William to kick divided loyalties safely into touch
Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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* Prince William has neatly side stepped a potential diplomatic banana skin waiting for him at this weekend's rugby match between England and Wales.
He's decided not to attend the game, which looked like giving him an unwelcome dose of divided loyalties.
In the past, the future Prince of Wales has told reporters he's a die-hard England fan. But in his new role as Vice Royal Patron of the Welsh Rugby Union, he'd have been obliged to cheer on the Welsh.
So far this season, he's pitched up for Wales's first game against Ireland, but eschewed their following match against Scotland, opting instead to support England at Twickenham.
Now, perhaps fearing a painful "leeking" at the hands of irate rugby fans, he's decided to give this fixture between the two teams a wide berth.
"He's not coming," confirms a WRU spokeswoman. "He kicked off his role as Vice Patron at the game with Ireland last month, but he was never going to be coming to every single match. We're sure he'll be back again soon."
For or all the criticism of the appointment, it seems the WRU are determined to keep William on side at all costs. Just last month they were accused by fans of hastily removing uncomplimentary postings about the Prince on the union's official message board.
Not that the nation's rugby chiefs can claim his involvement has brought the Welsh much luck to date. Having lost four Six Nations matches in a row, they're favourites for this year's dreaded Wooden Spoon.
* Through an act of carelessness, Robson Green is in danger of losing his mantle as the grannies' favourite.
Several raunchy photos of the smoothy actor are currently out in the open, thanks to Nicola Stephenson, his co-star from his new series City Lights.
"I filmed this sex scene with Robson and he had to wear this foam penis in his boxer shorts to show he was 'up for it' shall we say, and it was just hilarious to see him messing about with it," says Stephenson.
"So I took a picture of him on my mobile phone wearing it, but unfortunately I've now lost my phone and I am really worried that those images will turn up on the internet."
Fortunately for her, Green has taken the news in good humour.
"Knowing my luck they will turn up on some dodgy website, but as long as I look good then I'm fine with it," he says.
* If the rumours are to be believed, Starbucks received a welcome PR boon this week by securing the hallowed services of Sir Paul McCartney.
According to reports, the coffee chain plans to launch its own record company, with McCartney to be unveiled as one of its first signings.
The irony of the news is unlikely to be lost on his estranged wife, Heather Mills, right. She allegedly became involved in an unseemly fracas in one of the store's London outlets earlier this year when she reportedly began booting a fellow customer with her false leg.
The victim, who had apparently tried to take a photograph of Mills, claimed: "She lashed out with her left leg, kicking me in the bum and now I have a big bruise."
* David Cameron was able to stuff yet another green feather into his cap this week after it was announced he'd secured a date with the former Vice President-turned-eco warrior Al Gore.
Gore, who recently picked up an Oscar for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, is due to address Cameron's shadow cabinet tomorrow after being approached by the Tory leader last autumn.
Not all of the team can make it, however. Pandora hears that David Davis, yet to take a full hold of his boss's new touchy-feely Conservatism, has secured an absentee slip, and has sloped off to the United States to discuss homeland security issues.
"DD's gutted he can't make it," chuckles a pal, "But needs must."
* Before Charles Clarke was bundled out of the Home Office to become Gordon Brown's agoniser-in-chief, he enjoyed daily jousts with the then permanent secretary Sir John Gieve.
In a forthcoming Radio 4 programme called Shape up, Sir Humphrey, Clarke says Sir John became increasingly irate about a door linking Clarke's new office with that of his special adviser, Robert Hill, and demanded for it to be locked. "The permanent secretary thought there shouldn't be a direct door between the secretary of state's office and the special adviser," says Clarke. "It became a source of great humour."
Presumably, it's just this sort of in-squabbling that helped make Clarke's Home Office "unfit for purpose".
