Londoner's Diary: Fraser Nelson's John Cleese revenge is close to home

In today's Diary: The revenge of tenement Scot Fraser Nelson | Andrew Garfield's Eton envy | Stanley Johnson has David Cameron character | Wimbledon pick 'n mixing | Paltrow turns to the booze | Tribute to Michael Bond
(Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival
4 July 2017

HELL hath no fury like a tenement Scot scorned. Last year actor John Cleese called Spectator editor Fraser Nelson a “half-educated tenement Scot” after Nelson wrote an article on press freedom. Now Fraser has a chance to exact revenge — the Monty Python veteran wants to film his new sitcom in Nelson’s home.

“Do you know what’s funny about John Cleese?” Nelson told us with a wicked grin at the Apollo art magazine summer party at the Spectator headquarters last night. “The other day my wife gets this thing through the post that says, ‘We’re from the BBC and we want to film a scene at a house that looks like yours’.” Nelson lives in leafy Twickenham.

The Nelson's (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for the Spectator)

“My wife was so excited that she lets in the camera crew. They check out the house and say ‘this is just the kind of place that we’re looking for’. It turns out that f***er Cleese is gonna be there.”

The filming is for a BBC comedy with Cleese in it — most likely Edith, co-starring Alison Steadman, currently in production, though Nelson couldn’t confirm that. The crew is turning up in two months.

Fraser can’t wait for their next encounter. “This guy who referred to me as a tenement Scot is now going to be standing outside my house — little does he know — acting out some scene probably pretending that he’s grand enough to live in a pad like mine.” A scene fit for Fawlty Towers.

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(Photo by David Munden/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Popperfoto/Getty Images

Henry Blofeld, the veteran plummy-voiced cricket commentator who announced his retirement from Test Match Special last week after 45 years, has told The Daily Telegraph that old age is now welcome.

Lest he become a burden to others, he joked that he would “keep a supply of baseball bats so someone can come and hit me over the head with one”. The cricket bat is presumably too sophisticated an instrument.

Stanley’s novel take on the Brexit vote

(Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
Getty Images

So has Boris Johnson read his dad Stanley’s new novel, Kompromat, about the wheeler-dealing that led to Brexit and Trump? The Londoner called Stanley, who is on holiday in Greece, to ask what he thought. Stanley said: “I’ve barely read it myself.”

Johnson senior wrote the book in eight weeks flat. None of the family has seen it, he says, but he is trying to get one into the hands of David Cameron, who is an inspiration for one of the book’s characters.

“Cameron’s old Witney constituency office is not answering the phone,” says Stanley. “Could we send it care of White’s?” That’s Cameron’s club in London. Perhaps Dave could review it for us?

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Quote of the day: Truth be told, I haven’t read Vogue in years’

Lucinda Chambers, departing fashion director at Vogue, called the magazine’s clothes “irrelevant” and “ridiculously expensive” in an interview yesterday. Ouch.

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Game, set and Mix at Wimbledon’s first day

Getty Images

ANYONE for tennis? The Londoner took its annual sojourn to SW19 for the first day of Wimbledon yesterday but we were as interested in the attendees as the matches. Pixie Geldof made her first appearance since returning from her honeymoon with new husband, drummer George Barnett, and relaxed with him and actor Douglas Booth in the Evian Live Young suite. We played ping-pong and nibbled on cream tea and champagne, while singer Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix gorged on pick ’n’ mix. She was later spotted yawning her way through the match. Must have been a sugar crash.

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(Photo by Avery Cunliffe/Photoshot/Getty Images)

A goodbye to Michael Bond, departed author of the Paddington books, in this week’s Time. It’s written by Hugh Bonneville, who plays Mr Brown in the Paddington films — he recalls a visit to Bond’s home and pays tribute to both the author and the well-mannered bear. “We respect his modesty and his politeness,” Bonneville writes. “He is unfailingly courteous but not above giving those who forget their manners a Hard Stare. Paddington Goes To The White House would be a good read.”

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Garfield has Eton envy

(Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)
Getty Images

ANDREW Garfield, star of the hit play Angels in America, may have played Spider-Man but there’s always someone better off. Garfield, pictured, says he feels jealous of Old Etonian actors such as Eddie Redmayne and Damian Lewis, who have more confidence in life and Hollywood.

“My friends who went to Eton who are actors, I’m like: ‘How do you feel so at home in the world?’” he said at a National Theatre Q&A yesterday. “I have envy about it. Even if things go wrong, somehow you have a spine that’s been put in you like a steel rod. What a beautiful thing to be given. Why can’t we all have that?” Garfield, who once lived with Redmayne in LA, went to City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead, Surrey. Less posh but still rather nice.

Garfield also revealed that he prepared for playing a gay man in Angels in America by watching US reality drag queen competition RuPaul’s Drag Race. “Every Sunday, I have eight friends over and we watch Ru — that’s my life outside of the show,” he said.

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Tweet of the day: “America! Well done on escaping the tyrannical regime of an unaccountable despot! Happy Independence Day”

Russell Brand has ironic congratulations for our American friends on the 4th of July.

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Gwynnie heeds the call of claret

@GwynethPaltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow may be famous for her healthy living website Goop but it seems she’s letting her hair down a bit while on holiday in Umbria. “I often have a glass of red wine in the evening,” she once said. That looks dangerously like a bottle to us.

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Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg via Getty Images

Boss of the day: new court reports claim Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley drank approximately 12 pints and 12 vodka chasers in a management meeting. He “then vomited into the fireplace.” Lightweight.

Guest edited by Joanna Bell and Robbie Griffiths. Follow The Londoner on Twitter and Facebook here.

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