A wedding and a funeral: £52,266

On April 8, 2005, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles (as she then was) postponed their wedding by a day to avoid a clash with the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister (as he then was) and the Archbishop of Canterbury (as he still is) had already made it plain that they would be attending the funeral. Ultimately the Prince went to Rome, too.

Two years on, it emerges that the delay cost the Metropolitan Police £52,266, largely as a result of overtime and cancelled leave.

Quick thinkers at the BBC requested the figure under the Freedom of Information Act almost immediately, but the police refused to release it until now. So modest! As wedding presents go, even the Royal Family must have considered this extremely generous.

If Mervyn King is looking a touch weary, we may know why. On Tuesday People agents were at Brooks’s Club in London for the launch of On Fire, by John Ogden. As the night drew to a close the Governor of the Bank of England arrived, yawning. “Can’t stay long,” he sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Got to go and read over some papers. The frustrating thing is that all of this started on August 9, the first day of my holiday.”

In related news, do look out for double-page Northern Rock advertisements in men’s magazines this month, which feature rugby players (including Jonny Wilkinson) and a basketball player under the headline “Playtime is over”.

We missed it ourselves, but we are told that Jade Goody called a BBC London phone-in show yesterday to advise young women to become mothers. “Somebody depends on you,” she said. “They sort of learn from you.” This from the woman who thought Saddam Hussein was a boxer and Sherlock Holmes invented the lavatory. Hmm.

Jennifer Lopez, in Britain for London Fashion Week, is to be interviewed by Michael Parkinson on ITV. The actress is here with her husband, Marc Antony, amid a flurry of reports that she is pregnant and expecting twins. “Everyone calls about this every month with the hope that they’ll hit the mark – but no, no, no,” says her publicist, in a statement that we like to think was inspired by Amy Winehouse.

As Fleet Street turns its many beady eyes on the new Blue Peter cat (whose viewer-chosen name, as The Times so coyly informed us yesterday, was very nearly “a variant of Puss”), the gossip newsletter Popbitch raises the worrying issue of the BBC’s tortoises. The average age for a tortoise is 80, it claims, with the oldest reaching 188. Yet three of Blue Peter’s last five shell-dwellers have snuffed it before the age of 17. Is this what you call a showbiz curse?

According to all reputable sources, tomorrow is the birthday of Dr Liam Fox (Shadow Defence Secretary) and Bilbo Baggins (Hobbit). As both are arguably the stocky champions of dwindling bands of timid, respectable folk, struggling to preserve archaic lifestyles in the face of unstoppable change, we trust that celebration will break out across Middle England and Middle Earth alike.

His work with Iraq and the US economy may have been sketchy, but George Bush scored a lasting triumph with his neckware. He has, apparently, pioneered the wearing of light blue ties, a trend copied by both Barak Obama and John McCain. “It really lightens up a man’s face, and he comes across as more decisive, but in a human sort of way,” says the American author Donna Brazile.

Postscript

— Is Hollywood next for Chris Moyles? “If he comes in with $800 I will see him and consider him for a role,” Quentin Tarantino told Moyles’s co-host on his BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. “Eight hundred dollars is worth my time to see DJ Chris.” Perhaps not.

— Why should Mel B (Scary Spice) want to appear on America’s version of Strictly Come Dancing? Because Emma Bunton, she tells the American TV Guide, pointed out the benefits. “You’ll be much more fit. And you’ll learn to dance, which is brilliant.” “Humiliation,” opines Sean Penn, “is a term we always use as a bad thing. It is not a bad thing,” he tells LA Weekly. “It contains the word humility.

— You add humility to idealism. Then you put tolerance with idealism and that is what leads to other things that are good things.” “I don’t want to go out for lunch and spend £20,” Stephen Merchant tells GQ. “What? I’ve got to spend £20 on a pasta dish? It’s absurd. A sandwich is fine.”

— Downsides to growing a beard: “Girls don’t check you out as much,” says Benicio Del Toro, who plays a very hairy Che Guevara in the forthcoming film The Argentine, to Esquire. “And guys look down. The looks I get from street people,” he adds. “Suddenly I’m their brother.”

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