The pay packets of this year’s I’m A Celebrity contestants have reportedly been revealed with Vernon Kay coming out on top as the highest earner, while AJ Pritchard will bag the lowest wage. Though the official line-up for the ITV show has yet to be unveiled, a host of celebrities of stars including Vernon, AJ, … Read more
Her voice continues to reverberate down the years. Even now, the phrases she uttered that night are unforgettable — ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded’, ‘A queen of people’s hearts’, and that third-person warning, ‘She won’t go quietly’. Princess Diana’s 60 minutes on Panorama remains the most … Read more
Not much more than a year ago songwriter Herbert Kretzmer was watching television at his home in Kensington, West London. The news was on and the screen was full of the brave citizens of Hong Kong protesting at the threat to their liberties and independence from mainland China. As they marched they sang a song … Read more
The reek of the past still lingers within its walls and the influence of the woman who built it, a famously extravagant heiress, persists. But inside everything has changed. Take the vast drawing-room carpet, originally woven for Louis XIV. Once likened to ‘stepping on $10,000 dollar bills’, it has been replaced by a covering of … Read more
So many of his speeches are worthy, innocuous and a teeny bit predictable. They have to be. But today it is different. For a brief moment Prince William steps out of his royal role and abandons the instinctive caution that usually colours his pronouncements, to show that his passion for preserving the planet is matched by … Read more
His genius was not just in taking on powerful vested interests, but also in articulating the dreams and frustrations of millions. Never afraid to speak his mind or challenge authority, he matched a campaigning, radical zeal with a love for the hurly-burly of political intrigue and hot gossip. The death on Wednesday of Sir Harold … Read more
Royal photographs seldom say too much, but once in a while they say everything. Yesterday all over the world a picture issued to mark Prince Harry’s 36th birthday was being studied with both affection and fascination. Affection because the image shows Harry, his brother William and sister-in-law Kate with their faces wreathed in joyous smiles, … Read more
Usually it is the most poignant of departures, but there will be no such wrench when the Queen leaves Balmoral later this month. Her stay in Scotland has been all too brief and stripped of many of the pleasures that make summer days on Royal Deeside so memorable. Unable to welcome friends and family to stay … Read more
For more than a year, it has been the millstone around Prince Harry’s neck, a gold‑plated slice of taxpayers’ largesse that reeked of privilege and entitlement. But to Harry and Meghan, the £2.4 million of public money — our money — that was lavished on renovating Frogmore Cottage, only for it to be shuttered and … Read more
This was certainly one way to beat the rush-hour traffic. Nonchalantly clutching 52 gas-filled balloons in one hand, illusionist David Blaine soared almost five miles into the bright blue sky above Arizona, instantly writing another chapter in his colourful life as a publicity-loving performer of flamboyant stunts. When he finally let go — at the … Read more