Show Duffy some Mercy please, Mr Rotten

John Lydon still has a rotten temper as Duffy, the Welsh songstress, found to her cost after a bruising encounter witnessed by People at the Mojo magazine awards, that citadel of rock madness.

The former purveyor of anarchy was engaging us backstage in a discussion about global affairs — “The Sex Pistols volunteered to play in Iraq two weeks after the invasion. If we had, the situation we have now would have been very different” — when the smiley Best Song winner Duffy approached him from behind and pawed at him like a puppy. Not a good idea. “Back off,” cautioned Rambo, Lydon’s ever-present rottweiler minder, who removed the squealing singer in pub-bouncer style. No mercy from Lydon either. “You never, ever do that to me,” he snarled as a shaken Duffy, close to tears, took her retreat.

“Who was that?” demanded the Pistol, declaring the whole backstage scene a “bad advert for binge drinking”. Errr, just Britain’s biggest new singing star. “Oh, she got an award? I quite like her.” Duffy will be pleased to learn that the Pistols’ peace and love mission moves on to Moscow next.

— Joan Rivers declared herself “thrilled” to be turfed off Loose Women on ITV1 yesterday for swearing during the live show. The comedienne was babbling about red carpet events and the actor Russell Crowe when the F and S-words slipped out. Producers invited the star to leave. “I’m certainly not mellowing with age,” Rivers, 75, said. “People have heard the word f***.” But not over lunch.

— David Davis will have no problem with the pink vote in Haltemprice & Howden after attending the civil partnership ceremony for Iain Dale, the political blogger. “David played a part in the proceedings,” blogs Dale, “and I have been told that he was seen to ‘well up’ a bit during the ceremony. One can only assume he had a bit of grit in his eye.”

Moss-Miller: handbags at dawn

The Face: Sienna Miller

Has Sienna Miller found her breakthrough role as Caitlin, the free-spirited wife of Dylan Thomas in The Edge of Love, a biopic of the Welsh bard, which has its world premiere in Edinburgh today?

The 26-year-old New York-born British actress and fashion designer has a penchant for adopting a mockney accent and finds it hard to censor herself during interviews.

Whether artless honesty or something decidedly more calculating, it has done her no harm. She has almost shed the mantle of being Jude Law’s former girlfriend, making a rash of challenging, independent films, with some degree of critical acclaim.

A tabloid frenzy is never far from Miller’s heels. Kate Moss is now rumoured to be “furious” with Miller for dumping her boyfriend — Moss’s pal Rhys Ifans — over the phone. Handbags at dawn?

Postscript

Perhaps mindful of his forthcoming nude scene in Equus when the play transfers to Broadway in the autumn, Daniel Radcliffe bagged himself something called a Skorcher Butt Machine at the gift lounge set up for Sunday’s Tony awards. “They don’t have things like this in England,” he told the New York Daily News.

“We never get gifts.”

— At last the Royal Family can vote. Prince William is said to have told Bianca Nicholas, one of the X Factor hopefuls, that he will be rooting for her. Apparently he particularly likes “the funny bits in the audition stage and said that if I did make it through he would vote for me and put me on his speed dial”, she reveals. Really?

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