Londoner's Diary: Will Sam Cam be moving in with Rohan?

In Today's Diary: Will Samantha Cameron be moving in with Rohan Silva? | Michael Gove finally coughs up the bubbles | Gemma Arterton parties at the Almeida Theatre Fundraiser | Kim Kardashian comes out for Armenia | Cindy Crawford and her Cas Amigos babygrows
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31 March 2017

KEEP your eyes open for a new self-starter sharing a desk at the next Second Home. Rohan Silva’s members’ club and office space in Shoreditch is opening a new site, this time in Holland Park. And it would be the ideal second home for Samantha Cameron’s new fashion brand Cefinn.

Silva is a former special adviser to David Cameron and columnist for the Standard. Since her husband stepped down as PM, Sam has been busy launching her womenswear range. She’s on the hunt for a new office and, as a Notting Hill local, would find Second Home a convenient base.

David Cameron has stayed in contact with his former adviser — he met him at Shoreditch Second Home. “He knew all about our Holland Park space,” says Silva. “We’d obviously love to have him in there — it would be so much cooler than his St James’s office. I think there’s a good chance — and Sam is also looking for an office, so perhaps we’ll have the whole family.”

The Second Home website promises “stunning private studios as well as tranquil flexible workspace... a poetry bookshop, café, a cultural venue, and ultra-fast broadband”. Not to mention the free printing, luxury showers and free coffee. It’s also the perfect place from which to run a fashion empire: the offices are a stone’s throw from the chi-chi boutiques of Westbourne Grove and Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney’s houses. Is this the beginning of a new W11 fashpack?

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Bee Shaffer, the daughter of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, is bringing a touch of London to New York City. The NY Post’s Page Six reports that Shaffer will take a producer position at the Ambassadors Theatre Group, which is keen to expand its New York presence. She has the heritage: her grandfather Charles, a former editor of the Standard, conceived this paper’s theatre awards, which Anna will be co-hosting this year. A new theatre dynasty in the making?

Gove finally coughs up the bubbles

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Seventeen years ago young Times columnist Michael Gove predicted the sacking of then Labour Leader of the House, Ann Taylor. Ian McKenzie, her special adviser, understandably took umbrage with his forecast. He called Gove and the two agreed on a bet: champagne for whoever’s prediction turned out to be correct. Taylor remained in post but Gove never handed over the champers, trying to appease him with lunch on the Times’ dime.

Last night Gove attended a Labour History Group event in Parliament, alongside Taylor and McKenzie. The room erupted with applause when Gove entered clutching two champagne bottles, which he duly presented to Taylor. Perhaps in 17 years he will pay up the £350 million a week for the NHS he promised voters after Brexit?

Quote of the day

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‘If he goes on like that I am going to promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas in the US’

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Donald Trump saying he was happy about Brexit.

Fundraising fun for the theatre crowd​

ALL the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. And sometimes they need to let their hair down. Last night Islington’s Almeida Theatre held its annual fundraising gala, where guests included Gemma Arterton and Anne-Marie Duff.

It was a welcome break for Andrew Scott and Jessica Brown Findlay, currently playing Hamlet and Ophelia at the theatre in an acclaimed production directed by Robert Icke. Its run has now been extended to a West End transfer. Whatever happened to brevity being the soul of wit?

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OVER to Apsley House for a party held by Don Cochrane, the owner of the re-launched family brand Vertex watches. So where do you buy one of these exclusive timepieces? You can’t, you have to be invited. No doubt Peter Phillips and Nick Ashley were given an invitation. But one partygoer, when introducing the two, told Phillips: “This is Laura Ashley’s son.” Nick rolled his eyes: “Yes, I’m Laura Ashley’s son.” To which Peter, the son of Princess Anne, said: ”I get that a lot.”

Kim comes out for Armenia

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An unusual alliance between Kim Kardashian, pictured, and Terry George, the Irish film director who made Hotel Rwanda and co-wrote In the Name of the Father, about the Birmingham pub bombings. His new film The Promise, about the Armenian genocide of 1915, comes out next month and Instagram’s hottest asset is on board.

The genocide is hotly disputed by the Turks and at the film’s screening last night in Soho Square, George observed that previous attempts to make a film on the subject by both Clarke Gable and Sylvester Stallone had been stymied when the State Department put pressure on Hollywood film studios.

But George has tapped into the A-list of the Armenian diaspora. “Kirk Kerkorian [the late Armenian billionaire] provided all the funding,” he said, “and we kept the filiming very low-key.”George has high hopes for the US. “Cher and Kim Kardashian are coming to the screening in LA,” he said, “and between them they have 80 million followers. That’s something else.”

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Putdown of the day: Ann Treneman reviews Paul Mason’s play at the Young Vic in today’s Times. “If I could, I would have left,” she writes. Ouch.

No ‘one tequila, two tequila’ for George

EARLIER this week, George Clooney explained that wife Amal had vetoed the names Casa and Migos for their twins — a reference to his tequila brand. His friend, supermodel Cindy Crawford, pictured above, has other ideas. Yesterday, she showed off the personalised babygrows she’s made ahead of the big day. Hopefully the twins won’t be bottle-fed.

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