THE LONDONER is very sad to learn of the death of Barry Cryer, announced this morning. He was a frequent presence in these pages.
Just a few years ago at an Oldie literary lunch, Cryer told the audience: “Someone once said that politicians are like nappies, they should be changed frequently. And for the same reason.”
Cryer, who was 86, always made his audiences laugh. At another Oldie lunch, The Londoner watched as Cryer told Private Eye founder Richard Ingrams, whose birthday it was, “You don’t look 75. You did once, though”. He added: “You know you’re old when the candles cost more than the cake.
“I identify with the Oldie; I am so old, I can state — it can now be told — I remember when Tony Blair was white. He’s now tanned, that can’t be right, an orange man and a Catholic convert?”
We also once bumped into Cryer in the Garrick Club. “I’ve been in to all these clubs because everyone assumes I’m a member. I much prefer my local Wetherspoons, The Moon and Sixpence in Hatch End. I’m the thinking woman’s lager lout,” he told us.
The Londoner will miss him.
Two Jags took one jab at surprise cake
CAKE ambushes haven’t always gone down well in Westminster. Adam Fleming, the BBC’s chief political correspondent, once toured a cake around SW1A for the first birthday of the coalition government in 2011. David Cameron said “Oh no I’m on a diet”, Fleming tells us, but it was when he tried to surprise Labour’s John Prescott with the baked delicacy that things turned south. “He said ‘no way’ and stuck his finger in,” Fleming recalls. “Normally I have a witty rejoinder,” he confesses, but “I was actually lost for words — it felt slightly more aggressive at the time”. At least it wasn’t a punch.
Glamour never loses its shine
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN, the former editor of Vogue, knows her onions when it comes to glamour. “There is a fascination still with old-world Hollywood glamour,” Shulman tells us. “It is slightly different now because of social media,” she says, but adds of her 25 years editing Vogue: “There is an intrinsic quality to glamour — a shiny sort of ephemeral thing that you can’t quite pin down — that’s remained the same.” Some things never change.
In the frame over Arsenal shirt
SPENCER MATTHEWS is still nurturing a grievance with Selfridges — and it’s no wonder why. The reality TV star says about two decades ago, when he was a child, he was given an Arsenal shirt by then-manager Arsene Wenger which was signed by the whole team. “I took it into Selfridges to get it framed with my mum and they stole it,” he claims on his podcast. “I got a call saying your Arsenal shirt has gone missing.” Selfridges declined to comment. Twenty years of hurt.
SW1A
NADINE DORRIES argued this morning that if Boris Johnson goes, a general election would be needed, even though Gordon Brown didn’t call one when he took over from Tony Blair in 2007. “Very different times pre rolling 24hr news/social media,” the Culture Secretary claimed. BBC News 24 launched in 1997.
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MOMENTUM’s drift from the Labour party continues. The political movement has just announced a new tier of membership in which, for the first time, new joiners don’t have to also be Labour members. They must still be eligble for Labour membership, though, the group add. Going their separate ways.
Mum’s the word for Pedro at screening
PEDRO ALMODOVAR cut a shaggy if colourful figure as the film director dropped in to the Curzon Mayfair for a special screening of his new movie Parallel Mothers, a baby-swap drama which stars Penelope Cruz. Nearby at Park Chinois models Ciinderella Balthazar and Ikram Abdi Omar partied for Chinese New Year. Over at Selfridges dancer Eric Underwood, model Betty Bachz and make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury were at the Din Tai Fung launch event, where dinner was served by a robot.
