Daily Express Thursday, August 8, 2019 13DX1STThe real
reason to
keep mum?
When a roué
stops a-roving
AMID all the hoo-ha about
the Duke and Duchess of
Sussex’s decision not to
have more than two
children, one fact seems
to be overlooked.
Meghan Markle, as was,
has just turned 38, an age
at which it is unrealistic to
be planning a large
family.
Making a virtue out of a
necessity, perhaps?SEEING the picture of the
Prime Minister standing
next to Dame Barbara
Windsor taken 10 years
ago, it does rather bring it
home how much he has
aged. And he’s only just
started at Number 10.
Still, it bodes well for
his relationship with
Carrie Symonds, for most
roués seem to run out of
steam at the end.
I was always very
amused by Warren Beatty
who was “tamed” by
Annette Bening after
decades of running amok
among Hollywood’s
finest. Cynics might point
out that when he was
“tamed”, he was actually
in his mid-50s and the
game was up. Yes, of
course, rich and famous
men will always attract
partners but not quite at
his previous rate. Carrie
might well go down in
history as the woman
who “tamed” the PM.
The exception to this is
Mick Jagger. Years ago I
was at the première of a
film he produced,
Enigma, with my very
dear and unfortunately
departed friend John
Antcliffe, who was an
extremely witty man.
“I hate him,” I hissed as
Mick stood to make a
speech, “after the way he
treated Jerry Hall.”
John looked at me
reprovingly and as the
audience began to
applaud, replied. “Let
us hope,” he said, “that
he gets the clap he so
richly deserves.”FELINE A FURRY ROYAL FURY
MY CAT, Mrs Peel, is outraged. A cottage next to
Anmer Hall, home to the Cambridges, is being
advertised for rent – but while dogs are allowed, kitties
are not. “This is nothing but a form of purrsecution and
it’s hurting my felines,” fumes Mrs Peel, taking a moment
out from terrorising a spider. “And don’t they know that
we can be very useful in keeping vermin out, and I don’t
mean the paps?” It is curious that such famous animal
lovers as the Royals are known to have an aversion to
the most beautiful and mysterious creatures of them
all. But some people just cannot take the cat’s
approach to life, which is essentially to give the finger
to absolutely everyone. A cat may look at a king. But
not, it seems, the next but one in line to the throne.■
JOHN Cleese
says that stem cell
therapy is keeping him
young. This is how
John Cleese looks now.
One doesn’t wish to be
cruel – but will you tell
him or shall I?Only here for the beer
- and sauce on the side
Daily yyyExpppress Thursday, August 8 , 2019 1VIRGINIA
BLACKBURN
MY CHAMPAGNE GLASS IS ALWAYS HALF FULL Email me at [email protected]RUGBY player Ben Foden has
married Jackie Belanoff Smith
after a courtship lasting a full
two weeks: “I met a girl who
seriously swept me off my
feet,” he said by way of
explanation of this insanity.
Well yep, that’s what millions of
people feel in the first flush of
infatuation. Wait to see what
it’s like a few months from now.
Still, mustn’t be churlish. It is
said that Richard Nixon first
proposed to his wife Pat a few
hours after meeting her and
that marriage lasted a lifetime.
Even so, I have two words for
Ben Foden: Paul Hollywood.
You have been warned.Marry in haste and
repent at leisure...
A
ND so the march of puritanism goes on. The miserable
shall inherit the earth, at the rate we’re going. The latest to
succumb to those who specialise in taking offence at the
completely offence-less are, of all people, those behind the
Great British Beer Festival. They have forbidden real ale
enthusiasts from giving their beers sexist names such as
Dizzy Blonde, Slack Alice, Top Totty and The Village Bike. There are
some fruitier examples, too, that perhaps shouldn’t be repeated here.
But how depressing. How unnecessary. And how very un-British.
The reason for this idiocy is that some survey of spoilsport women
said they wouldn’t buy beer if it was advertised in a sexist way (do grow
up), leading the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) to act. Naughty names
are banned. Well here’s a thing: quite a lot of women, including me,
wouldn’t buy beer however it was advertised, because we can’t stand
the stuff. Give me a glass of champers any day.
But more than that these names, while silly-assish, are
part of a larger tradition of British smut. For a some-
what inhibited nation, we’ve always let off steam by
indulging in a bit of sauciness. A whole industry
was built up on the back of risqué seaside post-
cards, a tradition more recently carried on in
the chronicles of the antics of saucy Samantha
in I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.
For them as doesn’t know, Samantha was an
entirely fictional creation, of whom
Humphrey Lyttelton used to come up with
the most eye-watering double-entendres:
“Before I nip out with Samantha for a time
honoured blow on the seafront,” was one of
the more repeatable. But these have been
dropped in recent years, because despite the fact
that Samantha does not actually exist, someone,
somewhere, got offended. These people must be a
real bunch of laughs to be around.
The entire oeuvre of the Carry On films relied on
double entendres, which in turn produced the single finest line
in any movie ever made – “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for
me!” The likes of Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw managed to turn the
word “cor” into a four-syllabled pronouncement. Those films are now
considered classics of their time.
The British have always been bawdy. One of my favourite stories from
the Second World War concerns an air raid shelter in London’s East End,
which was filled to bursting after the siren went off. “Any babies down
there?” shouted the air raid warden. “Give us a minute, gov, we’ve only
just got here,” shouted one wag in reply. But the joyless don’t like it and
now they’ve come for the beer. What a generation of latter-day
Oliver Cromwells we’ve managed to breed.MANY
thanks to
everyone who has been
writing to me about my penchant
for champagne, especially Liz
Armstrong, who sent in my direction a
quote from 1961 by Lily Bollinger, of the
famous fizz family. She was in London to
launch the 1955 vintage and spoke of the
champers thus: “I drink it when I’m happy and
when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m
alone. When I have company I consider it
obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and
drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch
it – unless I’m thirsty.” Liz has a drawing
of La Bollinger riding her bicycle
through the French countryside.
Liz is quite clearly my
kinda gal.“Some people think
luxury is the opposite of
poverty. It is not. It is the
opposite of vulgarity”
Coco ChanelPictures: PA. GETTY