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<\/p>\nAs withering put-downs go, few equal the inspired snobbery of the remark recorded by the late Alan Clark in his diary that ‘the trouble with Michael [Heseltine] is that he had to buy all his furniture’.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But, though the line \u2013 which Clark attributed to fellow Tory minister Michael Jopling \u2013 lives on, has it now been royally dismissed?<\/p>\n
I ask because none other than the Prince and Princess of Wales indulged in what might be described as fervent window shopping last Friday when they paid a discreet and entirely private evening visit to the salerooms of auctioneers Dreweatts, in Berkshire.<\/p>\n
‘They were looking very, very interested,’ a devotee of the antiques trade tells me, adding that ‘everybody was all of a twitter to see them. It was the beginning of the very big champagne reception that auctioneers always have before a serious sale.’<\/p>\n
And few sales are such landmark occasions as the one that lured in Prince William and Catherine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The Prince and Princess of Wales indulged in what might be described as fervent window shopping last Friday<\/p>\n
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They paid a discreet and entirely private evening visit to the salerooms of auctioneers Dreweatts, in Berkshire<\/p>\n
Beginning on Wednesday, it’s the three-day auction of the extraordinary collection amassed by Robert Kime, who oversaw the redecoration first of Highgrove and then of Clarence House for King Charles.<\/p>\n
Numbering nearly 1,000 lots, ranging from Mughal carpets to Delft vases, it’s expected to bring in at least \u00a31.5million \u2013 a tribute to Kime’s inspired but understated style, both as an interior decorator, as he described himself, and as a gimlet-eyed antiques dealer, whose genius won him the adoration of clients like Daphne Guinness, Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber and Lord Puttnam.<\/p>\n
Dreweatts, and Kensington Palace decline to comment on William and Kate’s visit. Others suspect that a discreet telephone bid \u2013 or two \u2013 may be made on their behalf.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Not so much to buy for themselves but as presents for Kate’s parents or brother or sister,’ suggests another admirer of Kime, who died suddenly last year aged 76.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Perhaps not the Ushak medallion carpet for \u00a350,000, or even the George II longcase clock for \u00a34,000 but the 15 Bronze Age axes for \u00a32,000.\u00a0What else would you give a mother-in-law?’<\/p>\n
Laurence Fox has become ‘toxic’ after being sacked as a GB News presenter for making vulgar sexual remarks about political reporter Ava Evans \u2014 but his cousin Freddie has lost none of his charm for Lily James.<\/p>\n
The Mamma Mia 2 star, 34, took Freddie’s hand as they arrived at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End for the first night of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends.<\/p>\n
Fox, 34, starred with James in racy BBC drama The Pursuit Of Love. Last week I disclosed he lost a major West End role because producers were so worried about his links to Laurence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Lily James, 34, took Freddie’s hand as they arrived at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End for the first night of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends<\/p>\n
Broadcaster Vanessa Feltz was overcome with emotion at Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends in the West End.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘As soon as Send In The Clowns began, she started laughing,’ says a member of the audience seated behind her.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘Then, to stop herself, she spent the rest of the song suppressing the giggles by putting her head between her legs. Seriously odd behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘The whole of the stalls heard her \u2014 and the soloist, Bernadette Peters, too. It really put her off her performance.’ After the show, Feltz said: ‘It was absolutely magnificent. Everybody was sobbing. I lost it.’<\/span><\/p>\n Tom Conti, who played Albert Einstein in Hollywood blockbuster Oppenheimer, has come up with a theory of his own: that Labour is ruining the capital by giving priority to bicycles over cars.<\/p>\n The Shirley Valentine star says: ‘The damage that the canonisation of cyclists has done to London is incalculable.’<\/p>\n Bicycle lanes have been given priority, adds the actor, 81. ‘Older and less able people grossly inconvenienced and businesses badly damaged.<\/p>\n ‘How many cyclists use those lanes? Hardly any.’<\/p>\n Tom Conti, who played Albert Einstein in Hollywood blockbuster Oppenheimer, believes Labour is ruining the capital by giving priority to bicycles over cars<\/p>\n Award-winning musician Anoushka Shankar is celebrating a very personal milestone this week.<\/span><\/p>\n The daughter of the late sitar player Ravi Shankar, and half-sister of singer Norah Jones, has marked her 14th anniversary of being clean and sober. ‘For many years, I avoided sharing about my sobriety,’ explains Shankar, 42, who lives in London with her two sons by ex-husband, film director Joe Wright.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘However, it feels important as a South Asian woman in recovery to share about addiction. It was hard coming into recovery from a community in which addiction was a taboo, a shame, a moral weakness.’<\/span><\/p>\n West End star Georgina Castle fell for actor Simon Lipkin when he performed the leading role in Elf The Musical and she played his girlfriend on stage.<\/p>\n Now, their real-life romance is hotting up.<\/p>\n I hear that the 30-year-old daughter of BBC Wimbledon pundit Andrew Castle is sharing a duvet with Lipkin, 37, who’s a magician in illusionist Derren Brown’s new stage show. ‘My daughter is living with Simon,’ confirms former tennis pro Andrew.<\/p>\n And Castle’s such an admirer of Georgina’s new boyfriend that he has a photograph of him as the screensaver on his phone.<\/p>\n West End star Georgina Castle fell for actor Simon Lipkin when he performed the leading role in Elf The Musical and she played his girlfriend on stage<\/p>\nBike lanes drive Tom mad<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nIn sickness and in elf for Georgina?<\/h2>\n
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