Ephraim Hardcastle

SHOULD Princess Beatrice resign from US tech firm Afiniti over strongly denied sexual harassment accusations against founder Zia Chishti, she could land on her feet. With Andrew and Harry out of commission, the Duke of Kent and his sister Princess Alexandra both well over 80 and the Gloucesters in their 70s, there is an urgent need for an injection of younger blood to sustain the royals’ burgeoning programme. Charles, king in all but name, will soon have to address the problem of reshaping a tight unit of working royals. Redundant Beatrice might find herself on full-time waving duty.

CURRENTLY serving his notice at the BBC, Andrew Marr confirms his appointment as chief political commentator on the Left-leaning New Statesman. Put a shilling in the jukebox, Andrew, and let’s hear Cyndi Lauper warble: ‘I see your true colours shining through.’

BROADCASTING his racing tips at 6.30am, Today’s Alan Partridge-like sports presenter Garry Richardson announces: ‘It’s number eight: Seymour Cox.’ Two hours later, Richardson clarifies: ‘It’s our old friend... Seymour Sox. We had a problem with Seymour earlier.’ The hapless horse had his own problems in the handicap hurdle at Haydock. Starting as 7/2 favourite, he finished eighth.

PLAYING Tony Soprano’s wife Carmela for eight years, Edie Falco, pictured, perfected the technique of pretending to eat, a skill unmastered by her onscreen husband played by James Gandolfini. ‘Jim ate in every frigging take and he ate between takes,’ says Edie, currently playing Hillary Clinton in BBC2’s Impeachment. ‘There was one scene we were shooting where he was eating a bowl of ice cream and in every take he would refill the bowl. Then at one point I realised he’s not really listening to me – he had gone into a sugar coma!’ Was that before Tony warned a Bada Bing! chum: ‘I think it’s time for you to start to seriously consider salads’?

MONTY Python’s Eric Idle, congratulating Barbados on becoming a republic, recalls a visit when Sir Geoffrey Boycott was teaching the rules of cricket to a group of American women. ‘He was gently touching various parts of their bodies,’ remembers Eric. ‘“You can’t be out LBW here, you can’t be out LBW there.” I think finally they learned that T**s Before Wicket was not out.’

COMPARING his late maiden aunt to the ‘woke banshee’ academics who forced philosopher Kathleen Stock out of Sussex University, polemicist Jonathan Meades, in The Critic, describes his unnamed mother’s sister as a ‘censorious, miserly bitch whose hobbies included denigration of my mother, sponging and confecting vinegary ketchup which took the enamel off teeth’. Get off that fence Jonners and say what you really think!

JOHN Cleese, on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions, concedes that he can no longer do his trademark Python silly walk, saying: ‘It would be a disappointment with two artificial hips and an artificial knee and a heavily infected left big toe.’ Too much information, Basil!

Email: john.mcentee@dailymail.co.uk