EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Has the King already indicated his preference for Justin Welby's replacement as Archbishop of Canterbury?
Has the King already indicated his preference for Justin Welby's replacement as Archbishop of Canterbury?
On Wednesday, as the Church of England was descending into chaos, the King summoned Bishop of Norwich Graham Usher to the Palace and made him his Lord High Almoner.
That makes him responsible for organising the annual Royal Maundy service.
As Usher is one of the front runners for Canterbury, it had been thought His Majesty might delay the meeting.
But he carried on regardless. A punt with Mr Paddy Power might prove fruitful.
King Charles holds an audience with Right Reverend Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was forced to resign over his handling of the child abuse scandal
Paddling against the tide, Charles Moore argues there is no proper reason for Justin Welby's resignation.
'No iniquity was proved against him,' he writes in The Spectator.
Does Charles remain eternally grateful that Welby showed 'courage' in confirming Moore's scoop that the Archbishop's real father was Churchill's aide Sir Anthony Montague Browne?
The King has drawn the short straw for next week's Royal Variety Performance, something he has managed to avoid since 2016.
The duty has since alternated between William and Kate, who attended last year's, and a selection of other royals.
Two years ago Edward and Sophie went for the first, and possibly last, time.
This was when Sophie told an ill Frank Skinner, after he struggled to sing Three Lions with David Baddiel: 'Don't give up the day job.' She later apologised.
Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, receiving his MBE from Prince William, didn't share recollections of his encounter with his mother Diana, pictured, at the Chelsea Harbour fitness club.
'I was on the running machine. I jumped off because one of my shoelaces had come undone, and she wolf-whistled at me across the room, and yelled, like a brickie, 'Nice legs! I'd recognise that bum anywhere!' In mitigation, Diana was a Duran Duran fan.
Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon poses after being appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)
Claims that Wallis Simpson became an opium addict during her year in China have been refuted in a new book, Her Lotus Year by Paul French, which debunks the so-called China Dossier prepared by opponents of her marriage to Edward VIII.
The Establishment naysayers claimed Wallis beguiled the King with the Shanghai Grip sexual technique described as making a matchstick feel like a cigar.
'There were no louche adventures,' says French. 'And no China Dossier has ever come to light.'
Extollinh the virtues of poets dying young, An Wilson, 74, writes in The Oldie: 'Meeting Keats and Shelley as pot-bellied Victorians would be as sad as watching one of those Rolling Stones revival concerts when the creaking forms of Mick Jagger and pals are hoisted on to the stage to writhe their arthritic limbs to the by now undoubtedly accurate assertion that they could never get nor give no satisfaction.' Discuss.
