The Grauniad’s finest hour
Ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger confessed on his Media Confidential podcast that his former newspaper’s “all time great correction” was about football. It read: “In an interview with Sir Jack Hayward, the chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers, yesterday we mistakenly attributed to him the following comment: ‘Our team was the worst in the First Division and I am sure it will be the worst in the Premier League’.
“Sir Jack had just declined the offer of a hot drink. What he actually said was: ‘Our tea was the worst in the First Division...’.”
Bishops practise their ABC
The Church of England is on the hunt for a new Archbishop of Canterbury. And, right on cue, the House of Lords was full of bishops this week. “Unusually strong showing of bishops in the House of Lords today – I wonder why?” asks my spy in the red ermine.
The Bishop of Manchester led the prayers on Wednesday while another five Lords Spiritual were spotted on the front bench, the day after the “ABC” quit. “I’m told it will be a vicious competition,” he says.
Let battle commence!
Spectator split
Ahead of the US presidential election, new Spectator editor Michael Gove told the BBC: “I would vote for Kamala Harris.”
But now, in the Financial Times, his magazine’s new owner, Sir Paul Marshall, could not contain his delight about Donald Trump’s triumph. “What’s not to like?” he asked, urging Sir Keir Starmer to pursue a trade deal with Trump.
Will Gove now change his tune?
What a way to go
Songwriter Chip Taylor says the funeral of Reg Presley, lead singer of the Troggs, who made a 1966 hit out of his song Wild Thing, was “the best rock show I ever saw”.
Taylor – uncle of actress Angelina Jolie – tells Uncut magazine: “There was an orator, and every time she finished talking, they’d play a hit. They ended with Wild Thing as the coffin went into the furnace. Everybody was cheering. It was the best rock show I ever saw.”
Big feet, little feet
Ping! Actor Nigel Havers emails to tell me his feet have also increased by half a shoe size in late middle age, just like eco-financier Ben Goldsmith’s have.
“My wife tells me my arches have dropped. It comes with getting old she kindly pointed out,” he says. “It’s not the only thing that’s dropped but that’s another story.”
Nigel and Ben are not alone. Peterborough reader Geoff Dorey says his feet have grown from a size 9 in his 20s to 11 in his 80s. He says: “When – and if – I approach 90 and 100, I think I might have my whatever-size shoes made by Lobb of St James.”
But it is not all one way traffic. BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions presenter Alex Forsyth tells me her feet are shrinking and she has dropped a shoe size (from an 8 to a 7) in recent years. What is going on?
Empire parents
I am reminded that the father of the 78-year-old actor Charles Dance was born in 1874.
Incredibly, Charles’s father Walter fought in the Second Boer War (1899 to 1902) as a sergeant in the 2nd Regular Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers.
Do any Peterborough readers know of anyone alive today who has an older parent who fought in the Boer War?
Mel unshelled
A fan of shadow Chancellor Mel Stride – whose appearance on GB News’ Chopper’s Political Podcast failed to help his Tory leadership challenge during the summer – emails to say he had better luck running for the presidency of the Oxford Union in 1983.
Despite Cherwell, the student newspaper, reporting that Stride was “making a last-ditch attempt this term to come back from the brink of obscurity” which was “quite a task for an average non-entity”, Stride won the election, beating the likes of Roland Rudd, who is now chairman of the Tate galleries.
Never hide the Stride!
Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk