While Reform continue to ride high in the polls, might one colourful political figure from yesteryear pose a threat? Former Cheeky Girl consort Lembit Opik, Lib Dem MP for Montgomeryshire from 1997 to 2010, is proving a keen cheerleader for party leader Nigel Farage, this week hailing him Britain’s “acting Prime Minister”.
History however confirms that political endorsements from oddball Opik – known in Westminster down the years as the “Curse of Lembit” – are traditionally deemed unwelcome. Perhaps best to hold back on offering Mr Opik party membership before the next general election?
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Promoting the film version of his bestselling novel The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman admits his gift for cast member Pierce Brosnan was cause for embarrassment.
“I signed everyone’s book when I went down to the set…I was so starstruck by Pierce, I spelt his name wrong! ” the Cambridge-educated presenter confesses. “I had to go into a book shop and buy another copy of my own book to do a new one.”
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Estranged from Python colleagues since a falling out over business affairs last year, Eric Idle notes the enduring success of his 20-year-old musical Spamalot – based on 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When it’s pointed out he wrote the hit stage show without fellow surviving Pythons John Cleese and Sir Michael Palin, Eric cattily replies: “That’s why it was a success!”
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Returning for the new series of The Great British Bake Off, I’m told show regular Noel Fielding’s continued participation had been cause for concern. There were worries over his availability after the surreal comedian suddenly pulled the plug on his TV series The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin at the beginning of the year, due to an unspecified “health” issue.
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Currently on The Who’s “final” tour of America, Pete Townshend is awkwardly reminded the legendary group’s first officially-billed “farewell” shows date back as long-ago as 1982. The guitarist, 80, laughs: “Are you suggesting we’re swindling the public? The fact is, we are willing to swindle them. That’s what we’ve done our entire life. Why stop?”
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Revealing late second husband and retired police detective John Jones’s saucy chat-up line after they first met in 1999, Edwina Currie proudly recalls: “He said, ‘You’ve been my sexual fantasy for years!’” Shameless Edwina also memorably claimed one-time squeeze John Major felt “threatened by her powerful sexual appetites”.
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Showbiz veteran Bernie Clifton, 89, who performs with puppet Oswald the Ostrich, complains he’s regularly confused with the late Rod Hull of Emu fame. Noting poor Rod’s tragic fate when fixing his aerial in 1999, Bernie cheekily quips: “They think I fell off the roof!”
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With Elizabeth Hurley confirming she’s curiously nicknamed current boyfriend Billy Ray Cyrus “Squirrel Man” does the musician have reason for an inferiority complex? I’m reminded Liz had a far grander-sounding moniker for late lover Shane Warne, admiringly referring to the Aussie cricket hero as her “Lion”.