Meryl Streep is no match for Margaret Thatcher

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A photograph of Meryl Streep as Lady Thatcher makes the former premier look as if she had swallowed a bottle of Valium, her eyes wide and vacantLady Thatcher's family and friends arerightly concerned about a new film of her life, The Iron Lady, starringMeryl Streep.
Apparently Ms Streep portrays her as a meanderingoctogenarian who, in an early version of the script, questions both theFalklands war and her own economic policies.
After Lady Thatcher'sinner circle protested, however, revisions were made.I am lucky enough to have known Margaret Thatcher, who wasa friend of my father, since I was 11. And I don't think Ms Streep isup to playing our greatest peace-time Prime Minister. I have always found her a dull actress, and a photograph ofher as Lady Thatcher makes the former premier look as if she hadswallowed a bottle of Valium, her eyes wide and vacant.
The Iron Lady'smost striking feature is her eyes: intensely focused, mesmeric andunexpectedly compassionate. She didn't regret the Falklands war, but her husband Denisonce told me: 'Every time one of our boys was killed, she weptinconsolably.'

Lady Thatcher berated me for not doing community work,saying I had a duty to help those less fortunate.
She and the QueenMother both had that unswerving sense of devoir so lacking in today'snon-conviction politicians and public figures. Ms Streep could nevercapture such an elusive quality. And Maggie has much better legs thanMeryl, too.

The left-wing man

Readers have been taking an interest in my lovelife.
One email asked: 'What do you dislike in a man?'
Practicallyeverything, actually. No, I lie. Men are dears. Only some are dearerthan others - in more ways than one. There are those who, perhaps asrevenge for feminism, expect you to keep them in the manner to whichthey hope to grow accustomed. Then there is the Left-w! ing boyf riend. A date with asocialist proceeds thus. You ask: 'Where shall we go for dinner?'
'Somewhere cheap and not cheerful,' he says, because he objects tofashionable restaurants frequented by fat cats.
Having arrived, heperuses the plastic menu with astonishment.
'Amazing,' he exclaims,'6 for a main course!' 'As little as that,' you say.
'I mean as much as that,' heresponds.
When the bill arrives, a ginormous 16.75, he asksyou for 8.37, and is particularly insistent about the halfpence.
Next week, I shall be talking about the Right-wing man.

Alan Clark: The myth about this 'great seducer'

Anne Robinson says she refused the advances of thelate lustful politician and diarist Alan Clark, who propositioned herover lunch in 1989.
What I can never understand is why Clark is thoughtto have been a great womaniser, cutting a swathe through the beautiesof his day. With the exception of his wife Jane, all the good-lookingwomen he pursued were chaise longue-avoidant.
The women he did seducewere so unprepossessing that they would have been grateful for a tumblewith the Elephant Man.
I put this to Clark shortly before he died. Hislegendary sense of humour seemed to fail him.

Never mind the Oscars, what about a crown?

Does Colin Firth believe he is the heir apparent?

Is Colin Firth starting to believe he really is King of England, or at least heir apparent? He sounds and looks increasingly like Prince Charles.
At a pre-Bafta party I attended I noticed he now has a bald patch and, was it my imagination, or have his ears got bigger?
Mr Firth,moreover, has been going on a sort of Royal progress, giving interviewsabout carbon footprints and the environment.
Soon, like the Prince of Wales, he will be demanding that his toothpaste be squeezed for him.

The No 10 Rasputin

Mail On Sunday music critic an! d former Tory Minister David Mellor compares Steve Hilton, David Cameron's policy guru, to Grigori Rasputin,the mad holy man who held sway over the last Russian tsar, whom he addressed as 'father of the nation'.

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I find this immensely ticklish.
Rasputin never washed or changed his clothes, refused to use cutlery and had a straggly beard 'encrusted with debris'.
Can't you just picture the scene in No 10 as Mr Hilton arrives for a policy meeting in a soiled peasant blouse and pantaloons, with a beard covered in Starbucks porridge. Cameron: 'Er, is that you Steve?'
Hilton/Rasputin: 'Call me Grigori, Batiushka.' Cameron: 'What?'
Hilton/Rasputin: 'Batiushka. It means "little father". You are father of many little British people, yes?' Cameron: 'Er, no. That's Boris.'

The link between colds and lovelife

When a man gets a cold it's a serious illness; when a woman gets a cold it's psychosomatic. Unfortunately there is some truth in this.
Scientists in California say career women, especially those who are single, are more prone to anxiety which weakens the immune system.
This reminds me o! f Adelai de, the permanently sniffling dancer in the musical Guys And Dolls who has been engaged for 14 years. I have been engaged for ten years - albeit to three different men and not at the same time - and I am always catching colds.
As Adelaide's Lament goes: 'From a lack of a community property/And a feeling she's getting too old/A person can develop a bad, bad, cold!' At-choo!