Charles to UK: Wish you were here?

Bravo for the Prince of Wales, joining forces with Gordon Brown to launch British Tourism Week yesterday. In his message of support the Prince declared that tourism was “one of this country’s greatest success stories”, lauded the “huge economic difference” that tourism makes and described Britain as “a premier tourist destination.”

Spot on, Sir. Here at People, we cannot think of anywhere to rival the good old UK for a spot of R and R. Not even the Caribbean. Which is where he is.

Oh yes. Prince Charles’s message of support for British tourism comes to us all the way from St Lucia, where he is in the middle of a five-island tour aboard a £50 million gin palace mega-yacht with the Duchess of Cornwall. Can’t be all bad, sure, but it’s not Butlins.

— Having, at first glance, slightly too many arms, above is Catherine Zeta-Jones receiving directions ("See the red carpet? Follow it") from a policewoman at the Sydney premiere of Death Defying Acts, a new film about the exploits of Harry Houdini in which she stars alongside Guy Pearce.

— Jeremy Clarkson would possibly kill for this sort of honour. Richard Hammond, his co-presenter on Top Gear, is to be immortalised (on planet Rock, at least) on a Def Leppard cover. The artwork for Songs from the Sparkle Lounge features a crowd of faces (Sergeant Pepper style) and Britain’s most celebrated crash- test dummy is to be found at the bottom right, next to a picture of Rick Allen, the band’s drummer, who lost his arm in a car crash in 1984.

— Fervent apologies to Margaret Hodge. Contrary to our report (and although the event’s hapless publicists appear to have somehow missed her) the Culture Minister did, indeed, attend the Charming Vietnam Gala at Westminster Hall on Wednesday.

— Playground-ish scenes in the House of Commons last week as Harriet Harman spoke on the subject of International Women's Day. Hansard includes the words “Mark Pritchard rose” no fewer than 32 times. Harman was only giving way to women. Pankhurst-esque.

— Speaking of the Caribbean, Sir Cliff Richard tells Caribbean World about lending the Blairs his holiday home. “I saw him on television when the Gulf war started,” he says. “He was looking so wan and tired.”

— Here’s hoping that this week is better for poor Nick Clegg than last week was. It surely can’t be worse. Witness the Lib Dem press release that hit many inboxes late on Friday night: “PMQs: Clegg ‘has bottled it’ on Europe, says Clegg,” it roared.

— Look, there’s Lynda La Plante, the crime writer, in The Guardian. “At the moment,” she writes, “I’m reading a book by Geoffrey Robinson, The Unconventional Minister; he’s the husband of my very good friend Kathy Lette.”

In fact, Kathy Lette is married to a completely different writer called Geoffrey Robertson. What a “very good friend” she must be.

— Nick Robinson (note for Lynda La Plante — he’s not married to Kathy Lette either) visited Kings College London last week to discuss ID cards with students. Obviously, BBC tradition states that items about students should be filmed in a rowdy bar. Spies report that the Beeb’s political editor proudly bought himself a pint. His three interviewees drank Coke, orange juice and water.

Postscript

— “Nobody knows me,” Van Morrison tells BBC Radio 2, indulgently. “They don’t know where I came from, they don’t know where I’ve been, they don’t know what it took, they don’t know how hard it’s been,” he continues, actually rhyming. “Basically I’m a simple guy in a complicated business.”

— “I don’t really think about being a fantasy object,” Anna Friel tells Esquire, modestly. “I only think about it if I get weird things through the post. There was a guy who sent me a photograph of his bedroom and it was walls and walls just covered in posters of me. I get lots and lots of attention,” she adds, less modestly.

— “I’m loathe to say anything good about going to boarding school,” says Tilda Swinton, a former pupil of West Heath School in Sevenoaks (as was Diana, Princess of Wales), to Out magazine, “which is one of the reasons why I’m not a believer in Harry Potter. I believe it fetishises boarding school for children.”

— “Every day I have eaten ham and cheese sandwiches,” Jessica Alba blogs of her stay in France. “I can’t get enough of them. Wish they had these back in the States.” Erm.

— The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which seeks to find the worst opening line for a book, has released a compilation of last year’s entries. One gem comes from Danielle Steel: “She wore a dress the same colour as her eyes her father brought her from San Francisco.”

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