Turbo-tongued author Kathy Lette recalls presenting a cup to a young Prince William at a polo event and being advised that protocol meant she should kiss him on the cheek. ‘As Prince William strode towards me, I thought I’d liven things up,’ she tells Woman & Home. ‘“Apparently, I have to kiss you. Do you want tongue?” I joked.
“Oh!” William blushed. “Perhaps later!” As William’s granny, the late Queen advised: “Recollections may vary.”’ Kathy!
Keir Starmer won’t want Donald Trump getting wind of his rejection of free honorary membership of the Ellesborough Golf Club when he visits Scotland this week. The freebie is offered to all PMs since Chequers became the PM’s country seat in 1917. From David Lloyd George to Rishi Sunak, everyone accepted until Starmer said no. It could be awkward should Trump want to play the course which once hosted Bill Clinton. Might Starmer have to fork out the £1,978 membership fee?
Reflecting on the resignation of married Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, after he was caught on camera cuddling a female colleague at a Coldplay concert, Andrew Neil cheekily quips: ‘It must have come as a terrible shock/embarrassment to his wife when it was inadvertently revealed he was a fan of Coldplay.’
While Nicola Sturgeon faces ridicule after being compared to Barack Obama in an official puff for her upcoming memoirs, the politician’s old foe JK Rowling offers her services. ‘I am available to review Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir,’ the billionaire author now announces. ‘No fee required, as long as you don’t edit out the swear words.’
Filming The Hobbit in New Zealand, Stephen Fry defied director Peter Jackson’s ban on bungee jumping.
‘What had happened was Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, this elf thing, had had a few days off and he went bungee jumping,’ recalls Fry. ‘And as sometimes happens it made his eyes bulge and pop.
And they bulged and they stayed bulged for a few days andso they couldn’t film him when he got back. So a memo went out to say no bungee jumping. And I hadn’t seen the memo, but fortunately my eyes didn’t bulge.’
Looking back on accepting an invitation to Colin Tennant’s Scottish borders residence, 80s TV presenter Steve Blacknell recalls: ‘There clinking on the piano with a cigarette hanging out of her gob, was a very, very p***ed Princess Margaret. She was playing, rather badly, [the John Cleese song] I’ve Got A Ferret Sticking Up My Nose. And she’s saying, “Well come on, dance!”’ Wasn’t Mags a great loss to the Vaudeville stage?
