EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince Albert RSVP threatens embarrassment

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince Albert of Monaco’s premature RSVP to the Coronation threatens a frisson of embarrassment

Prince Albert of Monaco’s premature acceptance of an invitation to the Coronation which hadn’t actually been sent threatens a frisson of embarrassment before the event. 

Albert’s faux pas followed his receipt of the customary round robin missive sent by Buckingham Palace to heads of state asking for details of the delegates they plan to send. 

By convention, crowned heads send representatives instead of turning up personally. 

In 1953, Albert’s dad Prince Rainier sent his father Prince Pierre. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands sent her husband and the Kings of Sweden, Norway and Denmark sent relatives. 

Prince Albert’s faux pas followed his receipt of the customary round robin missive sent by Buckingham Palace to heads of state asking for details of the delegates they plan to send

Albert has nominated himself. Doh!

After 3.2 million copies of Spare were shifted in its first week, Harry’s whinge remains at number 41 in the Amazon best seller list. 

The Duke of Kent’s tame biography A Royal Life, released a few months earlier, sits at 51,253rd. 

Perhaps ghostwriter Hugo Vickers should have persuaded HRH to boost sales by giving his cousin Charles a Harry-like drubbing.

Assessing Rishi’s difficulties with the Windsor Framework, nerdy northern BBC political editor Chris Mason announces on Radio 4’s Today: ‘Boris Johnson will get up…. to, put it bluntly, kick the Prime Minister in the goolies.’ 

Presenter Nick Robinson later asks if it was the first time the phrase was heard on the programme, tweeting: ‘Congratulations to Chris Mason for using a phrase I last heard on my school playground.’ 

Is that Lord Reith we can hear turning in his grave?

Assessing Rishi’s difficulties with the Windsor Framework, nerdy northern BBC political editor Chris Mason announces on Radio 4’s Today: ‘Boris Johnson (pictured) will get up…. to, put it bluntly, kick the Prime Minister in the goolies.’

Tuppence Middleton, clearing her throat to play Elizabeth Taylor opposite Johnny Flynn’s Richard Burton at the National Theatre, admits to being in awe of the couple’s perpetual thirst. 

‘It blew my mind reading about how much they drank,’ says Tuppence. 

‘Elizabeth would carry this cabinet with all the ingredients for a Bloody Mary wherever she went.’ 

Will director Sam Mendes in his quest for authenticity get the NT carpenters to build a replica?

Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, jobless after being cancelled for his transgender views, claims he was offered £200,000 to remove his name from a West End musical based on the cult comedy. 

He refused and the musical was shelved. ‘I think,’ he says, forlornly, ‘they’re waiting for me to die.’

Noting ‘serial monogamist’ Rupert Murdoch will soon be overtaking her marital tally with spouse number five, four-times divorced Janet Street-Porter saucily remarks: ‘He doesn’t really believe in sex outside marriage… unlike me.’ Lock up your husbands!

Coming up for air after frothing against the Windsor Framework, DUP MP Jim Shannon submits an early-day motion urging celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dolly Parton’s caterwaul I Will Always Love You. 

Shouldn’t No Surrender Jim put in a ship to shore call to Tennessee asking Dolly what she thinks of the Stormont Brake?

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