King Charles, it was said last year, would ‘never work again’ with Michael Fawcett, who entered service as a Buckingham Palace footman but became the chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation.
However, Fawcett, 61, who was at the centre of a ‘cash-for-honours’ investigation abandoned by the Met after 18 months, doesn’t favour idleness.
I hear he and his wife, Debbie, have tucked away £60,000 in the past financial year. Figures published for their events company, Premier Mode, disclose its reserves have risen to more than £140,000.
Some consolation for Fawcett, who left the King’s service after claims he had discussed how to secure a knighthood and citizenship for Saudi tycoon Mahfouz Bin Mahfouz — who ultimately donated £1.5 million to The Prince’s Foundation.
The Met announced no further action would be taken in relation to this matter. Mahfouz denies any wrongdoing.
King Charles, it was said last year, would ‘never work again’ with Michael Fawcett, who entered service as a Buckingham Palace footman but became the chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation
However, Fawcett, 61, who was at the centre of a ‘cash-for-honours’ investigation abandoned by the Met after 18 months, doesn’t favour idleness
Some consolation for Fawcett, who left the King’s service after claims he had discussed how to secure a knighthood and citizenship for Saudi tycoon Mahfouz Bin Mahfouz — who ultimately donated £1.5 million to The Prince’s Foundation
Becker relaxes with his latest love match
Boris Becker, who was convicted of hiding £2.5 million of assets despite declaring himself bankrupt, has still not divorced his estranged wife Lilly.
Boris Becker was convicted of hiding £2.5 million of assets despite declaring himself bankrupt
But the former Wimbledon champion has demonstrated his commitment to his girlfriend, Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro, 32, by spending Christmas in her native Sao Tome and Principe, an island off the western coast of Africa
But the former Wimbledon champion has demonstrated his commitment to his girlfriend, Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro, 32, by spending Christmas in her native Sao Tome and Principe, an island off the western coast of Africa.
‘Visiting Lilian’s family for the holidays,’ says Becker, 56. The twice-married star is reported to have proposed to Lilian, a London-based political risk analyst whom he started dating in 2020, in Milan in July.
Becker served eight months of a two-and-a-half-year sentence before being extradited to Germany in time for Christmas last year.
(Very) modern manners
Watch out, Deliveroo and Uber Eats! There’s a new delivery service in town — and it’s sending cosmetic treatments to the homes of well-heeled Londoners who don’t fancy visiting a Harley Street surgery.
Among those already using the ‘mobile aesthetics clinic’ service is Lady Mary Charteris, a model and DJ, who shared this picture of her being given a £350 injection
‘I got a treatment called Profhilo I’ve always wanted to try,’ says the Earl of Wemyss’s 36-year-old daughter
Among those already using the ‘mobile aesthetics clinic’ service is Lady Mary Charteris, a model and DJ, who shared this picture of her being given a £350 injection.
‘I got a treatment called Profhilo I’ve always wanted to try,’ says the Earl of Wemyss’s 36-year-old daughter.
It’s only the sixth day of Christmas — another six to go — but it seems unlikely anyone will match the goodie J.K. Rowling has already plucked from her proverbial Yuletide stocking… a £6.47 million treat.
That’s the dividend she’s received from Pottermore Publishing, the company described as ‘the global digital eBook publisher of Rowling’s multi-million best-selling Harry Potter series and associated titles from the Wizarding World’.
Its revenues jumped by £10.4 million in the past financial year, courtesy of ‘advances on negotiated contracts’. Rowling owns the company, which ensures that no Muggles can muscle in.
Not in splendour any more! Giant rat shocks Earl’s son
He may have grown up in the splendour of his family’s 12,000-acre estate on the Shropshire-Staffordshire border, but this week the youngest son of the Earl of Bradford came face to face with live urban squalor.
He may have grown up in the splendour of his family’s 12,000-acre estate on the Shropshire-Staffordshire border, but this week the youngest son of the Earl of Bradford came face to face with live urban squalo
![Ben Bridgeman, who was out walking his dog Bella in West London, tells me: ‘I went to put an apple core in a bin near Olympia [exhibition centre]’](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/12/30/00/79452869-0-image-a-54_1703897051044.jpg)
Ben Bridgeman, who was out walking his dog Bella in West London, tells me: ‘I went to put an apple core in a bin near Olympia [exhibition centre]’
Ben Bridgeman, who was out walking his dog Bella in West London, tells me: ‘I went to put an apple core in a bin near Olympia [exhibition centre].’ But the 36-year-old suddenly noticed that something was lurking between the bin lid and the rim.
‘The biggest rat I’ve ever seen — getting on for a foot long,’ adds Ben, who, deciding to take the apple core home with him, took this snap instead.
Down on ground level, Bella, a cockapoo, ‘who normally goes for them’, didn’t glimpse it. Some Asian tourists were less fortunate — and ‘ran off shrieking’. Let’s hope Labour-run Hammersmith and Fulham Council alerts the binmen before the New Year collection.
The dearth of amusing new comedies on television over Christmas will have come as little surprise to Michael Palin.
The Monty Python sketch shows in which he starred would never be made in these humourless times. ‘There isn’t much like it being made nowadays, which I think is odd,’ says Palin, who also starred in A Fish Called Wanda.
‘We could do all sorts of things — we could dress as women, we could knock people off bicycles, we could have bare-breasted ladies selling newspapers with men not noticing. The BBC wouldn’t let us do that now. The sheer joy of Python wouldn’t be possible.’
Having rekindled her relationship with her ex-husband, Sports Direct billionaire Mike, Linda Ashley has, I hear, finally sold her £20 million ‘party palace’ — complete with a six-hole golf course and basement bowling alley.
The Swedish-born interior designer, 56, put her eight-bedroom mansion on the market almost two years ago after getting back together with the former Newcastle United owner following a 12-year split.
Her North London pile boasts eight reception rooms, a multi-level cinema, an ‘exceptionally large’ gym, bar, salon and squash court. According to estate agents Statons, the house has now been sold, subject to contract.
Tip of the week
Singer Alfie Boe was so interested in the supposed health benefits of cold water bathing he appeared in the BBC One series Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof last year.
The Blackpool-born tenor, 50, refuses, however, to splash out on the treatment. ‘They have these big ice baths that you can buy — they’re, like, £25,000, something ridiculous,’ Boe says.
‘I bought a £400 chest freezer. Does the job. It freezes the water and you just sit there… with your Sunday roast.’ Indeed, why waste your lolly?
Mobile phones have spoilt the communal rock concert experience, according to Brian May.
‘In the old days people didn’t have that stuff and they would just be there, their whole selves interacting in mind and body and eyes and ears,’ the Queen guitarist says.
Mobile phones have spoilt the communal rock concert experience, according to Brian May
‘It’s not like that now. Everybody has this urge to kind of immortalise stuff, so when you look out, you see almost as many mobile phones as people, which is weird.’
The late Queen Elizabeth also shared the same sentiment. Award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti revealed in August that the Queen had expressed to her sorrow that the rise of the digital age meant she faced ‘a sea of mobiles’ rather than crowd of faces while on walkabouts.
Follow me on X @richardaeden and on Instagram @edenconfidential [email protected]