The Queen's staff are 'going stir-crazy' as she spends another six weeks in Balmoral

With the Queen having another six weeks in Balmoral, some of her flunkeys are ‘stir-crazy,’ I gather. ‘It’s the long, silent nights and dodgy internet connections,’ says my source. ‘Some search in vain for fun in nearby Ballater, where the chief sights include one of the few remaining AA patrol boxes, a newly-restored horse trough commemorating Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee and the Royal Lochnagar Distillery.’ 

Movie veteran Robert ‘Bob’ Wagner, 86, has composed a new memoir: I Loved Her In The Movies. I doubt if this is a reference to our own Lesley-Anne Down, now 62, with whom he appeared in a 1988 TV remake of the 1958 Cary Grant/Ingrid Bergman romantic comedy Indiscreet. Wagner grumbles: ‘I wanted to do it with [rival American actress] Candice Bergen, but CBS gave me Lesley-Anne Down, who proved to have no affinity with me or anybody else whatsoever.’ Yet while it was deemed ‘a limp and empty romantic tale … a poor, made-for-TV remake,’ Ms Down was described as ‘looking stunning in an expensive variety of designer frocks.’ Is this the flea in old Bob’s tights?