Londoner's Diary: Wedding bells chime for Susie Orbach and Jeanette Winterson

 
Newlyweds: Jeanette Winterson and Susie Orbach (Picture: Rebecca Reid)
9 June 2015

The Londoner’s wedding hat was raised to Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit author Jeanette Winterson and psychotherapist Susie Orbach. It’s been a long time coming but the pair have finally tied the knot in a charming ceremony over the weekend.

On Saturday a host of well-wishers boarded a red double decker bus and joined them to toast their nuptials in a flower-filled garden.

They had kept the plans well hidden, especially impressive considering that the engagement was so public. On February 14, 2013, Winterson tweeted “VALENTINE’S DAY. Sun shining. Susie Orbach will you marry me? (Well, marriage is a public declaration isn’t it?)” Orbach didn’t respond publically, but the answer came this weekend.

“What a couple, & what a party!” one Twitter user posted yesterday, with novelist Kathy Lette calling it the “happiest, funniest, most joyful wedding ever”.

Neither of the brides wore white — Orbach wore a gold chiffon dress and Winterson a prom-style dress in duck- egg blue, and looked incredibly happy in a photo tweeted from the wedding.

The two met in 2010, when Winterson was asked to interview Orbach. They went for dinner instead. “I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it,” Winterson said soon after. “Susie calls herself post-heterosexual. I like that description because I like the idea of people being fluid in their sexuality. I don’t for instance consider myself to be a lesbian. I want to be beyond those descriptive constraints.”

Winterson marked the occasion on Twitter with a simple message: “Saturday June 6. Married Susie Orbach. A perfect day.” Lovely.

Are Jeremy Clarkson and his sidekick planning a new show?

Spotted yesterday: Jeremy Clarkson and long-term sidekick James May having a conspiratorial lunch in Mayfair. Sadly, The Londoner doesn’t know what was discussed at the Colony Grill Room. Perhaps something to do with the rumoured new show the pair will apparently be launching on Netflix with Richard Hammond?

Burnham’s own goal for anti-elitism

Andy Burnham announced his desire to take on the “metropolitan elite inside the Westminster bubble” last week, but the Telegraph isn’t having any of it. The paper published today an old picture of the scouser in black tie, along with some of his teammates from the Demon Eyes FC, the football club formed of “power-players at Westminster and Whitehall and in the media”. Its alumni include Tim Allen and Philip Collins, former comms director and speechwriter for Tony Blair, and James Purnell, former Culture Secretary and now at the BBC.

Where did the picture come from? None other than Liam Halligan, a player who is is now a columnist for... The Sunday Telegraph.

Metropolitan elite, indeed.

Ed and Em have no impediments

Singer Ed Sheeran and actress Emily Blunt were in New York last night for a gala thrown by the American Institute for Stuttering. Both suffered when they were children. Sheeran received an honorary award.

Successful stars: Ed Sheeran and Emily Blunt (Picture: Cindy Ord/Getty)
Cindy Ord/Getty Images for American Institute for Stuttering

Crediting the unlikely combination of rap music and homeopathic treatments for helping him overcome it, Sheeran said he had an embarrassment of riches when it came to childhood problems. “I was quite a weird kid when I was little,” he has explained previously. “I wore big glasses, had hearing problems, had a stutter and ginger hair, but I am now a successful musician and I have nothing to complain about.”

Certainly not if you’re hanging out with Emily Blunt.

Will Coulson spill the beans?

Now that they’re no longer on “Call me Dave” terms, might Andy Coulson be tempted to spill the beans on his old boss, the Prime Minister? Last July the former spin doctor and News of the World editor turned down a reported six-figure sum to contribute material to Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott’s Call Me Dave, an unauthorised biography of Cameron, citing a sense of “duty of honour to his former employer”.

But now Coulson is out of prison after serving five months of an 18-month sentence for phone-hacking and has been cleared of perjury charges over the disputed Tommy Sheridan sting he ran when editor of News of the World, could things change?

He has plenty of time on his hands and a fairly unique perspective on Downing Street, in particular over the phone-hacking scandal. Can he answer the criticial question of whether Cameron asked him about phone-hacking when hiring him?

The Londoner asked Oakeshott if the offer to contribute had been renewed to get in some extra information before its publication in October. “I can’t comment on this,” Oakeshott replied. “Thanks for your interest.” Was that a yes?

The other possibility is that Coulson might be busy with his own tell-all? Ex-convict, ex-politician, ex-tabloid editor — Biteback Publishers, which happen to be owned by Lord A, must also be hammering down Coulson’s door to hand him a contract.

The funny side of Kate's easyJet tantrum

Kate Moss’s friend Sadie Frost sees the funny side of her travelling companion’s apparent tantrum. Yesterday Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore wrote a piece entitled “If you think hell is sitting next to Kate Moss on an easyJet flight, you must be dead inside”. Frost, who had previously posted about the “healing week” spent in Turkey, simply retweeted it.

Jamie’s love song for Sophie

An evening such as the ICA hasn’t seen before last night as the Blue Marine Foundation marked its fifth anniversary with cocktails and canapés. Guests, sipping blue prosecco, were entertained by the recent photos of a naked Helena Bonham Carter with a tuna.

But a new distraction arrived in the form of Jamie Cullum. Introduced before his set as “the greatest jazz talent of his generation” he gave the audience a look of apologetic exasperation and said: “I’m really, really not.”

His wife, model Sophie Dahl, presumably disagreed. She dutifully stood at the front and was rewarded with a dedication, “My wife and I don’t get out much anymore, so this is for Sophie,” Cullum offered.

Was it All You Need Is Love? Perhaps Elvis’s You Were Always on My Mind? Alas, Cullum sang Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. How romantic.

Qualification of the day: the University of Melbourne has launched a Eurovision Song Contest degree course. Sign us up now.

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