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<\/p>\nDoes BBC world affairs editor John Simpson regret getting involved in the Beeb’s Hamas coverage? ‘I’ve come in for a lot of abuse, threats and taunts in the past few days,’ wails the old trouper. ‘I’ve been yelled at in the street. But there’s one good thing \u2013 at times like this you do find out who your friends are. And aren’t.’ Do tell, Jonners!<\/p>\n
Boasting of his friendship with King Charles, Jimmy Savile couldn’t help overegging the pudding in claiming Charles once asked him to stand in presenting Duke of Edinburgh awards. According to Savile, the King said: ‘I am sure the people receiving awards, providing it’s done at Buckingham Palace, will be just as thrilled to have them presented by Sir James Savile.’ In your infernal dreams, Savile.<\/p>\n
Dame Helen Mirren\u00a0admits to getting above herself when she starred in the BBC’s 1978 film of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. ‘Angharad Rees was in it with me,’ she tells a BBC4 documentary. ‘She taught me how not to be an a***hole. Not that I was particularly bad, but I was a bit lost in my own actory way and she really grounded me.’ Adds Helen of the Poldark star who died in 2012: ‘She was such a lovely person; she was so sweet-hearted and kind.’<\/p>\n
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Does BBC world affairs editor John Simpson regret getting involved in the Beeb’s Hamas coverage? (Pictured in 2017)<\/p>\n
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Dame Helen Mirren, pictured, admits to getting above herself when she starred in the BBC’s 1978 film of Shakespeare’s As You Like It<\/p>\n
Princess Alexandra fervently hopes that the 180 abused animals in the Tel Aviv sanctuary of Safe Haven for Donkeys are safe in times of war. Alexandra, 86, is patron of the charity, which looks after thousands of working beasts in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. She is also patron of the Jacob Sheep Society, the British Goat Society and St Tiggywinkles (hedgehogs).<\/p>\n
Spare a smidgen of compassion for John Cleese, forced to endlessly tour to pay off his \u00a315.5million divorce settlement to wife number three, Alyce-Faye Eichelberger. ‘I thought my fans would like to know how I have become so rich,’ he wails, ironically listing his meagre royalty payments from ten largely forgettable film parts. He adds: ‘I have earned a grand total of $4,085’ \u2013 \u00a33,347 in real money.<\/p>\n
Madcap German film director Werner Herzog recalls in his new memoir visiting his dying friend, travel writer Bruce Chatwin, who asked him to ‘end his torment’. ‘Do you want me to brain you with a cricket bat?’ Herzog unsentimentally inquired. ‘Or asphyxiate you with a pillow?’ Taken aback, Bruce suggested some fast-acting drugs. Adds Werner: ‘I didn’t have any.’<\/p>\n
Polymath Jonathan Meades, reviewing Roger Lewis’s Burton\/Taylor biography, wonders tongue in cheek why the Welsh actor swapped theatre for ‘caviar by the cwt, a gaudy caravan of flunkeys, medical orderlies, pockmark-fillers, wig-wranglers, depilators, mixologists, shoppers, scent-consultants, lawyers, dressers, dressers’-dressers and spontaneous quip-writers.’ Wasn’t life grand!<\/p>\n