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Michael Winner’s new blazer caused a stir at Le Caprice this week. Could it be green, fellow-diners were wondering, or was it a trick of the light? To forsake his habitual discreet navy would be a radical departure for the ebullient bon viveur. Few imagine Jordan, Paul McCartney and John Prescott to have much in common, but I can reveal that they share a secret addiction — Scrabble. Macca is said to be ‘a sore loser’. I hear that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are shopping for a stately pile in Latvia, where property values are reported to have rocketed recently. Seen in the first-class lounge at Heathrow: Michael Douglas reading the Wall Street Journal. Does he know something we don’t know? Friends of Kate Moss tell me they have formed an ad hoc support group, feeling that if they can help her straighten out her life it will improve.
G.M. Davis
A mystery solved! When top Mayfair crimper Bobo Jojoba and leading style model Suzee Ritz-Carlton abruptly called off their nuptials, West End coiffeuristes were agog to know why. Now I can reveal all. It wasn’t the lovers whose stars were crossed, it was their pets! Wails Bobo, ‘Suzee and I are devastated. We love each other to bits but my Pomeranian, Pom, and Pepe, her Peke, are totally incompatible. We only found out when we had their horoscopes cast. Pom is Virgo and Pepe is Aries — absolute death for doggy relationships. Suzee and I couldn’t have set up home in that kind of atmosphere.’ The couple are now throwing themselves into their work. Suzee, 24, Hair of 2003 for MsTress Shampoo, is on a modelling trip to Chad and Bobo is in NY co-devising a new style for Barbie. Pom and Pepe are in separate £100-a-night kennels near Haslemere.
W.J. Webster
Anthea Davis, 43, former vice-captain of Doncaster Ladies FC, has announced her engagement to Ric Rhodes. Anthea met Ric, 29, a personal trainer, two weeks ago following her appearance on Yorkshire Radio to discuss her spell in rehab and to publicise her participation in a 10-mile charity bike ride. Unfortunately, Anthea was forced to retire with a loose spoke after three miles. But ‘Slick’ Ric was on hand to offer sympathy and a manly shoulder to cry on. Romance blossomed and they plan to tie the knot next month at Rotherham registry office. Anthea’s mother, Maureen Sparks, a retired home help, revealed that she is currently helping her daughter choose a wedding dress. Maureen is ‘thrilled to bits’ at the forthcoming nuptials, never having had the opportunity herself to marry. Following a short honeymoon, Anthea plans to write her autobiography with veteran Doncaster Advertiser journalist, Mark Francis.
Graeme Carey
Consternation reigned in Ground Elder, London’s premier eaterie, when supermodel Eedie Rantipole, the new face of Bones’n’Ribs, sent back chef’s signature dish, Rocket Reductio, to have the half-shave of truffle removed. Having toyed with a couple of leaves and a glass of barely chilled eau naturelle, she left to a clatter of flashbulbs, and with chef Mario Paulo-Nero’s fragile self-esteem in tatters. Ms Rantipole, widely tipped as the thinnest model yet to stalk the international fashion scene, sniffed loudly as she dismissed the event as anything more than a storm in a salad bowl. ‘I don’ like to fink where truffles of been,’ she said, ‘or dogs digging up their smell. ’S’disgusting.’ Asked if she’d be back she replied enigmatically, ‘Dunno.’ Publicist to the stars, Mark Clapboard, was lunching in wistful and solitary expansiveness at an adjacent table, but that, surely, was a coincidence.
D.A. Prince
Lord Merkin’s son Nolan has gone into the banger trade — sausages, not old cars. The Eton-educated 22-year-old drinking partner of Prince Harry is convinced they will work as posh nosh and le tout Bayswater attended the opening of his new eatery, Gristle’s. Shenanigans at the Strand Palace. Everyone’s lips are sealed, but it seems a bizarre late-night incident occurred at the weekend involving a visiting Hollywood ‘name’ and some live rabbits. A spokesman for Dustin Hoffman said the actor was ‘mystified’. Fresh from her triumph on Celebrity Coma, Rebecca Dollop is favourite to be the new presenter of Channel Five’s afternoon lifestyle and home-improvement show Drying Paint. ‘Some things are just meant to be,’ the vivacious teenager confided to me. Spotted in Antibes this week: former Peter Mandelson aide Rufus Grebe now rebranding himself as a lounge singer. Rufus is taking time out while planning a concept album.
Basil Ransome-Davies
No. 2417: Anti-hero
‘He was twenty-three, and oh! so agonisingly conscious of the fact. The train came bumpingly to a halt…’. This is Huxley introducing the sensitive, inadequate Denis in Crome Yellow. You are invited to add another 150 or less words launching a contemporary equivalent of Denis on his fictional adventures. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2417’ by 3 November.
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