Elizabeth I has left an expensive legacy for her namesake to pay in the year of her 90th birthday. The Haven café’s breakfast club in Sandwich, Kent, has discovered a royal agreement dating from 1572 in which the Tudor monarch promised to pay for the dredging of the River Stour but failed to deliver. After 444 years of inflation, the club reckon the present Queen owes £8 billion. A request to Buckingham Palace received a “how interesting” letter but no cheque. The breakfasters won’t accept the royal brush-off, though. “We don’t want to be unreasonable,” Ron Coleman, a club member, says. “I suggest that we settle for £7 billion.”
Geoffrey Robertson, QC, offered TMS a spot of legal aid last week. We wondered what advice the veteran lawyer could pass to Marina Wheeler, wife of Boris Johnson, now that she has taken silk and joined him as a Queen’s Counsel. He paused for a few seconds as all those years of courtroom experience went through his mind. “Well,” he finally said, “she can double her fees for a start.”
Bowering and scraping
Tom Bower has upset the Blarites with his biography of the blessed Tony, but the book has fans in odd places. Bower was contacted by President Buhari of Nigeria, who wanted a signed copy. Bower dithered over what to write to a man who first came to power in 1983 after a coup. Something formal or a casual greeting? “In the end I opted for ‘sincerely’,” he said. “Always best to err on the side of caution when it comes to Nigerian generals.”
What the butler saw
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Lord Butler of Brockwell, who served Mr Blair as cabinet secretary, was interviewed three times by Bower during his research. The author found him surprisingly critical of his former boss. Before the book went to print, Bower met Butler in the House of Lords to get his final approval of the manuscript. “I was worried he was going to veto certain quotes,” he said. “Instead he enthusiastically added to them by hand, writing in the margins.”
Olivia Colman, star of the BBC One drama The Night Manager, has not read the John Le Carré novel from which it is adapted. “It’s far too thick for me,” she confessed at a National Theatre gala. She should spare a thought for the actors in this winter’s other big BBC adaptation, who were forced to read their novel. War and Peace is more than twice the length.
Liberal alternatives
Most press officers who worked for the Lib Dems in the coalition government are still in therapy, but one of them has emerged to own up to a gaffe that he got away with. In 2013 Ben Rathe was responsible for handling visits for Nick Clegg, above, and had found a nice rural spot outside Glasgow to launch a policy about plastic bags during the party conference. “Interesting place for a visit,” a police officer told him when they got there. “Given what the locals use it for.” Rathe went pale as the copper explained that this was a notorious dogging site. He spent the whole press conference praying that none of Clegg’s colleagues would emerge from the bushes looking dishevelled.