EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: It’s not fur on the King
Will King Charles wear fake fur at his Coronation?
A mole whispers that he is considering replacing the traditional ermine-lined robes with artificial fur ones.
The House of Lords has led the way and now stocks robes of fake fur for peers taking their oaths.
If Charles does opt for fake fur, his mother would approve. The late Queen stopped the use of fur in her new outfits in 2019.
Wearing a black tie to announce the Queen’s death, the BBC’s Huw Edwards avoided the odium heaped on the late Peter Sissons for wearing a burgundy one when the Queen Mother passed away. But during the preceding five-hour rolling news programme, Huw wore something different. ‘It was a dark navy tie,’ he tells Radio Times, ‘which then became a black tie after the confirmation on the wires’.
Jemima Goldsmith, pictured, hasn’t succeeded in severing all her connections with The Crown, as her uncle Robert Lacey, 78, remains as its historical adviser.
He is married to Jane, Lady Rayne, 90, elder sister of Jemima’s mother Annabel and maid of honour at the Queen’s coronation in 1953.
What does she make of young Bob’s input to writer Peter Morgan’s increasingly hurtful saga?
Marking the BBC’s centenary, Lord Grade, former BBC One controller, describes the fallout caused by footage of the 1984 IRA bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel. ‘We were later criticised because our news cameraman zoomed in on the pained face of the injured Norman Tebbit as he was being delicately lowered through the debris on a stretcher,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t intrusive, actually, the cameraman was preserving Mr Tebbit’s dignity since his pyjama trousers were exposing more than his dignity allowed.’
Designer Bella Freud, paying tribute to the late Queen in Vogue, recalls her father Lucian failing to show at her wedding to journalist James Fox in 2001 because he was painting the Queen, adding: ‘I was secretly relieved to be married without the intense presence of my father.’ Deep waters.
Has anyone at HM Passport Office woken up to the death of the Queen? A colleague who applied for a new passport more than a month after HM’s death has just received his replacement, which declares: ‘Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty…’ At least there’s no mention of Queen Victoria!
Senoir courtiers are appalled by Jonathan Pryce’s portrayal of Prince Philip in The Crown, but not because of the sexual innuendo with Penny Mountbatten. ‘He doesn’t look right,’ wails one. ‘He’s got sloppy sloping shoulders and a funereal face nothing like Philip.’ But the main bone of contention is the absence of Philip’s habitual ironed white cotton handkerchief in his top pocket, something Philip was fastidious about. Clearly fiction then, Mr Morgan!
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