shouted: “Get off ”. But he carried on: “And for those of you who do not like the new traffic restrictions, these things never change. ‘Why is Temple Bar like an organ? Because it is full of stops.”

I thought they were funny.

Whither the Humble Crofter?

Ian Blackford, the outgoing SNP leader in Westminster, will have more time for his croft on Skye after being pushed out by his colleagues. But perhaps he might go back to his former career: investing money for Rees-mogg. Blackford, who worked for Smith New Court, used to invest cash for Jrothschild Investment Management in the early 1990s when Rees-mogg worked there. Rees-mogg tells me: “He was very capable.” Blackford tells me: “You can be political opponents but not enemies.” Quite right!

Paxo and the Queen

Remembering an event with the late Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Academy during the Golden Jubilee in 2012, Rob Brydon told his podcast: “I was stood talking with David Walliams and Paul Mccartney (below, with the late Queen in 2002) and Sandie Shaw. Paul Mccartney saw the Queen in the other corner of this huge room, and he said ‘Eh, boys, there’s the Queen. Do you wanna go say hello to the Queen?’

“David and I thought, ‘Good Lord, yes! Lead us Paul, lead us!’ And off he went. We started going, and I was intercepted by Jeremy Paxman who said, ‘Oh Rob, nice to see you …’ I couldn’t say no to Mr Paxman so I lost my chance to say hello to the Queen with a Beatle.”

That’s how to name-drop.

Parliament’s choir tunes up

MPS and peers are being urged to sign up for Parliament’s Choir ahead of a Christmas carol service next week and a tour to the Vatican in Rome, in April.

Choir vice-chairman Mary Macleod says: “There are very few places where a Westminster cleaner, MPS and Black Rod could all be on the same team.”

Part of the problem is that MPS cannot commit to weekly Monday rehearsals. Macleod is hopeful former Justice secretary Robert Buckland will sign up: “He has a lovely Welsh voice”.