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RICHARD KAY: Queen dines out on Bafta with Bond



Only last week the Queen was smiling broadly as she received an honorary Bafta from Kenneth Branagh and was dubbed the ‘best Bond girl ever’ for her role at the Olympics opening ceremony.

The event clearly delighted Her Majesty — and what better way to return the compliment than by inviting James Bond himself round for a gossip over dinner.

Actor Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz were stirred but not noticeably shaken as they joined a small but distinguished group of 20 guests invited by Her Majesty and Prince Philip for a private dinner party this week at Windsor Castle.


I am told there was much amusement as the Monarch and the 007 actor recalled the spoof devised by film director Danny Boyle — in which Her Majesty turned round from her writing desk at Buckingham Palace and greeted Mr Craig with her improvised line: ‘Good evening, Mr Bond’, and later appeared to parachute from a helicopter into the Olympic Stadium.

The dinner — to which Princess Anne and her husband Sir Tim Laurence were invited — also gave the Queen an opportunity to discuss the finer points of acting with another of her guests, Helena Bonham Carter, who played her mother, the then Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, in the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech. Mother-of-two Helena was at Windsor with her partner, movie director Tim Burton.


The Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games starred British actor Daniel Craig - and his leading lady, Her Majesty

I gather the Queen so enjoyed her ad hoc acting role that she was keen to renew her acquaintance with Mr Craig and, according to friends, Her Majesty showed herself to be fully recovered from her recent spell of illness.

‘She was on sparkling form,’ I am told. ‘There was a very warm, jolly atmosphere.’

Also invited were the Brazilian ambassador and his wife, Prince Philip’s banker friend Jock Green-Armytage, who is chairman of the Guards Polo Club, and Professor Martin Roth, director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Another guest was Bentley Motors chairman and chief executive Dr Wolfgang Schreiber, who last month announced he was planning to manufacture the company’s next vehicle — a 4x4 — in the Slovak capital of Bratislava rather than at Bentley’s spiritual home of Crewe.

Perhaps HM was able to persuade him otherwise . . .



TV Mike's last wish for ex-wife

Usually when a marriage end in divorce, relations between the estranged couple are less than cordial.

In the case of breakfast television presenter Mike Morris — best remembered as a co-host with Anne Diamond, who decribed him as ‘a gentleman’, and Lorraine Kelly on TV-am — he remained fond of his ex-wife Alison until he died and left her money in his will.



Mike Morris, who had heart failure last year, (seen far right with Richard Keys, Jayne Irving, Kathy Tayler) was generous in his will to his ex-wife

Mike, who had heart failure last year aged 66, left £613,000, including a £3,000 bequest to Alison with the proviso that she ‘purchase a piece of furniture that will be enjoyed by generations to come’.

Alison was married to the moustachioed presenter for 31 years before they divorced six years ago.

‘But we were still good friends and got on well,’ says Alison, 62, who lives in Surrey and has two daughters by the presenter, who famously conducted the first live interview with Nelson Mandela after his release from prison in South Africa.

‘Mike was in my will, too,’ she says.

‘We used to spend Christmas together with the children and the grandchildren.

‘When you have shared so much for so long, there are often ways of making it work in a different phase.’

Adds Alison, who did not want to talk about the divorce: ‘I don’t know what furniture I’ll get. Probate can take a long time to go through and I haven’t been shopping yet.’



Guess who stole all the pies!

How does weather girl Sian Lloyd stay so slim when she clearly loves food so much?

Guests at an Australia House bash, including Barry Humphries and Kathy Lette, were astonished to see Sian leaving the party with six steak pies she had commandeered.



Sian Lloyd had commandeered steak pies and described herself as a 'greedy foodie'



Clutching her contraband as she left the event with her multi-millionaire husband, motor-racing entrepreneur Jonathan Ashman, Sian confessed: ‘Ooh! You’ve caught me with a doggie bag.


‘I’ve already eaten one pie but I’ve wrapped all these others up in a napkin to have later.’


She told me: ‘I am not sure if it’s strictly the correct etiquette, but I did ask first. The pies are the national dish of South Australia and I’ve been to Adelaide a few times. I have a weakness for them!’


Sian, 58, former squeeze of daft ex-Lib Deb MP Lembit Opik, added: ‘I know everyone says I’m slim, but I have a massive appetite. I am a greedy foodie. I am looking forward to stuffing myself. I can eat anyone under the table.’

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The next time BBC drama boffins make a Parliament-based series, they may have to fork out to build a full-scale mock-up of the House of Commons.


Until now producers for the highly acclaimed The Politician’s Wife and soon-to-be screened The Politician’s Husband, starring Emily Watson, have been able to use the one originally built by Granada TV for the adaptation of Jeffrey Archer’s First Among Equals series, and it also featured in The Iron Lady movie when Meryl Streep played Margaret Thatcher.


But now it has been deemed that the lavish set — bought some years ago by Wimbledon Studios and complete with Speaker’s Chair and green leather benches — was taking up too much storage space and it has just been sold on eBay for more than £100,000.

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Original rogue trader Nick Leeson, 46, has fetched up in Dublin advising beleaguered Irish debtors what to do when they owe in excess of €1 million to their banks.


Looking terrifically well-nourished after 13 years on the after-dinner circuit, he announces: ‘People are in terrible situations. I know what it is like when things go wrong.’ He sure does. He went to jail after losing £827 million of Barings money, triggering the collapse of the bank. But they do say that it’s an ill wind.


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Property mogul Christian Candy’s wife Emily, 30, has posted endearing photos of her six-week old twins, a boy and a girl, on her social networking site.


Emily, 30, who married Christian (worth an estimated £150 million) nearly four years ago, has already amused friends by including tax havens in their names — their daughter is Isabella Monaco and their son is Cayman Charles.


Among the intimate photographs Emily has put online is one of Cayman in a blue vest with the words: ‘Stroller today, Porsche tomorrow’, emblazoned on the front.

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Music impresario Victor Hochhauser has little time for anyone planning to see the Bolshoi Ballet at the Royal Opera House this summer — the 50th anniversary of his first bringing them to London — for what he regards as the wrong reasons. The Bolshoi has been in turmoil ever since its director Sergei Filin was the victim of an acid attack in Moscow in January. Will all this fuss pull in punters. Says Hochhauser, who turned 90 two weeks ago: ‘If this is why they come, I don’t want them to come. I want them to come because of the good dancing.’

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