The Archers is going all fashionable. Zandra Rhodes (below) has agreed to appear as herself in Radio 4's everyday story of country folk. The exotic designer will feature on 22 September (presenting Sophie's fundraising fashion show for Sundial House at Lower Loxley, if that means anything to you). Let's hope she has more success than busybody Lynda Snell, who recruited the last real-life sleb, Griff Rhys Jones, for her doomed campaign to renovate the former Cat and Fiddle pub.
First I hear heckling at the Proms ("This is too slow," bellowed at the world-renowned pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard the other day). But are things now so out of control that the police are being called? Well, they turned up after Evgeny Kissin's Shostakovich recital on 2 August to break up warring Prom-goers. Whatever next!
Mischa Barton, glamorous star of The OC, will be staying in the UK. She's just finished a Shakespeare course at Rada, and has been meeting UK producers with a view to getting a TV gig.
If you thought the Tories were just a bunch of philandering, lying toads then . . . have your prejudices confirmed by Unzipped, published by Virgin Books later this month. It's a tale of sexual shenanigans by a real-life Tory politico whose name is a closely guarded secret, for the moment.
Another autumn literary treat promises to be the most inadvertently hilarious book of the season. Lady Annabel Goldsmith, mother of Jemima Khan, is giving the world Copper (Time Warner), a story of "Richmond, Kingston and Brighton high society" - as told by a dog.
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