People: Angelina Jolie 'set to become a peer' Elderly Parliamentarians dozing off a good lunch were startled to glance up to the public gallery and spot actress Angelina Jolie, an old friend of Lady Helic, gazing down benignly. Now tongues are wagging in Westminster that Miss Jolie is being lined up herself set on a seat in the House of Lords. The idea is not so far-fetched. Last month Miss Jolie was made an honorary dame by the Queen for her campaign work fighting sexual violence and for services to UK foreign policy. And last week it emerged that Miss Jolie has decided to retire from acting and focus her energies on her humanitarian work. Being foreign is no bar to peers joining the House of Lords. Another new peer Baroness Shields - who as Joanna Shields, a dual US/UK citizen, relocated from Silicon Valley to London over a decade ago - was made a peer on October 16. In fact under a law passed in 2010, the only criterion for new peers is that they must be "resident in UK for tax purposes and accept the requirement to remain so." Miss Jolie and her equally famous husband Brad Pitt are on the way to clear that hurdle - the pair are understood to be eyeing up a new permanent home in London's Marylebone. Miss Jolie herself spoke of how "wonderful" it would be to have a "foothold" in London. Miss Jolie's people declined to comment on whether she wanted a seat in the Lords. But asked last week by ITV News if a career in politics was "a possibility for you," she replied: "If I felt I could really make a difference, yes. I've always gone wherever I felt I was needed. When I started working with the UN, I felt I loved working in the field and I felt I was useful in the field and then there was a point where I realised that I was only so useful in the field because someone had to go to Washington and plea the case. But the prospect of Miss Jolie, the former Lara Croft star, sitting on the Lords red benches might not be as far-fetched as some of her films. Tom Archer's replacement cause a drama Tom Graham (BBC) They love a protest campaign down Ambridge way - which is lucky, given the interminable storyline about the Brookfield farm bypass has trundled on for years. However, now it's Archers fans who are threatening to mobilise, to have reinstated the actor who, until last week, had played Tom Archer for 17 years. Earlier this month, Tom Graham, long-time voice of the wedding-wrecking sausage entrepreneur, was "deposed" from his role in the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap, and was leaving the show "with a heavy heart." The first episode featuring his replacement, William Troughton - grandson of former Doctor Who, Patrick - was broadcast on Thursday (and repeated this morning), to a broad thumbs-down on social media sites. Twitter was awash with negative comments, the most printable being: "This is not what Tom sounds like. Hopeless! Bring back the real Tom Archer please. The naysayers have about as much chance as David and Ruth Archer have of persuading Borsetshire Council to change its proposed route. But this could run and run... Martha Wainwright's son gives stage fright Martha Wainwright (GETTY IMAGES) When Martha Wainwright, the folksy singer-songwriter, appeared at the Royal Festival Hall last week, she welcomed on stage a spirited special guest - her five-year-old son, Arcangelo. Tottering into the limelight from backstage, where he had been heard squealing in appreciation, he wandered around the open stage while his mother played guitar. Emboldened by the audience's warm reaction to his mimicking of his mother's songs, he began to make mischief. After crawling under the piano, he collected up all the bottles of water dotted around the stage, then yanked at a spare microphone until the lead went taut. When he made a dash to the edge of the open stage, audience members rushed the front to prevent a tumble. They kept him him occupied until his mother - the youngest of the prodigious Wainwright-McGarrigle clan that includes her brother Rufus and father Loudon Wainwright III - finished her song. Wainwright admitted that perhaps it was "past his bedtime." Ladies loves a man in uniform Overheard at the 13th Longford Lecture, sponsored by The Telegraph, to honour the life and work of prison reformer Lord Longford. Darling, I love your coat! The kind of coat one would throw on if one was having lots of sex with a General. Do you have a General in mind? Oh Guthrie, I think. Yes definitely [General the Lord Charles] Guthrie. What about [General Sir Michael] Jackson? Oh, I don't think so. Dannatt? Hmmmmm... The chips are down for novelist Peter James For reasons that will remain a mystery until his next thriller is published, Peter James recently applied for a job in a fast-food restaurant - only to be turned down. "Very disappointed," he tweeted. Hey ho, will have to stick to writing! It's not the first time the best-selling author has tasted rejection. In his student days, James was turned down for a job as a London bus conductor. "Too many A-levels," he says. Number of the week: 50 Number of performances Jimmy Nail will have given in the troubled Broadway musical, The Last Ship, before he is replaced by Sting, who wrote the score and takes the helm next month. The new musical, about the closure of a Wallsend shipyard, is reported to have lost £47,000 a week since opening. Quotable Great, finally I'm in a film my kids can see Actress Nicole Kidman, who stars in "Paddington" Daniel Hannan Conservative MEP for the South East England @DanHannanMEP A handy rule of thumb. Any Tweet ending with "Thought not!" is wrong. Lucy Worsley Historian @Lucy_Worsley In our house we only use flour once a year, to make @NigelSlater's Xmas cake. The packet from 2010 will be ok, won't it? TV cook @NigelSlater Ate surprising number of waffles recently in Oslo. Could easily become a habit. Marcus Brigstocke @marcusbrig Some days Ellie Goulding's voice is striking, different, beguiling and delightful - on other days it makes me think she's swallowed a bee. Robin Ince @robinince Sad to see that PD James has died, and even sadder that she didn't die in suspicious circumstances.