Londoner's Diary: Trish Simonon is all ears now

In Today's Diary: Kate Moss's maid-of-honour loses an ear | Tulip Siddiq supports in Scotland | Catherine Zeta keeps up with the Joneses | John Simpson's history with Zsa Zsa Gabor
All ears: Trish Simonen and pal Bella Freud
Getty Images
8 August 2017

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Not literally. The Londoner was at the Longines Global Champions Tour over the weekend, a showjumping event in Chelsea, where we horsed around with Trish Simonon. The ex-wife of The Clash bassist Paul and close friend of Kate Moss was in attendance and told us she was glad to be back in the saddle after an unpleasant incident.

“I was on a ride going cross-country earlier this year,” she said, “and as I came down the hill another horse converged with mine. There was this lovely big hedge slightly ahead. All I can remember is going straight off. I fell in the ditch, he trod on the side of my head and severed my ear. My head was gushing with blood but I didn’t notice: I was quite stunned.”

Simonon, who was maid of honour to Kate Moss at her wedding to Jamie Hince in 2011, is back in one piece now, though, after an extensive search for the missing appendage. “It took them about 30 or 40 minutes to find the ear, which was in the mud, but they took it to the hospital and sewed it back on,” she said. “Although, when I got to the hospital, there was no one who had any experience of sewing an ear on. After about three hours I said, ‘Listen, you must have done needlework at some point in your life: just give it your best shot’.”

Despite some soreness, Simonon feels as right as rain. Not a story for the squeamish, but we were all ears.

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The New Statesman has a new anonymous civil servant reporting on the Brexit negotiations. Who could it be? There’s a first clue when someone in the meeting mentions Stoke. “Everybody sheepishly looked down at their papers…” they write. “We don’t know where Stoke is. We did classics and as far as we can recall the Third Punic War never got as far as the Potteries.” A civil servant who studied classics? That should narrow it down a bit.

Tulip feels some of the fringe benefits

Tulip gears up for the Edinburgh Fringe (Photo by Nicola Tree/Getty Images)
Getty Images

The parliamentary recess turned into a bit of a busman’s holiday for Labour’s Tulip Siddiq. The Hampstead and Kilburn MP is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but she’s still supporting her locals.

When comedian Robert Webb invited Siddiq to see his wife Abigail Burdess’s show, Abigail’s Party Comedy Cabaret, she couldn’t help but oblige: the couple live in her constituency.

“It felt good being in the audience rather than in front of the crowd,” Siddiq told The Londoner. “I was just pleased she didn’t stop halfway through to ask me about Brexit.”

Quote of the Day

Our first female Dr Who talks to radio (Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

‘The people we look up to don’t always have to tick the same box’

Jodie Whittaker, the new Doctor Who, gives her first broadcast interview to BBC 6 Music

Catherine's keeping up with the Joneses

Showing her Welsh roots: Catherine Zeta-Jones on the QVC shoot (@catherinezetajones)

Who'd live in a house like this? Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is about to launch a range of luxury homeware with QVC, and yesterday posted a video from a publicity shoot. Glamour hasn’t always been a byword for Catherine. The Londoner’s South Wales correspondent recalls that her rise began when her parents won £100,000 at bingo, and used some of the proceeds to send her to drama school.

QVC states that the range, called Casa Zeta-Jones, is “influenced by her Welsh heritage and the elegance of old Hollywood”. You can take the girl out of Swansea...

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If viewing the private tapes of Princess Diana weren’t enough, you can now buy the car that she rode around America in. The car, a 1987 silver Rolls Royce Spur, was commissioned by the British Embassy in Washington DC, and was used by Diana on two separate occasions during a trip in 1990. The Balmoral green, Kevlar-coated car is going under the hammer for an estimate of £35,000 to £42,000. There’s room for three in this carriage...

A black mark from Zsa Zsa

John Simpson may never know how his Pa ended up with a black eye (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)
WireImage

Did John Simpson’s father get beaten up by Zsa Zsa Gabor? The veteran BBC correspondent has had many adventures in his time, but it seems his old man taught him a thing or two about getting out of a scrape.

Simpson writes a piece in this month’s BA High Life magazine about his first trip abroad, when he and his father could stand the English winter no longer. “‘How about Casablanca?’ Simpson recalls his father asking. ‘Great,’ I said brightly, ‘Where’s it showing?’”

Come New Year’s Eve the pair were seated in a restaurant in Morocco, metres away from Hungarian screen goddess Zsa Zsa Gabor. “She was sitting beside a dark young chap in evening dress, who didn’t take to my father. She on the other hand clearly did... ‘You stay here for a bit,’ said my father. ‘And if I’m gone for a while, just head back to the hotel’.”

His dad returned two days later, with a fading black eye. “‘Did Zsa Zsa...?’ I began. ‘Don’t’, he said.” John has got out of plenty of dodgier scrapes.

Tweet of the Day

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that THERE ARE OTHER BOOKS!”

Hodder & Stoughton’s Melissa Cox despairs at news that ITV is working on a new adaptation of Pride & Prejudice

Loss of the day: US media reports that Malia Obama, daughter of former POTUS Barack, mislaid her phone while at a music festival. Imagine the A-listers in her phonebook

David's horsing around on hols

David Furnish camping it up on a carousal in the South of France (David Furnish Instagram)
David Furnish

“Camp, moi?”, David Furnish wrote on Instagram yesterday. He has been on holiday in the south of France with his husband Elton John and comedian and actor David Walliams, and took a quick ride on a carousel. Good to see them all having such a Nice time.

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