Londoner's Diary: Joan bemoans her Belgravia ‘building site’

Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images
Getty Images
10 November 2016

While thunderclouds of change gather over the US, Joan Collins has more pressing concerns closer to home: renovation wars. The Dynasty star has lived in a luxury pad in Belgravia for years but the sleepy streets are getting a wake-up call. “As hysterical as America gets, it’s still more peaceful than London,” Collins writes in this week’s Spectator. “Our quiet residential street in Belgravia now resembles a building site. There are massively major renovations underway on the buildings to our left, to our right, the four flats above us, and two directly opposite us,” she complains. The works have cut off her internet, hot water, heating and electricity, and she’s faced a domestic flood. “To say this is tiresome is like saying Donald Trump is no wallflower.”

It’s not the first time the grand Dame of west London has taken up a crusade with the City of Westminster. Earlier this year she started a Twitter war with the council over a local pothole which, she said, had become a lake.

“The view on our street is an intricate lacework of dirty scaffolding and ladders,’ she writes. “To make matters worse, another colossal scaffold was erected at the back of my flat last June. Since then it has stood unused, blocking our view and our light.”“‘When will it all end?’ I wailed to the friendly man from the council. ‘Should be done by next July,’ he answered with a paternal smile. At which point I fainted’.”If the problems continue, Collins can always set sail for her other pads in Los Angeles and the south of France. Others living next door to such disruptions aren’t quite so lucky.

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THE US election post-mortem continues. Striking an optimistic tone is MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. “The UK-US relationship will probably be better with Trump than it was with Obama,” he tells us with his usual optimism. Boris Johnson, meanwhile, may “look forward” to working with the president-elect, but he might need to cheer up his father Stanley first: “I’m very upset that Trump says that he’ll withdraw from the Paris climate change convention,” says Johnson Sr. “That may not be the most important reason but it’s my reason.”

Cuba’s diplomats are Havana ball in the UK

It might seem that ambassadors live a charmed life but Teresita Vicente Sotolongo, Cuba’s in the UK, doesn’t get the royal treatment back home. Last night she was at Boisdale in Canary Wharf to celebrate the launch of the Buena Vista Fortnight Festival — dedicated to all things Cuban — and explained that dividing time between countries comes with starkly different standards. “We have a driver in London,” Sotolongo said. “But no one drives me around Havana. We drive ourselves. We have a Lada.” Matthew Barzun, soon to step down as US Ambassador, may hope for a more glamorous ride for his next foreign appointment.

Om’s the word for Kate these days

NEVER one to miss a yoga night, Kate Winslet graced women-only member’s club Grace Belgravia with her presence last night for the launch of her yoga teacher’s video series Transform Now. Niki Perry has become a close friend of Winslet’s since she started teaching her pranayama and savasana: the pair live near each other in Sussex, and Winslet is godmother to Perry’s two-year-old daughter Roxy, who is a nursery buddy of Winslet’s son Bear. When they’re not meditatively pounding the yoga mat, the pair take their golden retriever puppies walking together. Namaste, Kate.

Feel the motherly bond at Annabel’s

THE party must go on, and last night singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor performed for a philanthropic crowd at Annabel’s for the 15th anniversary of charity Mothers2Mothers. “I don’t want to be filled with hate or anger,” she told us, referring to post-election blues. “I feel sad that I obviously feel so differently to how a lot of people think. We need to remember how to be good humanitarians: if you feel something, do something.”

The charity’s mission is to eliminate the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV across sub-Saharan Africa by training women to provide health education, and has reached nearly 1.5 million HIV-positive women so far. “It’s such a brilliant cause, and really resonated with me as a mother,” model Jade Parfitt told us. “What happened with the US election is very shocking, and nobody knows what’s going to happen with that, but at the same time it’s a real leveller.”

The European director for Mothers2Mothers Emma France issued a rallying cry: “We could focus on all sorts of things we can’t control right now but instead we can focus on what we’re already doing. Our women are breaking glass ceilings every day, which are much harder glass ceilings than trying to be a leader in the free world.” The Londoner raised a glass to smashing ceilings all over the world.

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IT’S been a good week for Scots — they can even celebrate Donald Trump’s victory as his mother was born on the Isle of Lewis. They can also cheer Glaswegian Chris Cadman winning the World Perudo Championship, held at The Groucho. Perudo is a dice game which, like running for office, requires the ability to bluff your way to a victory. We’ll toast one with a dram of scotch.

Sheffield’s steely resolve

After her withering response to the EU referendum — “How quickly can I join the Labour Party?” — The Londoner was keen to obtain Emily Sheffield’s reaction to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election. Sheffield is deputy editor of Vogue and David Cameron’s sister-in-law.“Trump’s speech was conciliatory,” she tweeted yesterday after he promised to “bind the wounds of division” in America. “Building bridges. He fought a dirty campaign: political campaigns are. He’s won — he will steady the ship.“Polls always get it wrong,” she added, claiming she had seen it coming. “Sarah Palin was a warning — and it went unheeded.”Sheffield, it seems, has already reached the acceptance stage of grief. That makes one of us.

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Gamble of the day: Paddy Power has reduced its odds on far-Right leader Marine Le Pen becoming French President next year to 2/1. Bonne chance, la France.

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