EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: BBC block clip on royal social media, shouldn’t they hold out an olive branch?

A clip posted on royal social media at the weekend from a 2016 BBC documentary showing the Queen feeding her horses has been suddenly taken down and replaced with the message: ‘This video contains content from BBC Studios, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.’ With Princess Diana’s Panorama interview continuing to blight relations with Buckingham Palace, shouldn’t Auntie be holding out some olive branches?

Brain Of Britain inquisitor Russell Davies dismisses suggestions that Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and other Tory leadership candidates should have been asked to answer some of the fiendishly difficult questions from the Radio 4 show to see which should become PM. ‘That would be pointless,’ he tells Radio Times. ‘Literally pointless in some cases. Some of them were having trouble enough performing at all, let alone answering questions that are deliberately made to be slightly out of the way.’

Barry Humphries’s disclosure that his late father-in-law, poet Stephen Spender, never missed an episode of Neighbours recalls the joy Kingsley Amis experienced as a Coronation Street addict, particularly the romantic rollercoaster of Bill Roache’s relationship with Anne Kirkbride. Permanently well refreshed at the Garrick, he baffled fellow members with his wistful meanderings: ‘That Deirdre Barlow, eh…?

Liz Hurley, 57, was considered for the part of Cassandra, wife of Rodney Trotter, in BBC TV’s Only Fools And Horses. But she was considered ‘a little too glamorous for our lanky Trotter brother’, says a show source. Would Liz, pictured, prefer to be remembered for finding fame as Hugh Grant’s arm candy or as Del Boy’s sister-in-law?

Liz Hurley (left) was considered to be a little ‘too glamorous’ for the role of Rodney Trotter’s wife (right) 

Sandra Howard, 82, launches her novel Love At War on Thursday at the luxury retirement haven Auriens in Chelsea. Should the former model Sandra Paul and her ex-Tory leader hubby Michael, 81, consider moving into a one-bedroom apartment, they might negotiate a mates’ rates reduction in the staggering £13,000 a month stipend.

Robert Peston, describing the practice of wearing a tie as bonkers, reveals that after jumping ship from the BBC to ITV he wore a collar and tie. He explains: ‘When I was at the BBC I was notorious for never wearing a tie, and actually weirdly, when I left the BBC to go to ITV to do my show, my act of rebellion was to put a tie back on again.’ Living on the edge, Bob!

Tickled by reports that an ex-stripper is selling what she claims are Prince Harry’s underpants, donated during his infamous 2012 Vegas trip, Christopher Biggins cheekily remarks: ‘She thinks she might get £800,000… so I’m offering mine for £25.’

Acclaimed actor David Warner, who has died aged 80, was frequently asked by fans about the whereabouts of his severed head from the 1976 horror classic The Omen. Twice divorced Warner quipped in 2019: ‘What happened to my head? Well, I lost it in the divorce. The wife took it.’

British actor David Warner died aged 80 (pictured at Star Trek Convention in 2011)