Londoner's Diary

On Friday 4th June, I edited the Londoner's Diary. See selected gossip below.

Mandy cancels Hay premiere of his own film
LORD Mandelson may have named his forthcoming autobiography, The Third Man, after a celluloid classic but it seems he is far less keen on appearing on film himself. Hannah Rothschild’s fly-on-the wall documentary, The Real PM: A Portrait of Peter Mandelson, was due to premiere at the Hay Festival today but has been withdrawn at the eleventh hour “on the insistence of the subject”.

In January I revealed that the Prince of Darkness had submitted his dark arts to the cameras — letting Ms Rothschild film him for the previous three months as the centrepiece of a documentary on both his political and private lives. Perhaps Mandelson now worries that the film will detract from all the publicity surrounding his book.

Certainly, Ms Rothschild, the brains behind the documentary, will remain close to Mandy’s heart. An award-winning independent filmmaker and writer who has made documentaries for the likes of the BBC and HBO, she is the daughter of Lord Rothschild — a friend of Mandelson who is, of course, a regular at the family villa in Corfu. Roths-child’s other recent subjects include socialite Nicky Haslam and painter Frank Auerbach and she is a trustee of the National Gallery, making her a natural person for Mandy to confide in.

“All tickets will be refunded,” a spokesman for Hay tells worried Mandy-lovers. The replacement event will be a preview of the new film, One Night in Turin, which tells the story of the Italia ’90 World Cup. Mandy the Movie will have to wait. Whatever revelations can there be in store?

Prince Philip picks climate change sceptic for RSA talk
HAS Prince Philip put his foot in it again, or is he just teasing Prince Charles? His recent choice of speaker for the RSA President’s lecture at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts seems to place him firmly in the opposite camp to his eldest son when it comes to global warming.

As president of the RSA, Prince Philip was entitled to choose a speaker for its annual lecture last month but his first choice, Ian Plimer, professor of mineral geology at Adelaide University, was rejected by the society on the grounds that he has caused too much controversy in Australia. Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth, says that global warming is the biggest, most damaging and ruinously expensive con trick in history, a view at odds with Philip’s position as President Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund, which claims the polar bear is vulnerable to climate change.

Plimer was replaced by Danish professor Björn Lomborg, whose latest book, Cool It, denies the imminent demise of polar bears.

“I suspect Prince Philip just wants to get a discussion going,” says Luke Johnson, chairman of the RSA.

Monty Don mourns his BBC sacking
Insurrection at Hay. Festival director Peter Florence has asked for festival goers to bombard Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, with letters to complain about the pulling of Monty Don’s last BBC2 show, Mastercrafts, which featured blacksmiths and thatchers explaining their niche trades.

Don, left, gardener and head of the Soil Association, movingly described the depression he had been suffering from during a talk yesterday, before revealing that the BBC has dispensed with his services as a presenter.

“Dream Farm will certainly be done without me because I haven’t been asked and I learned yesterday that Mastercrafts is not going to be repeated or renewed,” said Don. “I’m pretty devastated.”

Daphne's bare-faced cheek
DAPHNE Guinness, above, showed a lot of front (and rear) at the private view for Antony Gormley: Test Sights at the White Cube Gallery last night. She went on to combine high fashion with high society at the dinner to celebrate the great Picasso biographer, John Richardson, at 87 Lucian Freud’s oldest friend. Sir Howard Hodgkin was the éminence grise at the gathering in Spencer House, thrown by gallerist Larry Gagosian. Sir Nicholas Serota conversed with Mick Jagger; Jacob Rothschild with artist Jenny Saville. Let’s hope Guinness’s gown didn’t distract anyone from their loin of rose veal.

Elephant art raises £200k
A taste of India came to London last night as artist Sacha Jafri auctioned a series of paintings in aid of The Elephant Family, as part of the 2010 Elephant Parade that’s been taking London by storm.

Hosted by Tamara Beckwith and Amanda Kyme and funded by Tanaz Dizadji, the party was held in the Covent Garden home of Dutch computer tycoon Jan Mol. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Mark Shand, brother of the Duchess of Cornwall, were both in ecstasies about the elephants.

“I heard that Mark called his first elephant Tara,” said TPT. “The only time I touch ivory is when I play the piano, though.”

“The elephant Gerald is painted by Johnny Yeo,” said Shand. “If you look closely at the leaves they’re a little pornographic — the leaves are body parts. We put Gerald in the street to start off with but we had outraged calls from people, so we moved him to Selfridges. But then I got a call saying he had to be moved immediately. So Gerald is now seen by appointment only in our offices.”

The auction raised £200,000 in total. Heather Kerzner bought a painting for £20,000.

* COMMUNITIES Secretary Eric Pickles is seen as providing some social balance to a Cabinet top- heavy with ex-public schoolboys. But his credentials have taken a knock from the Opinium Research survey which gives 13 questions as a guide to poshness. More than three yeses and you are on your way. “For a working-class lad I scored a worrying eight,” says Pickles. “Thank goodness I don’t have an Aga.”

* OSCAR-winning MP Glenda Jackson briefly considered running for the Labour leadership, I hear. The 74-year-old, who won her Hampstead and Kilburn seat with a majority of just 42, said she weighed up her options after being approached by colleagues. “People were asking me to stand but I haven’t put my name forward,” she says. “At the time I thought about it there were two reasons — a lack of female candidates and people saying ‘you should put your name up’. But I want to focus on my new constituency. I’ve got no plans for a late bid.”

Peer seeks Hackney virgin
DAVID Boyle, economist, author and Lib-Dem policy wonk, recalled a meeting with one of David Cameron’s newly appointed lords. “Lord X of Hackney, shall we say, asked me what he could do as a peer,” recounted Boyle at a talk at the Hay Festival yesterday. “And I said, ‘there’s always droit de seigneur’” — the mediaeval right of a lord to take the virginity of girls on his estate. “‘What, in Hackney?’ replied the lord.” As the new peers have yet to take up their titles with locations, we look forward to seeing who picks Hackney.

04 June 2010 12:25 PM