Diary – June 8, 1994

THE MoD police (known, suitably, as Modplods) need look no further than a simple drainpipe to find the culprit responsible for a blockade of peace protesters who halted a missile convoy in Scotland yesterday.
Frankly, Defence officials must be kicking themselves. They had only just completed the expensive construction of a 10ft wall around Burghfield missile factory, Reading, after a Select Committee found that CND activists had about as much access to their movements as Lady Bienvenida Buck had to Sir Peter Harding’s.

Indeed, showing persistence remarkably similar to that of Lady Buck, the peace organisations, undeterred by the wall, used a periscope – made from a drainpipe – to get a good look at the factory’s loading bay last weekend. Thus they discovered this week’s convoy plans.

For those interested, similar drainpipe-periscopes are, I believe, now coming on the market. ‘It was made by a physicist and costs pounds 10,’ explains a Nukewatch spokeswoman, adding, ‘the irony is, I expect their wall cost

thousands.’

IT WAS a close-run thing – the choice of band at the opening of designer Caroline Charles’s new Bond Street premises on Tuesday night. The ultimate selection – an all-female sextet, The Soho

Sinfonia – certainly went down well with the men: LiveAid promoter, Harvey Goldsmith was so busy staring at them that he nearly got knocked down by a car. However, Ms Charles’s first choice, I discovered, had been her son, Alex Valentine, 24, a budding pop star. I discovered the young musician quietly sipping a gin and tonic in the corner, accompanied by partner Emma Seal. Their new band Me and Al has yet to make its debut, they told me. . .but,

unsurprisingly, they did not think Ms Charles’s opening the right occasion. ‘We thought of doing it. . .but the guests would have got upset with all the noise we were making,’ explained Emma.

WORSE has befallen Lord Bethell, the harrowed Tory MEP fighting to retain his seat in London NW, against, he claims, a mysterious conspiracy within the communications industry. Not only has he experienced sabotage, he says, from the Royal Mail – now British Telecom has joined in.

Bethell’s campaign telephone was out of order for three consecutive days last week, causing the politician to jump to all sorts of conclusions. He wrote an

anguished letter to BT chairman Iain Vallance.

‘My campaign is now seriously damaged,’ he wrote, ‘and I cannot think that this is an appropriate way for an important democratic election.’

Indeed, the incident is the latest in a strange series of calamities which has befallen the peer’s campaign. His posters have been defaced, 500 letters were sent to key voters – without stamps – and other letters have been found in dustbins. Yesterday he sounded understandably weary. ‘It is incredible bad luck,’ voiced a spokeswoman.

CLEARLY feeling no compunction to follow the maxim ‘When in Rome. . .’ is comedian Tony Slattery, who was seen in the audience at Tuesday night’s performance of The Marriage of Figaro in Holland Park. While all about him daintily sipped their champagne – imbibing is allowed there during performances – Slattery decided he’d had enough of such pretence. With precision, he bravely flaunted his drink for the evening: Mexican beer.

CONFIRMATION, for those in doubt, that motivation in the House of Lords is still guided by the most deep-rooted of traditional values: Lord Mancroft, who, at 36, is a babe by comparison to others in the Upper House, appeared in the division lobby recently to vote for the first time.

Finding the proceedings a little confusing, he asked the nearest peer to hand, the Marquess of Salisbury, an experienced septuagenarian who resides in Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, which way to go to cast his vote.

‘Well,’ replied Lord Salisbury,

‘I always look at whichever way the bishops are going.’ A pause, and a twinkle: ‘And then go the other.’

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – June 7, 1994

JUST WHEN the Euro-elections were looking irrevocably dull, new twists in the Lib-Dem campaign are causing considerable excitement. Lindi St Clair, aka Miss Whiplash, has announced she is sending 450 discreetly dressed ‘girls to polling stations across the country to give ‘Tickets to Ride’ to clients who vote Lib Dem.
Quite how these women propose to inveigle their way into the polling booths to oversee the voting does not, unsurprisingly, appear to have been worked out. Nor are the Lib-Dems particularly amused by Miss St Clair’s voluntary contribution: ‘It sounds illegal,’ said a senior party official who asked not to be named. ‘I think we’d prefer to know nothing about it. ‘

Meanwhile the Marquess of Bath, the colourful pony-tailed Liberal peer, who prefers to walk barefoot, has, I hear, been canvassing with the local candidate, Jeanie Matthew. If that were not enough, he has decorated Longleat, his 9,500-acre Wiltshire estate, with party posters: ‘ Well – I told them I was at their disposal,’ he shrugged.

CREATING room – for colossal amounts of controversy among literary folk – are the authorities at Westminster Abbey who, yesterday, unveiled a commemorative window in Poets’ Corner. It has space for 20 memorial plaques – as a consolation prize for those who don’t quite make it into the Corner itself.

First to have their names carved onto the stained glass were Alexander Pope, 18th century dwarf and master of wit (who was excluded on account of his Roman Catholicism), and the 17th century poet, Robert Herrick (arguably a top-of-the-second-eleven man).

Inevitably the innovation has galvanised literary fan clubs into action. Notable omissions in the Corner include Virginia Woolf and John Betjeman. Not that their supporters will necessarily get the response they want. A spokesman sniffed: ‘It’s more for poets of the future rather than declaring open season on poets of the past.’

UNUSUAL times at Brent council: it has appointed two deputy mayors. Official reasoning for this is that the new mayor, David Games, is Jewish and – according to a spokeswoman – out of action on Fridays and Saturdays. Labour councillors disagree, however, claiming one of the two deputies was given the post to make sure he voted Tory. Since the council

is composed of 33 Tories, 28 Labour, 5 Lib Dems giving the Tory mayor the casting vote, you can see why they are sensitive. . .

A WORRYING moment for actress-cum-cake maker, Jane Asher when her sugar ‘arrangement depicting fine bone china crockery collapsed whilst on view at Garrard’s exhibition of English tea last week. ‘Ideally, there should be a rope around these kind of cakes saying ‘do not touch’, she explained yesterday, ‘but for some reason people can’t resist testing them with their fingers.’

A TALE which may curtail the popular image of Norma Major as a shy retiring country wife comes from sculptress Shenda Amery, whom I encountered at an artist’s party in Chelsea. Ms Amery, you may recall, completed a splendid bronze bust of John Major last year, which will stand, eventually, outside his home in Huntingdon.

So eager was Norma, however, to stamp her own mark on the bust – symbolising, arguably, the kind of strong wifely grip that emanates from her American counterpart, Hillary Clinton – that, at Ms Amery’s suggestion, she stuck her thumb onto the right shoulder, before it was cast. Now the marks are still there – tiny, but clearly visible.

A FOOTNOTE from Tristan Garel-Jones MP, back from South America to see his newly christened grandchildren, Samuel Tristan Mariano and Louis John Manuel.

Joking that their names ‘are like waiters’, he evoked memories of a past era: ‘We are a grandfather,’ he said fondly.

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – June 6, 1994

Poor old Dr Alan Sked] Just when the lecturer with the lively hairdo who leads the anti-European UK Independence party thought his campaign was going well – several hundred people, including two Tory peers have joined up in the last few weeks – he has received worried phone calls from would-be supporters concerned that his party has links with the National Front.

The source of confusion is an anti-immigration leaflet put out by an extreme-right wing Euro-candidate, Oliver Tillett, under the banner: ‘Third Way (UK Independence) Party’. The party – an offshoot of the National Front – urges Londoners to ‘Vote for a Euro-Sceptic, Vote for Independence. . .Vote against further immigration’ with warnings about border controls and floods of immigrants from other European countries.

Since the leaflet appears in east London, the constituency in which the UK Independence candidate, Gerard Batten, is standing, Sked is understandably livid.

‘They’ve never included UK Independence in their name, it’s a deliberate ploy,’ he seethes, adding: ‘Every kind of political low-life jumps on when there’s a bandwagon rolling.’

To the Argyll restaurant in Chelsea for a pre-launch party of studio openings, hosted by the Chelsea Artists group – amusingly divided, I could not help noticing, into areas of social, as well as geographic connotation: SW3 and SW10. There, I encountered one Sandra Lawrence, whose magnum opus – a tapestry of Operation Overlord – 272ft long and weighing 34lb – hangs in the D-Day museum at Portsmouth.

Miss Lawrence was commissioned to design the work in 1962 when she was a mere 23, by the late Lord Dulverton, who had taken part in the invasion. It was not all plain sailing for the youthful artist, however. After three months’ work on 40ft of painting, Lord Dulverton told her politely he did not like her work.

Miss Lawrence begged his private secretary to intervene for her and give her one more chance. He did, but at that stage, Miss Lawrence had no idea of what was about to hit her. The tapestry took five years to complete.

Much excitement in the home of former Foreign Office minister Tristan Garel-Jones MP, who, at 53, has become a grandfather for the first time. Ana, the Spanish-born wife of his eldest son, Julian, 27, gave birth to twin boys – at 7lb apiece – on 1 June. As yet the pair have no names, but, unsurprisingly, punters are already predicting careers in the city or politics. . .

Alan Clark, it appears, has even gone so far as to penetrate the thespian world. Actor Robert Stephens gave a wonderful performance in the title role of last Thursday night’s King Lear at the Barbican – only to be upstaged by Owen Teale, who was playing Edmund. It was not Teale’s fault, but the audience collapsed in giggles at what should have been the height of the tragedy, when Edmund is trying to solve his Regan/Goneril problem:

‘To both these sisters have

I sworn my love;

Each jealous of the other, as the stung

Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?

Both? One? Or neither?. . . .’

At last Bryan Gould is to write his memoirs, which, he says, will contain revelations about the Labour leadership contest between himself and John Smith in 1992. On the surface it appeared a relatively simple contest: Smith won; Gould lost and, disillusioned, he retired from politics to return to New Zealand.

Not so simple, claims Gould now: ‘It will be more than political memoirs. It will be a political odyssey. I will give the inside story with quite interesting revelations,’ he told me yesterday, before rushing off to scribble another chapter.

Despite the whole-hearted commemoration, the real wartime spirit of D-Day is, of course, gone. No one demonstrated this better than reporter Kate Adie at the opening of the D-Day exhibition at the Imperial War museum, when she was asked to be photographed alongside John Snagge, the 90-year-old wheelchair-bound veteran radio announcer. She refused, saying that an appointment would have to be made with her agent. . .

CORRECTION

On Tuesday I reported that Kate Adie had referred to her agent a request to be photographed with the veteran reporter John Snagge.

Ms Adie has pointedout that not only does she not have an agent, she did not refuse the request and was photographed with Mr Snagge at the Imperial War Museum in February – I apologise for the error.

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – June 2, 1994

UNLIKE his elder brother, Prince Charles, a member of stalwart establishment organisations such as the Garrick and Whites, Prince Edward is dabbling his toe in far more risque waters. He is toying with the idea of joining The House, a new Soho club set in Georgian premises, owned by that well-known local patron, Paul Raymond.
The Prince was spotted at the club’s pre-opening party on Wednesday night, mingling with luvvy types including Russ Abbott and Helena Bonham Carter. Though the club is not due to open until January, when the renovation will be complete, the Prince, along with the other guests was handed a membership application form.

My bet is he will join. In addition to the normal club facilities, The House boasts a private cinema with seating capacity of 24. This would of course provide a wonderful opportunity for Ardent, the Prince’s television company, to do a spot of PR.

However, should the Prince, who prefers to be known as Edward Windsor these days, be in search of an egalitarian environment, he may have got the wrong place. My colleague, Marie, gained access purely because she is exactly five foot tall. The club management were furious when they heard how she had ducked under the bouncers: ‘Anyone who returns the application forms will be considered,’ a spokesman said yesterday, ‘but we don’t want people like diarists.’

THE LOCAL ELECTION is still not over at Eel Brook ward, Fulham, where, despite the overall victory of the Liberal Democrats there was disappointment for Simon Thompson, one of their number who lost a council seat by just one vote, to Labour.

The result has not been accepted, however, on account of a proven error. Thompson’s election agent arrived at 8.30am to vote by proxy for an arthritic woman, only to find her name had already been ticked off. Now the matter is in the hands of the High Court, who will have to find the ‘invisible voter.’ Should the findings lead to an equal result between the Labour candidate and Thompson, the seat will be decided on that inimitable age-old decision-making practice: the drawing of straws.

OVERDOING publicity stunts can be a hazardous game, as Nick Nosh, co-owner of the Fulham bistro Nosh Brothers, discovered

recently. Mr Nosh, along with other chefs, had been invited to a magazine’s photographic shoot and was asked to bring his most useful kitchen implement with him.

Being an inventive type – he and his partner, Mick, park a graffiti-covered American sedan outside their restaurant to advertise it – Nosh took a genuine army machine gun, left over from some filming done on his premises. He had got no further than Marble Arch, however, than he was stopped by the police who, understandably, were convinced he was an IRA terrorist. They gave him the full ‘shake-down’ treatment and spoke ominously of prosecution. After much wrangling, I hear, Nosh has now been let off with a caution – but he is so shaken, he is uncharacteristically unable to speak about the episode.

WORRIED tongues have been wagging in political corridors over the lively hairdo of Dr Alan Sked, lecturer at the LSE and leader of the British Independence party. Sked appeared on television three nights ago to deliver his anti-Maastricht political broadcast with his grey hair looking so bouffant it prompted my neighbour to ask: ‘who is on his head?’

Yet only last year, at the Christchurch by-election, I recall that Sked’s hair was distinctly black – I suppose his anxiety over Europe has taken its toll, but nonetheless I sought the opinion of Sked’s former ally, the Tory Eurosceptic MP, Bill Cash: ‘He’s had it done,’ said Cash blithely. UNDERSTANDABLY, John Tomlinson’s garb in this portrait of him, on show in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, has excited some curiosity. Why is he, in the Wagnerian character of Wotan, King of the Gods, wearing a trilby, and overcoat? Answer: a god-like cloak was not available, so he posed in his normal clothes . . . but then the imagination of artist Ken Howard, got a little out of hand and, to everyone’s confusion, he added a spear.

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – June 1, 1994

WHILST everyone’s attention is focussed on the Labour leadership, and the subsequent party reshuffle it will entail, I can reveal that the Lib-Dems are quietly planning their own, scheduled to take place after next month’s Euro-elections.
My tips – from impeccable sources, needless to say – are as follows: former Liberal leader, and current holder of the foreign affairs post, Sir David Steel, will bow out, but remain an MP, when he takes over the Presidency of Liberal International in September. The post will then be combined with that of defence, currently occupied by Menzies Campbell, MP for North East Fife, who is likely to take over the amalgamated position.

Campbell, however, is also a favourite for the economics post, currently occupied by Alan Beith, MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, (and Ashdown’s competitor for the leadership in 1988), who may move – reluctantly- to another senior position.

Meanwhile, in an ironic twist, a fierce battle for the presidency could tear apart two of the party’s oldest allies. Former SDP founder Shirley Williams is tipped to fight the former SDP leader, Robert Maclennan, currently responsible for home affairs.

D-DAY celebrations could be wrecked in Hythe, Kent following the theft of half the town’s war memorial this week. The three foot bronze statue of victory with her wings outstretched is worht pounds 30,000 and was prized from the top the memorial the other night. The act has made some veterans so despondent that they are planning to go to Folkestone for the celebrations instead. The police, however, reckon that the thief could be someone involved with the proceedings. ‘I can’t understand who would want to steal such a thing,’ said PC Harvey-Hendley, investigating: ‘but I doubt it was yobs or hooligans.’

SO ANXIOUS were the crowd at Monday night’s Summer exhibition opening at the old Bond Street furniture dealer’s W R Harvey, for a glimpse of Alan Clark, that, amidst all the jostling one of the more expensive paintings was knocked off the wall. Of course Mr Clark, who had been due to open the proceedings never showed, but his replacement, Matthew Carrington, MP for Fulham stressed: ‘I’m not his friend.’

RELATIONS between two leading exponents of British football may be permanently soured, I fear. Manchester City chairman, Francis Lee, has good reason to be upset with England manager, Terry Venables, on account of the-less-than-adult sense of humour of Venable’s wife, Yvette (or ‘Toots’ as I believe she likes to be called by friends).

Recently Mrs Venables played a practical joke which misfired badly on Mr Lee. During an evening in Scribes West, Mr Venable’s Kensington nightclub, she removed the Havana cigars from the inside pocket of a jacket belonging to sports agent Eric Hall, and replaced them with cigars which explode upon lighting.

However Hall, the intended target, and close friend of the Venables refrained from smoking that evening. Instead he offered one to Lee with whom he was negotiating a deal. Lee took it home with him and waited until his children were in bed, his wife had cleared away supper and he was quietly watching a videe, to smoke.

Suffice it to say that the household was woken immediately. Thankfully Mr Lee was not permanently damaged but he did have soot all over his face. . . . .and to quote Eric Hall, who got a furious midnight phone call from him: ‘I don’t think he was very pleased.’

TO THE Roy Miles Gallery in Bruton street for the opening of ‘Return to Beauty.’ Aided by a red carpet, a string quartet, pink champagne and a 1927 Bentley, Education Secretary John Patten opened the proceedings accompanied, incongruously, by Mona Bauwens. ‘Are you glad to have a breather from education?’ queried one of the crowd, looking at a lithogram of Balmoral by the Prince of Wales. Taking another pink sip, Mr Patten responded confidently: ‘But. .this is education.’

(Photographs omitted.)

Diary – May 25, 1994

As if Dame Shirley Porter and her former cronies at Westminster Council were not experiencing enough difficulties at the moment, she is now confronted with condemnation all the way from Hollywood.
Alvin Toffler, the eminent sociologist, whose name Dame Shirley ‘borrowed’ to form the ‘Toffler Society’ – a fantasy group used as a cover when booking Westminster councillors into country hotels at weekends – has complained.

According to former Labour MP Eric Moonman, a professor at City University, who rang Toffler to tell him of the abuse, the writer gave him authority to relay his annoyance, but added that he would not be taking legal action.

‘The only connection Mr Toffler has ever had with Westminster Council is that he once lived in the borough, in Culross Street, Mayfair,’ explains Moonman, adding genially: ‘He also makes a point of never using Tesco.’

It must have been a tricky moment for octogenarian conductor Sir Georg Solti when his youngest daughter, Claudia, 21, appeared home for dinner one night and announced that she had landed her first film role. Triumphantly, the Oxford undergraduate told her parents that she would be playing Theresa von Brunswick, Beethoven’s sultry lover in a forthcoming movie, Immortal Beloved, about the composer’s life.

Knowing his daughter’s great desire to escape riding, so to speak, on her father’s famous coat-tails – she tells me she is even considering changing her surname – Sir Georg must have wondered how to respond. ‘Hmm,’ he eventually admitted: ‘I’m conducting the music for it, you know.’

Reports that the Duchess of York was flattered to be asked to play the part of Boadicea in Ken Russell’s proposed film about the flame-haired chariot-driving queen of the Iceni, are, I can reveal, somewhat short of the mark. I bumped into the duchess on Tuesday night at the Accademia Italiana’s opening of an exhibition of portraits in pastel by her painter friend Barbara Kaczmarowska-Hamilton (known, thankfully, as Basha), whose sketch of the duchess and her two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, was on display. ‘I put a pencil through the script and wrote ‘No’ at the top immediately,’ explained the duchess, sighing with relief: ‘Thank you very much for asking.’

Members of Parliament are being inundated with postcards from Post Office unions protesting at Michael Heseltine’s proposals to privatise the Royal Mail. They carry a jolly photograph of a Royal Mail van on one side, and a message on the other saying: ‘I am one of millions of people who use the Post Office. Please protect rural communities and help stop the privatisation and break-up of our Post Office. . .’

Beside it there is a space for the sender’s name. None, however, carries an address – causing some MPs to chortle, since all the cards have had their stamp franked by the sorting office with a message: ‘Return to sender? It’s easier with your address on the back. . .’

Nota bene, budding pop stars: two-thirds of the British production trio SAW, responsible for projecting Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan into the limelight, are to reunite after their split three years ago. Mike Stock and Matt Aitken have come together to produce a new series under the aegis of Arista records, which they hope will mirror SAW’s huge success in the Eighties.

They will be looking for new acts – most likely the same light boppy stuff adored by disco freaks, and loathed by me. (I refer to I Should be so Lucky, Locomotion, Too Many Broken Hearts, etc, etc).

Sadly, the third arm of SAW, Pete Waterman, is unlikely to come in on the new collaboration since not only is he extremely busy running his own record company, PWL, he is also immersed in collecting steam trains.

Recalling the difficulties of impromptu speeches at an awards ceremony at the Science Museum yesterday, David Mellor told how one senior minister was once called upon to speak during a prison visit.

The problem was how to address his audience. ‘Gentlemen’ did not seem quite right,’ Mr Mellor explained, ‘friends’ was a bit familiar and ‘colleagues’ perhaps a little too honest. Finally the minister found a solution: ‘How glad I am to see so many of you here today’.’

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – May 24, 1994 – 2

Nine years after he banned a translation of his autobiography, Neb (translated as ‘Noone’) into English, the Welsh clergyman poet, R S Thomas has relented. The 200-page work should be ready for publication here by the end of the summer.
Precisely why the 85-year-old cleric changed his mind is not entirely clear. In 1985 he insisted that the book be reserved for a Welsh readership. However, last summer, Jason Walford

Davies, a 23-year-old lecturer in Welsh at Bangor University, wrote suggesting that the work deserved a wider audience and, to his surprise, Thomas concurred.

‘I think it’s perfectly understandable,’ says Walford Davies, who has taken on the role of translator, ‘since he has actually kept his promise. There has been plenty of time for the book to settle in the Welsh imagination.’

However, Walford Davies did admit he too had heard a rumour which came my way, suggesting that the poet’s decision stemmed from a complaint made to Thomas by a ‘lady friend’. She insisted he translate it, the story goes, since she was unable to speak Welsh.

Staff at the Imperial War Museum have been thrown off balance recently by dozens of phone calls from people asking: ‘What does D-Day mean?’ After several weeks of head-scratching as to what the ‘D’ in D-Day stands for – and a variety of theories ranging from Doomsday to Date-Day – a curt note has been circulated from on high explaining that D-Day means nothing at all. ‘It’s just military code for the day when the Normandy landings were to happen – which depended on the weather,’ explains a WWII boffin. ‘The ‘D’ simply stands for ‘the Day’ – it’s rather like

‘H-Hour’.’ Now we know.

Advocating the perfect example of the thinking woman’s crumpet is Andrew Solomon, 30, a commuter between homes in New York and London, speechwriter for Bill Clinton and author of a newly published novel, A Stone Boat. Celebrating its launch in a candle-lit Kensington town house on Monday night, amid such wide-ranging acquaintances as the Prime Minister’s brother, Terry Major-Ball, Dudley Fishburn MP, Nicola Shulman (alias the Countess of Mulgrave) and

American feminist author, Naomi Wolf, Solomon was charmingly self-effacing about his talents. ‘At Yale, I acheived notoriety in my first term entirely by default,’ he explained. ‘Naomi (Wolf) was in the year above me and was already famous. She approached me in front of thousands of people in the lunch queue. ‘I want you,’ she said at the top of her voice, then dropping it, ‘to contribute to the Yale Quarterly’. Only the first part, however, was overheard, leaving me to become Yale’s most undeserving sex symbol.’

I greatly enjoyed chatting to Terry Major-Ball at Andrew’s book launch. Sadness, however, hovered on his brow as he rejected tray after tray of proffered canapes. He is, he confided, being forced by his doctor to diet – not something he enjoys.

‘I will have a sausage,’ he intoned, refusing the chicken satay, ‘they are my absolute weakness. At the unveiling of my brother’s portrait two weeks ago, I ate so many that I was unable to eat dinner properly with John and Norma afterwards at Downing Street.’

The conversation turned to Mr Major-Ball’s forthcoming memoirs Major Major, due out in August. ‘I don’t take them enormously seriously,’ he informed me . . . and indeed he appeared to have great difficulty recalling the publisher’s name.

‘I know it’s an animal,’ he frowned. ‘Penguin, Black Swan, Bantam?’ were suggested until, finally, at the point of despair, he announced triumphantly ‘Duckworth’.

Meanwhile, on Mr Major-Ball’s doorstep in Wallington, Surrey, I learn that the Monster Raving Loony Party’s London South and Surrey East Euro-candidate, Danny Bamford (who changed his name and that of his wife,

Lorraine, to John and Norma Major by deed poll two years ago), are wondering what to do should Margaret Beckett become Labour leader and then Prime Minister. ‘I suppose there is nothing for it,’ explains Major (Bamford) who has also changed his address to 10 Downing Street. ‘All my friends will have to call me Margaret and my wife will become Lionel.’

(Photograph omitted)

Diary – May 24, 1994

No sooner did Gussie Fink- Nottle-types rejoice at the founding of Britain’s first P G Wodehouse Literary Society at the end of last year, than a dreadful spanner appeared in the works.
The trustees of the Wodehouse estate, administered by the London literary agents A P Watt, have written to the society’s secretary asking that it does not ‘publicly use the name ‘Wodehouse’ without formal and specific approval’.

Now this, as the society puts it in true Wodehouse fashion, ‘is a bit tricky’. Attempts have been made to include the author’s name in a manner that does not require ‘formal and specific approval’ but they aren’t really getting anywhere.

Perhaps I can help. Having rung one Linda Shaughnessy at AP Watt, I discover that the Wodehouse estate does not wish to hinder the society’s welfare or prevent it using the great writer’s name. ‘It is simply,’ she explains, ‘that the estate must be consulted before anyone uses the name.’

‘Ah ha. . .it’s a matter of true plus-fours etiquette,’ I cry. ‘Precisely,’ concurs the demure Miss Shaughnessy.

ENGLISHMEN beware – in Ghana the latest fad among the ladies is marriage – to a Briton. Over the weekend I heard of not one, but two proposals winging their way from deepest Africa. The first, sadly, was so forward as to be quite unprintable.

The second, however, was sent to Vivian Anthony, 56, author and Secretary of the Headmasters’ Conference, who celebrates his silver wedding anniversary this year. An 18-year-old schoolgirl wrote to him begging for his hand. She had been taken, no doubt, by his Who’s Who entry which states that he wrote ‘Monopoly’, thereby leading her to believe she would spend many an evening happily passing Go and collecting pounds 200.

In retrospect I feel she may see Anthony’s previous marital obligations as a blessing: ‘Monopoly’ is not a board game but a book on economics.

UNLIKE others, I do not feel Nicol Williamson should be let off too lightly for his undramatic walk off stage after only five minutes of A Night on the Town with John Barrymore. For Williamson is not the main sufferer of his actions. A new watchword: ‘Theatre of Death’ is buzzing round Thespian circles, with reference to the sorry fate of The Criterion theatre since its relaunch in October 1992.

Not only has each Criterion production lasted an embarrassingly short time, but this year’s big show, Maxwell the Musical was cancelled before it even got on stage.

‘All in all, the theatre has probably been closed longer than it has been open,’ comments Peter Hepple, consultant editor of The Stage newspaper. Mr Williamson’s performance (or lack of it) is the final straw.

PICTURED is Britain’s first mobile phone box (the payphone you can see is about to be ripped out). The Edwardian booth stands in the restaurant lobby of London’s new Capital Club – a smart new yuppy club due to open in September in the premises of the old Gresham club in the City. Though the club management actively encourages use of mobile phones in the business rooms (‘we want deals to be made on our premises’), the booth’s location near the dining area may suggest to more sensitive suits that it would be polite to make and receive their calls in private. ‘For some reason the roof opens when you are in the booth,’ explains manager Michael Longshaw, adding helpfully, ‘it must be something to do with hot air.’

GREATLY missing the late Labour leader John Smith is the new editorial team of Red Pepper, the independent left-wing magazine replacing The Socialist and backed by luminaries such as Harold Pinter, Ruth Rendell and Jeremy Seabrook. Vocalising Smith’s loss at the publication’s launch last week was editor Hilary Wainwright: ‘We might well have got him to listen and even to contribute,’ she explained, getting firmly into her stride, ‘but Tony Blair is another matter.

‘He is . . .(deep breath) compliant, retrospective and (a pause to prepare me for the ultimate masculine crime) worried about how he appears.’

(Photograph omitted)

Diary – May 19, 1994

A NOTED omission in the itinerary of Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe on his current state visit to London, is tea with the Queen Mother – a fixture that is usually mandatory for visiting Heads of State. Nor, surprisingly, did the Queen Mother attend the state dinner, given in his honour, at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday night.
Whilst there may be nothing remotely suspicious – the Queen Mother’s press secretary informs me that she is away in Scotland – her absence has fuelled speculation (unfair, I think) that ancient politics could have something to do with it.

Historians and diplomats (who are too cowardly to reveal themselves) mutter that the Queen Mother was never outwardly opposed to Ian Smith’s government in Rhodesia during the Sixties, and that there may be friction between herself and Mugabe, whose party effectively overthrew Smith’s.

Personally I think it’s all garbage – at 93, the Queen Mother is surely a more skilled and experienced diplomat than any of the mutterers in the Foreign Office.

AN EXTREMELY distinguished, elderly author, who has insisted I do not disclose his identity, made his way to Hatchards, Piccadilly, on Wednesday evening to attend an awards ceremony for the Pegasus Prize for Literature. ‘Can I have your name?’ asked the receptionist, clearly not recognising him. ‘I’m on the list, I’m an author,’ grumbled the man, annoyed at her ignorance. ‘Can’t find you,’ came from the receptionist. . .’What is your name?’ A pause. The man thought for a while. . .’Tolstoy,’. . . more fumbling from the girl. ‘Nah. .sorry, not listed. Tolstoy. . .how do you spell that?’

MEANWHILE at the same party Laurie Lee, the septuagenarian author of Cider with Rosie, informed me that he and his wife, Catherine, had just celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary. ‘I drew her a grandfather clock with 44 on the face,’ he explained. ‘Then I drew two pendulums. . . swinging in opposite directions. I don’t think I explained it quite well enough to my wife,’ he frowned. ‘She seemed rather non-plussed.’

I DO NOT normally approve of plugging advertisements, but there is one in this week’s edition of Country Life which deserves a leg-up.

‘I go to Radley College, my small brother starts at Cothill in September. My parents are desperately searching for a good period house within 25 minutes drive of our schools. We need at least 6 bedrooms, staff accommodation and 5 acres or more. My parents have retained Knight Frank & Rutley to act on their behalf. Mummy says she will pay anything, Daddy has set a budget of pounds 1,500,000.’

POLITICS looks set to disrupt this year’s Great River Race, normally one of London’s more peaceable annual events, where a motley crew of old and new boats race the 22-mile stretch of Thames from Richmond to the Isle of Dogs. Owing to some unfortunate circumstances, it appears that a Greenpeace boat is to race next to a fully-armed Swedish whaler – a prospect which is causing the organisers considerable alarm. ‘I just hope no-one gets harpooned,’ says a worried race director.

BRIEFLY, altruism has been swept aside at Shelter, the charity for the homeless, where staff are helpless with laughter at the prospect of a bizarre French innovation to help those sleeping rough. A second-hand steel transport crate – nine by eight by 40 foot – complete with windows and a windmill (to power it) go to make the ‘Lifebox’ – a remarkable invention by one Emmanuel Alouche.

At pounds 6,000 – a considerable mark up from the pounds 400 or so a transport container usually costs – the mini ‘house’ has been firmly rejected by the charity: ‘It’s just one step up from a card-board box,’ giggles a spokeswoman. The French, however, are determined not to give up. . .

‘ELTON JOHN has disappeared’ the cry went up during the interval of Benjamin Britten’s opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Freemason’s Hall on Wednesday night.

The singer, whose friend Zandra Rhodes had designed the costumes, was clearly visible during the first half, but he never returned to his seat for the second.

‘I don’t want to be too emphatic’ said one sitting within John’s immediate vicinity. . . ‘but I got the impression that opera is not quite his thing.’

(Photographs omitted)

Diary – May 18, 1994

TAKE one 51-year-old national heroine who has ridden round what no woman of her age has ridden round before. Add one particularly blinkered ruling body which gets its facts wrong. And what you get is a cock-up almost worthy of the start of the 1993 Grand National. Rosemary Henderson got round Aintree twice and completed the race against all the odds only to find herself reprimanded by the Jockey Club for infringing their rules by placing a bet with William Hill – 8-1 against finishing. The Club gleaned the story from the media.
Just a couple of things though: the story was wrong. In truth, a reporter put a bet on for her husband. And anyway, how could they have been so humourless? The Jockey Club is showing signs of contrition now. But is this any way to run a horse race? What I wonder what it would have done with another equally potent horsewomen – Bodicea, say, or Lady Godiva?

NOT QUITE everyone at Glyndebourne is unreservedly looking forward to the grand reopening on 28 May. Although the new architectural design is much lauded for its acoustics and seating arrangements, I’m told there has been an oversight on the location of the staff loos. Currently, employees are using the dressing-room facilities, but once the singers arrive for the opening production of Le Nozze de Figaro, some staff will be forced to walk through 24 doors to get to the nearest conveniences.’ By the time you’ve walked back,’ says one sufferer, ‘it feels like you’ve been on an Army obstacle course.’

EXPERIENCING side-effects from his recent volte-face from press secretary at the AEEU to PA for Gordon Brown, is Charlie Whelan, 40, the ‘bright young thing’ spotted by Labour leaders at last year’s party conference, when he campaigned impressively for one member, one vote. Such are the fresh demands exacted by Mr Whelan’s new role, however, that he has been pressured into removing the gold stud he has worn in his left ear for 10 years.

Rumour has it that the command to ‘de-earring’ came from Mr Brown, who felt that it was perhaps not the most appropriate jewellery for meetings with newspaper editors. Whelan himself insists that his motives stem solely from vanity. ‘My mate told me that earrings were no longer cool,’ he explains helpfully.

PICTURED is Rara (pronouced rah]rah]) Plumptree, who, despite her eponymous-sounding name, is not a marketing executive for fruit jams, but even more exotically, London’s first executive shopper. Insisting that her name is the one bestowed by her parents at birth, Miss Plumptree bravely acknowledges her age as 37 and is newly employed by the Grosvenor House Hotel to take guests shopping – at a rate of pounds 24 an hour. Fortunately for the expensively-minded Miss Plumptree, whose reputation in retail circles is such that certain Bond Street stores close their doors behind her, most of her charges request visits only to the smartest boutiques. Anything less and Miss Plumptree’s nose wrinkles. ‘I once had to go downmarket – to Kensington High Street,’ she complains, adding: ‘The Japanese all go to Marks & Spencer – to buy 40 about pairs of shoes.’

ROBERT KEY, the rotund roads minister, was in an appropriately expansive mood yesterday. Asked at a press conference how many copies of the booklet Choosing Safety – a guide showing which cars provide most driver protection in accidents – had been printed, he replied swiftly: ‘A quarter of a million.’ Up popped a young red-faced civil servant: ‘Actually minister, the initial print run is 10,000,’ he blushed. ‘Ah well,’ said Key, ‘there was some booklet yesterday that had a print run of 250,000.’

SAD farewell to Terry Holmes, md of the Ritz Hotel for nine years. Yesterday he was given only a week’s notice to pack his bags. . .a whiff of the flavour of the management style to come.

(Photograph omitted)