Londoner's Diary: Are A-listers getting the Abbey habit?

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25 October 2016

Westminster Abbey, beacon of faith, resting place of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Queen’s local. Yet in 2016 it has hosted glitzy celebrity events — is there a big hole in the roof that needs fixing?

Last night Tilda Swinton, designer Pam Hogg and DJ Josh Quinton joined Rachel McAdams for the red-carpet launch of the new superhero film Doctor Strange. Swinton and McAdams star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, below with his director wife Sophie Hunter. Media lined the cloisters and adoring fans begged for a glimpse of their beloved Cumberbatch.

But on Twitter, some were less impressed. “Westminster Abbey: really?” one social media user asked. “Not sure Westminster Abbey is appropriate for movie launch,” another tweeted. So is the abbey the new A-list event space? In June it hosted a Gucci fashion show.

The Londoner called the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. His spokesman sympathised: “The archbishop held commercial events when he was dean of Liverpool Cathedral,” he explained. “It is not unusual if it is not inconsistent with church teachings.” Simon Jenkins, a trustee of the Churches Conservation Trust, is also understanding. “They are the only way churches are going to reconnect with their communities,” he told us this morning. “They bring in "outsiders". They are also the way in which churches operated in the middle ages, when they were civic spaces. The more the merrier.”

A spokesman for Westminster Abbey told The Londoner that such events are not part of a specific funding drive, and “are all considered on an individual basis”. When we asked if they welcomed the A-listers, he said: “Such an iconic building should be able to be enjoyed. But both events took place in the cloisters, not the Abbey itself.

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To the Grosvenor House hotel last night, for the launch of Michael Heseltine and his wife Anne’s book on their country estate of Thenford, attended by former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard and MP Andrew Mitchell. Historian Max Hastings told us that if Lord Heseltine was a tree he would be “something young and sprightly — an evergreen”.

However, when we approached the great oak, Lord Heseltine waved us aside, a tradition he seems to have when saplings encroach on his space.

The Times celebrates a date for the diary

To the News Building in London Bridge for the launch of The Times Diary at 50, a compendium of columns marking 50 years of tittle-tattle. A little history: it launched in 1966 as part of then editor William Haley’s revamp of the paper, which also included the end of classified ads on the front page. The diary was seen as going downmarket — Times editor John Witherow recounted how Haley argued against his readers in his own leader: “‘I’ve been accused of going downmarket and becoming populist. I plead guilty: I intend to put on more readers’.”

Current diary editor Patrick Kidd was behind its revival in 2013 — his injection of wit coincided with a 40,000 increase in sales, he noted with a smirk. And “I’ve only been sued by Cherie Blair,” he said. “But everyone gets sued by Cherie.”

Palmerston's paw law

Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat is giving back to less fortunate felines. He has raised £1,000 for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home through the sale of mugs adorned with his face, and members of his fan club have topped up his running total to more than £2,800.

A Furreign Office spokespurrson told us: “Palmerston may be mercilessly eliminating the paw rodents in the FCO but he is a felinethropic soul and keen to help his old furriends in Battersea.”

Puppet masters play with Jude​

If you happened to be in Soho last night, you may have spotted Jude Law behaving rather strangely. The actor was seen driving down Frith Street to Russian restaurant Zima, where he interrupted diners dining on caviar, pulled a tablecloth from beneath a fully set table, and then disappeared into the night. He then gatecrashed a performance at legendary jazz venue Ronnie Scott’s and took one of the performers with him, before driving over to Brewer Street’s Lights of Soho art gallery, where he defaced a painting of himself with spray paint.

Members of the public looked on in bemusement, perhaps fearing a return to Law’s hedonistic ways of the Nineties. But it was all a ruse; at cabaret nightclub The Box Soho, The Londoner and a crowd of guests including singer Laura Mvula and director Tom Hooper were watching Law’s progress on a live feed, and voting on what we would like him to do next. He then returned to the party with a trio of artistic types to perform a spoken-word piece. “You don’t often get the opportunity to be part of something that allows you to be spontaneous and create a story from scratch,” he said.

The stunt, called The Life RX, was arranged by Lexus, who were relieved that no pedestrians were harmed in the making of the film. Jude has, after all, always been a law unto himself.

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Bob Geldof gave the Yeats Lecture at the Irish Embassy last night. WB Yeats, he said, was “one of the greatest men Ireland ever produced”, though “the oddest cove”. Professor Roy Foster, with whom Sir Bob made a TV documentary on Yeats, was asked what Sir Bob was like to work with. “It was like an extended tutorial with a highly intelligent, obstreperous undergraduate,” he said.

Cameron crows over BoJo

It was recently revealed that David Cameron goaded Boris Johnson with a text saying “You should have stuck with me, mate” after Michael Gove stabbed BoJo in the back. The Londoner has heard that this wasn’t all the former prime minister did as he watched Boris’s fortunes fade.

Cameron and his closest team were watching the press conference unfold on television from Downing Street and, much to the amusement of staff, Cameron and George Osborne decided to commemorate the moment by gleefully posing for photos next to the close-up of Boris capitulating after his leadership bid. “It couldn’t have happened to a more principled bloke,” was muttered by those in the room. Et tu, Dave?

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Number of the day: 61 per cent. That’s the increase in Marmite sales since Tesco successfully called Unilever’s bluff on the post-Brexit price hike.

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