For 70 years, diplomatic difficulties have been eased by tea with the Queen. Strongmen go weak at the rattle of Royal Doulton. It would be asking too much now to invite a war criminal round for crumpets but the royal historian Robert Hardman recalls how Cold War tensions were soothed by asking Khrushchev and Bulganin, the Soviet president and premier, to tea at Windsor and showing them a portrait of Tsar Alexander I. “A great patriot,” Khrushchev purred before being shown into the red drawing room, which must have made him feel at home.
Hardman adds in The Spectator that the Queen got a rapturous welcome in St Petersburg in 1994, where the quayside was renamed as the English Embankment. The man in charge of arrangements? A deputy mayor called Vladimir Putin.
Mother’s Day is nearing and what better way to show your love than by contributing to Nigel Farage’s beer fund? “It is universally well known that mums have a thing for me,” brags the former Ukip leader, who is offering to record a minute-long video greeting for just £74. And some people say the day has become commercialised and naff. . .
Don’t panic
An unlikely winner of Strictly, Bill Bailey now fancies tackling Eurovision. The comedian tells Out to Lunch that he submitted a song that was rejected by the BBC for being too silly. “It was an eco-anthem with a Dad’s Army theme called Put That Light Out, Mr Hodges,” he says. Bailey is convinced it would have won. “You’d be surprised how many people have seen Dad’s Army in the former Soviet states.”
Political animals
There is a vacancy for Commons chief mouser after the death of Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s 12-year-old ginger cat, Patrick, named for the very grand grandee Lord Cormack rather than any scruffy diarists. Patrick the cat, who occasionally would fill Mr Speaker’s Zoom screen in online meetings, won the Westminster cat of the year contest in 2020 on a manifesto of impurrtiality, empawment and stopping the fur from flying. Hoyle still owns Boris the parrot, Maggie the tortoise and two dogs called Betty and Gordon. The constant noise and bad behaviour must be dreadful, but I suppose the pets are used to Parliament by now.
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As Whitehall dusts off contingency plans in the hope they won’t be needed, I see mention in the press of Pindar, the bunker under Whitehall. It was given its name after the Greek poet whose house was the only one left standing after Alexander the Great razed Thebes in punishment for a rebellion in 335BC. Pindar marks its 30th anniversary of becoming operational this year. Let’s hope celebrations don’t go with a bang.
All in the preparation
Peter Bowles, who died yesterday at 85, was in a daunting cohort at Rada with Peter O’Toole, Alan Bates and Albert Finney. He shared a flat with the last and one night they discussed their dream roles. It turned out both aspired to play Macbeth. Finney, inset, asked how Bowles would approach the part and was told that he would read Scottish history, attempt an accent, wear a kilt and study all the greats who had done it before. “How about you, Albert?” Bowles asked. “I’d learn the f***ing lines and walk on,” Finney replied. So that’s why he was shortlisted for an Oscar five times.
