Meanwhile talking of cleavages the Chippendales will open on 22 April at

Meanwhile, talking of cleavages, the Chippendales will open on 22 April at Shepherd’s Bush for their 30-date major city tour I didn’t know we had 30 major cities. And then there’s Comic Relief, on 17 March, highlight: Phil Collins singing “Old Macdonald Had A Farm” with Goldie Hawn as a duck, Emma Thompson as a pig and Hugh Grant as a cat I notice Stephen Fry will be doing something as well And Julio Iglesias will be here in June But there is one encouraging note. The other week, in a bid to determine general knowledge, we asked a panel to name Hugh Grant’s girlfriend. Subsequently a postcard arrived, featuring a fine colour photograph of The Avenue, Bournemouth. It is from Mr and Mrs Barker, who live in that lovely town, the Nice of Dorset, as I recall, and it bears a simple query.

“Who,” it asks, “is Hugh Grant?”AS resolute readers will know, I do try to be fair-minded. So when glib opinion suggested that a new MEP, Sir James Goldsmith, and democratic practices would prove an uneasy mix, I kept my counsel. I am naturally saddened, then, to report that Sir James took it upon himself last week to order the European Parliament’s broadcasting unit to cover a speech he had decided to deliver on Friday despite this being a day on which the unit does not operate. Demur was to no avail; Sir James’s demand was upheld by Enrico Vinci, the parliament’s secretary-general. Thus was Sir James recorded on Friday morning, addressing an assembly principally composed of a couple of Tory MEPs teasing him about his lust for coverage.

Captain’s conclusion: teasing and a low turnout are unlikely to have much effect on Sir James; this is the man, after all, who “didn’t notice a thing” when a wheel fell off his private jet on Thursday as it was coming in to land at Strasbourg.I could lie to you. I could pretend that this is a picture of a couple planning to row the Atlantic in a leaky bath. I could pretend that it is two employees of an equal opportunities plumbing firm preparing to deal with a nasty case of rust in the pipes But that would leave me with a few problems. What, you would ask, about the rabbi in the background? And why, you might continue, is the woman wearing a veil? So I have decided to come clean, principally because what is going on here is impossible to improve on. It is the wedding in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, on Valentine’s Day, of Cheryl Minikes and Matthew Mandell, both 22. Rabbi Goldman is officiating in what is described as a “non-traditional” ceremony Yes, that is chocolate in the bath. The couple chose chocolate because they thought it “the most passionate of foods”.