EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: The King says on your bike!
The King enjoys his brief commute by car up the Mall – waving to crowds – to Buckingham Palace from Clarence House.
But he expects his staff to walk or cycle there.
‘Cycling is supported through a cycle-to-work scheme and the provision of shower and changing facilities,’ says a palace briefing.
A former senior member of staff tells me he used to park his vehicle some way away from Clarence House and complete his commute on foot so as not to upset his master.
Is Rishi Sunak really ‘a sharp dresser’ as so-called ‘fashion director’ Anna Murphy insists? Surely the bottoms of his trousers remain too far from his shoes. Some suspect the enviably slim latest occupant of No 10 wears ‘boy-sized’ suits, thereby avoiding VAT, which does not apply to children’s clothes. I think we should be told.
Confirming that Leonardo DiCaprio pipped him to the post for his role in Titanic as well as four other big parts, Christian Bale tells GQ: ‘It doesn’t matter what anyone tells you. It doesn’t matter how friendly you are with the directors. All those people that I’ve worked with multiple times, they all offered every one of those roles to him first.’
Why wouldn’t they? DiCaprio’s a bigger box office draw.
‘Not everyone is academic,’ says King Charles, calling on TV’s The Repair Shop for more vocational training. Indeed so. Yet after failing to get three A-levels – despite the best education money and influence could buy – he ended up in Cambridge, not on a bricklaying course.
Impresario Sir Michael Codron argues in a letter to The Times that The Crown should issue a disclaimer because the royals can’t answer back. They ditched this in 2004 under then press secretary Paddy Harverson, continued by his successor Kristina Kyriacou. Then they returned to the previous (far more sensible) policy of not complaining, explaining or apologising.
The King and Queen Consort have to stay neutral these days but the same restraint evidently does not apply to Camilla’s son, likeable Tom Parker Bowles. He became emotional during Wednesday’s Spurs v Sporting Lisbon game, tweeting: ‘VAR bull****’ followed by ‘Wtf’. Is he after a Match Of The Day job?
Eager to be friends with his sultry Labour opposite number, firecracker Angela Rayner, Tory frontbencher Oliver Dowden announces from the despatch box: ‘We have more in common than people might think. Not only are we both gingers, we both come from good working-class stock.’ Adding: ‘And we both rather enjoy a trip to Glyndebourne to see the opera, just to prove nothing’s too good for the working people.’ Silver-tongued rascal!
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