Kennedy bows out in Brits row

With a day to go, Nigel Kennedy (genius violinist, bad hair, spitting image of that chef) has pulled out of the Classical Brit Awards.

Kennedy, who was to be one of the headline performers at the ceremony tonight, was going to play Vittorio Monti’s Czardas - a short, gypsy-style piece. And now he isn’t. “It’s insurmountable artistic differences basically,” says a grim-sounding Brits’ spokesman.

From Camp Kennedy, we gather that organisers were keen for him to play with the Brits’ orchestra, but Kennedy had been rehearsing with Bond, a popular, all-female, somewhat foxy string quartet. Almost unanimously, the Brits’ committee voted against this, citing a breach of their proper invitation procedure.

“I am not going to let some old farts dictate my musical decisions,” said Kennedy. So off he went.

The Duchess of York and Princess Beatrice, (pictured above) launching the Children in Crisis campaign at JP Morgan headquarters in London. The charity’s symbol is a chewed pencil. How many calories in one of those?

A worrying query tabled already for next Monday, to the Culture, Media and Sport Minister by Chris Mole, MP (Lab, Ipswich). “What steps is the Department taking to assist the development of dance?”

Can we expect a physical answer from Andy Burnham? In tap shoes, perhaps?

At the Hay Festival, the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize is traditionally presented with champagne and some books, and is honoured by having a Gloucester Old Spot pig named after his or her winning novel. Alas, this year, thanks to certain parts of the vicinity being subject to restrictions on animal movement, we gather there is some concern that the pig may not be able to make it. Organisers are planning a remote link-up, via a “sty-cam”.

“I’ve been to a few gay weddings,” Graham Norton tells the US website afterelton.com, “and what’s funny about them is they’re not gay weddings - they’re weddings. They’re just the same as straight weddings in that they’re kind of awful. It’s really just, you know, terrible speeches, bad food, awful DJs.” Damning. Norton was at Sir Elton John’s wedding in 2005. We thought it sounded rather fun.

Another day, another media outing for James Purnell. Amid silence from various Milibands and Ballses, the Work and Pensions Secretary made a speech on Tuesday and wrote a column on Wednesday. Today he writes in the New Statesman and appears on the BBC’s Question Time. To paraphrase Mrs Merton, just what is it about a doomed PM and the prospect of a leadership contest that makes him so keen to be seen? When the DJ James Whale was sacked from TalkSport radio last week (after telling his listeners to “vote Boris”), some feared his career was over. But no. He is to join bid tv, the shopping channel. “Years ago I worked as a trainee buyer at Harrods so my career has come full circle!” says Whale, quite brightly.

Postscript

— Traditionalist feathers were ruffled, reports Tatler (sounding somewhat ruffled itself), during Sarah Brown’s lunch to raise awareness of Third World maternal mortality last month. As the PM’s wife “did the new Hollywood thing” of taking France’s visiting First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy around the tables at Lancaster House, the magazine reports aghast society ladies sneering at “this popping around”.

— Thirty years after the Police began their first American tour at CBGB’s in Manhattan, the band announce that they are to come full circle and play their final gig in New York this summer. Because of the inevitability that a green issue must lurk behind each of Sting’s announcements, it was no surprise to hear that he’ll also donate $1 million (£500,000) towards planting 10,000 trees across the city.

— Meatloaf tells The Globe and Mail that he instructed his, since fired, managers to refrain from booking him on any more tours in cold climes. Their response? Organising a February tour of Canada for him. Can you just hear his weary sigh as he asked them: “Why don’t we just play for penguins?”

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