EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Unlike his late mother, King Charles has little enthusiasm for horseracing… but he will be expected to attend Ascot
- READ MORE: The Princess of Wales is choosing her own path
Six weeks after the Coronation, King Charles will face the first ordeal of his reign: Royal Ascot. Unlike his late mother, he has little enthusiasm for horseracing.
During the early days of his marriage to Diana he was the subject of the Queen’s three-line whip to attend, often slipping away after the first race to play polo.
Already in the midst of downsizing the Royal Stud at Sandringham, he will not be looking forward to what most in Queen Camilla’s circle perceive as the jewel in the crown of the season.
The Ascot office, which runs the racecourse, will expect him to attend every day to bolster the attendance.
Trouble is, he owns Ascot and revenue is desperately needed to help pay the £185million cost of the 2006 grandstand unkindly described as the world’s only airport terminal without a runway.
Six weeks after the Coronation, King Charles will face the first ordeal of his reign: Royal Ascot. Unlike his late mother, he has little enthusiasm for horseracing
Already in the midst of downsizing the Royal Stud at Sandringham, he will not be looking forward to what most in Queen Camilla’s circle perceive as the jewel in the crown of the season
David Baddiel, promoting his book The God Desire, reckons the Royal Family is just like science fiction.
‘The fact it moves from the immediate death of the Queen to the immediate anointing of King Charles is an idea of resurrection which is similar to Doctor Who,’ he spouts, apparently with a straight face.
What’s Love Got To Do With It? screenwriter Jemima Goldsmith, has been discommoded by the arrest of her ex-hubby and former Pakistan PM Imran Khan.
Jemima Goldsmith attending the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California
Feverishly promoting the rom-com, she tells Vanity Fair: ‘I really wanted to make a film that showed a little bit of the kind of beautiful Pakistan, the kind of hospitable and fun and vibrant Pakistan that you don’t ever get to see.’ Bit trickier now!
Revealing that Edna O’Brien had a soft spot for John Lennon, a song the flame-haired novelist wrote for the Beatle is offered for sale in a forthcoming Dublin manuscript auction.
Written in 1971 when Edna was 41 and John 31, she posted the typed composition from her Chelsea home to Lennon, asking him to add some verses. It was signed in ballpoint: ‘Love, Edna.’ Surely a bargain at £2,000?
At the same sale, a 1971 handwritten letter from Lord Mountbatten, on Classiebawn Castle notepaper, to a local police chief thanking him for security advice and ‘for the admirable arrangements you made for my protection’ is expected to fetch £1,000.
The lot also includes a gift from the earl of a paperback copy of his biography. Tragically, almost exactly eight years later the so-called security arrangements failed. Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA within sight of the castle.
Playing Shakespeare’s Imogen in Cymbeline at Stratford, Judi Dench startled co-star Ben Kingsley by exposing her bare breasts on stage.
Her character had a mole on one breast and Judi had jokingly written the word Mole on one mammary. ‘I did try to make him laugh,’ she explains. ‘It didn’t go down well at all. I got a good telling off from Ben.’ Clearly the Gandhi sense of humour is no laughing matter.
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