EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Sir David Attenborough swaps oceans for the opera
EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Sir David Attenborough swaps oceans for the opera as he dons his penguin suit for Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne
Opera singer Danielle de Niese was thrilled to play host to wildlife presenter Sir David Attenborough at Glyndebourne last week, when he attended a performance of Don Giovanni.
And Danielle, 44, who lives on the estate with her husband Gus Christie, 56, executive chairman of the Sussex opera house, had her own wild adventure during the recent West End press night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects Of Love, in which she stars.
‘I was locked out of the theatre as I didn’t know security closes the venue,’ she tells me.
‘I went back after midnight to get our things — wallets, car keys. Everything was locked inside.
‘I was standing there in my Vivienne Westwood dress and Louboutin heels with just my lip-gloss and my phone.’
EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Opera singer Danielle de Niese was thrilled to play host to wildlife presenter Sir David Attenborough at Glyndebourne last week, when he attended a performance of Don Giovanni
EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: And Danielle, 44, who lives on the estate with her husband Gus Christie, 56, executive chairman of the Sussex opera house, had her own wild adventure during the recent West End press night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects Of Love, in which she stars
Designer Temperley faces a court battle with music snapper
She’s the Princess of Wales’s favourite fashion designer and lives in splendour in the Somerset mansion where newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook once discussed wartime strategy with Sir Winston Churchill.
But now, I can disclose, Alice Temperley seems destined for a battle of her own in the rather austere surroundings of London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
Temperley, 47, who is sometimes described as the ‘English Ralph Lauren’, will be up against veteran music photographer Jason Sheldon — who has fought hard previously to protect the copyright of his images.
Sheldon, 52, who has snapped everyone from the Rolling Stones to Sir Elton John, has initiated a claim in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court against Temperley’s new company, TMLL.
The firm was established in 2021 — the same year in which her previous company, TL 2021, went into administration, with unpaid debts of £31 million.
Sheldon declines to comment. But remarks he recently made on a social media account suggest that he’s fully prepared to see Temperley in court — and has, indeed, paid a fee of £10,000 in order to do so.
‘Well . . . here goes a £10k lawsuit . . . claim filed with Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court.’ He adds — without naming Temperley or anyone else — that perhaps the alleged ‘infringer’ will ‘answer the emails again now instead of ghosting me.’
Temperley and her company also opt to remain silent. But they are not the first star opponent that Sheldon has taken on.
Eight years ago, he wrote an open letter of complaint to none other than pop star Taylor Swift, accompanying it with a picture of the contract that photographers covering Swift’s concerts had to sign.
A number of Temperley’s past suppliers seem likely to cheer him on. One of them, Jay Patel, who was owed £19,000 when Temperley’s previous company went under, remarked: ‘We never got a penny from them for all the work we did. Disgraceful.’
You’ll never guess…
Which supposedly happily married and heterosexual TV luminary (who hasn’t been in the headlines) with a recent interest in ‘personal development’ has formed an intriguing relationship with a much younger man, after receiving fan mail from the gentleman in question five years ago?
Who knew booming-voiced Brian Blessed was so in touch with his feminine side?
The 86-year-old actor has noticed an increase in men wearing war paint and earrings. But far from being irked by it, Brian is actually a fan.
‘Nowadays, men wear tattoos left, right and centre, as well as make-up and jewellery,’ he shouts. ‘And it’s good, it’s healthy, it’s absolutely marvellous!’
If only walls had ears, Vivek Singh would no doubt be offered a huge sum to part with a plethora of political secrets.
The TV chef owns renowned Indian restaurant The Cinnamon Club, in Westminster, which has played host to many a poppadum-loving politician.
‘Pretty much every politician, every MP, every MEP in the last 20-whatever years has been in,’ the 52-year-old tells me at the Craft Guild of Chefs Awards at the Park Plaza, Westminster.
‘I must have had more leadership campaigns launched out of my private rooms than anyone can care to imagine.’
The smart set’s talking about… The adrenaline junkie with a royal stamp of approval
Carina Evans made history in 2019 as the first woman to ride down St Moritz’s Cresta Run toboggan track in Switzerland 90 years after women were banned from doing so.
Now, she’s made her mark again by winning the King’s Award for Enterprise — one of the first of King Charles’s reign — for her company Podium Pet Products. It sells her natural Be:Loved range inspired by a family heirloom: a recipe book entitled Farmhouse Cures For Animals.
The 44-year-old Army reservist says her success may owe something to her schooling at North Foreland Lodge in Hampshire, a real-world St Trinian’s, where she fondly recalls girls playing ‘lax’ (lacrosse), making moves on their male tennis coaches and fending for themselves.
Women take Derby Clash bash by storm
Today might be Derby day at Epsom, but can it live up to the Derby Club Dinner, held this week at London’s Savoy Hotel? For the first time, women were among the guests shelling out £170 a head.
‘There were about 20 or 30 of them,’ one of the club’s old boys tells me. ‘None at my table, of course.’
On a side note, one Violet Hesketh has, I’m told, joined the club’s committee, and could be just the person to sharpen it up.
When her grandfather, Jonathan Guinness, now Lord Moyne, stood in the 1973 Lincoln by-election, he called for razor blades to be placed in the cells of convicted murderers so they could ‘do the decent thing’.
Moving at a pace not normally associated with the hereditary peerage, the Earl of Burlington stunned members of Pratt’s, the 166-year-old gentlemen’s club he owns in London’s St James’s, by announcing that women would now be admitted. And the first of the fair sex dined there on Wednesday.
Alas, the innovation did not go quite as serenely as it did at the Derby Club Dinner. ‘There was much chuntering [among the men],’ I’m told. ‘Talk of threatened resignations — all that sort of thing.’
Chaplin’s girl longs to be a wedding belle
Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Laura, 36, had her second wedding ceremony with Swiss lawyer Etienne Monnier in Spain this week, following their nuptials in Switzerland earlier this year.
Her sister Kiera, 40, who was a bridesmaid, fancies following her sister up the aisle. ‘I’m finally thinking it’s time to have a husband,’ says the model, actress and film producer, who just won the Women’s Rights Advocate Award at the World Influencers And Bloggers Awards in Cannes.
‘Funnily enough, in the last year I turned 40 and I’ve matured from having boyfriends. I’m a grown woman finally,’ adds Kiera, who, like Laura, is the daughter of Charlie’s son, Eugene.
‘I was travelling so much and I feel I’m now settled. I’m liking the slower pace and more quiet life.’
Just like silent film star Charlie, then.
Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Laura, 36, had her second wedding ceremony with Swiss lawyer Etienne Monnier in Spain this week, following their nuptials in Switzerland earlier this year
Andrew Lloyd Webber and his wife Madeleine were quids in at the Epsom races yesterday.
Their horse Emily Upjohn cruised to victory with jockey Frankie Dettori in the Dahlbury Coronation Cup.
The theatrical impresario and his better half were both in attendance at the racecourse in Surrey, and are thought to have banked a sum of £242,000.
‘They always know they’re onto a winner with this horse,’ my man at the races tells me.
(Very) modern manners
While some claim to be as hard as nails, Hikari Yokoyama can at least provide evidence of that.
The American-born art curator has endured a painful ancient Indian tradition involving standing on a Sadhu nail board, which aims to stimulate blood flow and release trapped energy.
So how did it go? ‘Everything in my body screamed to get off,’ says Hikari, 40, who is married to art dealer Jay Jopling, 59. ‘It b****y hurt.’
But she’s glad to have stuck it out (or should that be in?), as it apparently led to ‘pulsating feelings of pure elation’. I’m happy to take her word for it.
While some claim to be as hard as nails, Hikari Yokoyama can at least provide evidence of that
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