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Off with their wigs! Distinguished QCs join Republic group
By Ephraim Hardcastle for the Daily Mail
Updated: 21:09 EST, 7 February 2011
Republican? Anthony Scrivener has joined a group that wants to abolish the monarchy
The distinguished QCs Anthony Scrivener, Michael Mansfield and Geoffrey Robertson are listed as members of Republic, the campaign group seeking to abolish the monarchy – although each was appointed to be 'one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law' and swore allegiance to the monarch. Queen's Counsel trying to abolish Her Majesty? Off with their wigs!
Fittingly in austere times, comedian Al Murray is launching a new TV quiz show – Compete for the Meat – in which the prizes are frozen chicken and cheap sausages. Makers Avalon TV say: 'It's a gameshow like no other.' I'll say! Contestants will be selected in Birmingham on February 14 and Manchester next day. No doubt there will be a stampede.
Recently married to a Zimbabwean, Precious Lunga, 35, Channel 4's Jon Snow, 63, both pictured, avoided speaking about his love life on Desert Island Discs last week. However his former ITN colleague Peter Sissons sheds light on this intriguing subject. Recalling Snow's brief engagement to colleague Anna Ford, Sissons says in his new memoir, When One Door Closes: 'Realising it was a mistake, she rang me and asked what to do. I advised her to put out a statement saying it was over, make no other comment about it, and the fuss would die down in about a week. It did.'
With the children's show Blue Peter moving from London to Manchester in the summer, what will happen to pet tortoise George, buried in the show's garden adjacent to Television Centre? The plot – with its plaque to gardener Percy Thrower and bust of Petra, Blue Peter's most famous dog – is being relocated to the rooftop of the BBC's new northern headquarters, with views over salubrious Salford Quays. 'No decision has yet been made on whether we are moving George,' says a BBC spokesman gravely.
Safe seat: Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams is expected to win in the Irish general election
Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams, who is expected to win a safe seat in the Irish general election, has displayed an unfortunate ignorance of local affairs. He didn't know the rate of child benefit, or of VAT, and described the cold weather allowance as 'warm weather payments'. Although his tribe are devoted to him, other voices in Eire are less respectful. Following his acceptance of the honorary title Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead – as a pre-requisite for retiring from the Commons – Hibernian bloggers now refer to him as Baron Von Provo. Boom boom!
Happy bedfellows when they were selected by Wikileaks to publish stolen
U.S. diplomatic cables, The New York Times and The Guardian have fallen out. The American paper accused our own Left-wing rag of exaggerating civilian fatalities in Afghanistan. As it says in Aesop's fable, A Wolf and a Fox, 'tis a pleasant scene enough, when thieves fall out among themselves…'
Apropos Egypt, was it necessary to send Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie to Cairo and Beirut, and his colleague Justin Webb to Washington? No, but at the licence fee-funded BBC, it's easy come, easy go.
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