Cooking up some good behaviour

August pushes many a journalist to desperate measures. In our case, it pushes us to disregard People’s unofficial motto (“no chefs, no milliners, no Paris Hilton”) and inform you that Raymond Blanc, the chef, believes that some of his rivals will go to jail. Like Paris Hilton did.

Although he didn’t mention her. “Those chefs who glorify violence are living in the past,” says Blanc. “Soon they will go to prison because new employment laws now give staff much more protection against bullying than before.”

Blanc names no names. He has previously been vocal in his criticism of certain reality television chefs. “We have eight million morons watching these programmes,” he wrote in 2006. This time around he was speaking to Radio Times, to plug his own new reality TV show The Restaurant.

— If the King is not dead, perhaps he is working for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and helping it to get through its own sleepy August.

On Thursday, the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, the DCMS issued a press release about the new, listed status of Building F49A, the man-carrying centrifuge facility in Farnborough, Hampshire. This is the human spinning wheel that has simulated the effect of extreme G-forces on airmen and astronauts since 1955, not unlike the one into which a wobbly-faced Roger Moore is strapped in Moonraker. Nothing to do with Elvis whatsoever, but this didn’t stop desperate spin-doctors (yes, this is a pun) releasing this news under the headline: “All Shook Up.”

Return to Sender, more like.

— As has been mentioned in this column, The Guardian features heavily in The Bourne Ultimatum with an editor, played by Mark Bazeley, styled as a dead ringer for Alan Rusbridger, its Editor. Now, we notice that Bazeley’s last major film outing was as Alastair Campbell in The Queen. Which one of the them will have been the most upset?

— Sour grapes from Paul Burrell, butler to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who accuses royal advisers of being out of touch. “The Princess bore no resentment towards Camilla,” he tells Closer. “But that doesn’t mean she would have invited her to an intimate gathering of friends.” Seven hundred people are on the guest list for the memorial service. Burrell isn’t.

— Alarm from the Lib Dems as it emerges that item four on the agenda for their party conference next month is “The academic boycott of Israel”. Relief, from some, as further investigation reveals that the party line is against, not for. One suspects that, with the Lib Dems, it could easily have gone either way.

— Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan’s chief spinner, died this weekend. His obituary in the LA Times illustrated his genius with a story about the time that he helped George Murphy, a Californian Republican, run against Pierre Salinger, the cigar-loving Democrat, in a Senate campaign. The spinner apparently followed Salinger around the state, rushing up to offer him a cigar whenever he left his car. “Salinger would stick the cigar in his mouth,” recalls the LA Times, “giving photographers a ready shot of a fat cat.”

— Contrary to reports, Gordon Brown has not yet begun divvying up the various country homes at his disposal. It had been suggested that Alistair Darling had been assigned Dorneywood (of Prescott croquet fame), much to his own prolier-than-thou shame. Not so, says a Cabinet Office spokesman, adding that no decision has yet been taken on any residence other than Chequers, where Brown has so far enjoyed two weekends. Shame to leave them all standing empty over the summer break.

Postscript

Upset over Kate Moss’s proposed pub in the Cotswolds continues apace. “Such a pub would be detrimental to the town,” sniffs Helen Jones, wife of the Mayor of Lechlade, to Gloucestershire News Service. Penny Warren, manager of the nearby Trout Inn, snarls: “I can’t see people coming from London to go to her yuppie pub.” Friendly place, the country.

— The most striking thing we saw in the Virgin Radio enclosure at the V Festival was a silver Rolls-Royce, dumped, bumper first and with the doors open, into a temporary swimming pool. Apparently it belonged to Suggs (of Madness), who lost it in a bet to Christian O’Connell, the DJ. Our car, in the middle of our pool.

— Grown-up Nirvana fans will remember the band’s famous 1991 Nevermind album cover - a naked baby in a swimming pool. And what of the child now? “It’s kind of creepy that that many people have seen me naked,” the 17-year-old Spencer Elden tells MTV.com. “I feel like I’m the world’s biggest porn star.”

— “I can’t wait to get pregnant again,” Gwen Stefani tells InStyle magazine. “It’s so fun and consuming and romantic.”

— “Having lived in this country since 1967,” Terry Gilliam announces on Saturday in British Film Forever on BBC Two, “I’ve renounced my American citizenship and I’m now 100 per cent British. I apologise.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Computer warriors pay for far-away mercenaries
• Divorce rate falls to 26-year low
• Boris adviser says Olympians tainted with blood