EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Anderson Cooper joins a growing list of presenters hearing Sussex moanathon 

CNN’s Anderson Cooper joins the growing list of TV presenters subjected to a full Sussex moanathon while interviewing Prince Harry. Who is he? His grandmother was heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, who lost custody of Anderson’s mother (also Gloria) following rumours of a lesbian love affair with a British royal. And his great aunt Thelma was the libidinous mistress of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) until she made the fatal mistake of introducing him to her friend Wallis Simpson. All told, a Cooper tell-all would be so much more illuminating than Harry’s reheated bleatings about callous courtiers and the horrid media.

As predicted here on August 4, not all the Euro-winning Lionesses were gonged – with just four picking up honours and winning goal-scorer Chloe Kelly not getting a medal. Precedent prevents spontaneity, with the honours unit using the 1966 World Cup as a template. Manager Alf Ramsey was knighted and captain Bobby Moore was given an OBE in 1967. Bobby Charlton picked up his OBE three years later and was knighted in 1994. Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat-trick in the final, eventually got an MBE in 1979 and was knighted in 1998. Five of the team received no gongs at all until 2000 when Tony Blair decided to make amends. Nobby Stiles, Alan Ball, Roger Hunt, Ray Wilson and George Cohen, who died before Christmas, finally got MBEs.

Among those awarded Royal Victorian Orders by King Charles are a tractor engineer, a signwriter, a gilding conservator, some gardeners and Princess Anne’s hairdresser. The crimper is unlikely to need to rest from exhaustion. The Princess Royal’s trademark beehive hasn’t changed in 53 years.

Gwyneth Paltrow, pictured, is bereft of New Year resolutions, wailing: ‘I’m so old now and have been doing this for so long I kind of have nothing left to quit.’ A word in your shell-like, Gwyn: You could promise to desist in 2023 from inflicting any more of your friendly ponged Goop candles.

Annie Nightingale, Simon Mayo and Peter Murray are among disc jockeys honoured in previous lists. But still nothing for Tony Blackburn. It must rankle with Tony, 80 later this month and the first DJ heard on Radio 1, that even Radio 2’s DJ Spoony is honoured in the latest list with a BEM.

In his annual diary for London Review of Books Alan Bennett eulogises Venice, recalling: ‘It was while staying at the Pensione Accademia with its thin walls that I first overheard sexual intercourse, and the shout of a man “Vengo! Vengo!”’

Pope Benedict XVI lived up to his nickname, God’s Rottweiler, when he taught theology to seminarians in his native Germany. Recalls one: ‘He used to get very cross with us if we misbehaved during his lessons and shouted to us in a strong German accent. On one occasion he told us, “You think I know bugger nothing – but in fact I know bugger all.”’