So much for the Great British Banger

Yahoo

11-04-2025

Disappointment among British expats in Singapore where guests at the High Commissioner's splendid residence, Eden Hall, are no longer served meat dishes at parties and dinners. High Commissioner Nikesh Mehta, who took up his post last year, is a vegetarian.
My source in the linen suit tells me that this decision is 'much to the displeasure of freeloading' Brits used to a 'wonderful supply of cocktail sausages specially prepared by a local butcher and fish and chips from Smiths – the famous Singapore chippy. These delicacies are 'all now banned! So much for the Great British Banger!'
A Foreign Office source confirms: 'The High Commissioner's residence serves vegetarian-only food'. They'll be banning Singapore Slings next.
The last hours of debate in the Commons before recess are normally given over to the 'Easter Adjournment'. Not so last Tuesday when the order paper said there would be a 'General Debate: Matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment', with no mention of Easter at all.
Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, told MPs he was 'perturbed', adding: 'The Easter Adjournment debate was always a significant occasion, marking the fact that Easter is the holiest time of year for Christians.' Fellow Tory MP Bob Blackman agreed to restore Easter to the title of the debate. But without vigilant MPs like Rosindell and Blackman, who else will stop woke efforts to erase Easter?
Comedian Shazia Mirza, met Elizabeth II, the late Queen, three times, and spoke at length with her. 'It was like chatting to an old woman at a bus stop,' she told the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner podcast. Explaining she was a comedian, the Queen replied: 'What a fascinating way to describe yourself. And where do you do that?' Mirza told the Queen about her next gig at gay venue the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, in London. 'There's tickets available, do you want to come?' she offered, saying that she appeared on BBC and ITV. 'Do you watch TV?' Mirza asked. The Queen replied: 'Yes, I watch Coronation Street.'
Pop star turned celebrity vicar, Richard Coles, 63, is feeling his age. He says: 'I'm knackered. My knees are knackered, I'm fat. It was my birthday on March 26 and I bought myself Ozempic as a birthday present.' He tells the Mid-Point podcast: 'I think I'm 28 really, and then I look in the mirror and I see my grandfather looking back at me. My favourite age to be was 38... and I'd be very happy to be 38 for a good long stretch. I'm not that, but I'm really enjoying my 60s.'
Boris Johnson remembers his time as London mayor more fondly than his reign in No 10, because there were no pesky Tory MPs who could bring him down. He was overheard at a Saudi event saying: 'I was very lucky when I was mayor of London because it was a bit like being a sheikh... I was in charge, I was a monarch – nobody could challenge me.'
Former BBC colleagues Rory Cellan-Jones, Mark Mardell and Jeremy Paxman have joined forces with ex-judge Sir Nicholas Mostyn and Vicar of Dibley writer Paul Mayhew-Archer – who all have Parkinson's disease – to push for better treatment for fellow sufferers on their Movers and Shakers podcast.
Mayhew-Archer uses humour to lift the mood, Cellan-Jones told me on GB News's Chopper's Political Podcast: 'He was saying to me the other day that there is concern that one of the dangers of Parkinson's is you could be encouraged to take your own life. But luckily, he said, another symptom of Parkinson's is apathy.'
Concern this week when Radio 3 presenter Georgia Mann played a 1996 recording of Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs without Rule, Britannia! as the finale. The BBC apologised when I got in touch, and said the rousing song was included as a separate track, but had mistakenly not been uploaded. But after Katie Derham, presenter of Last Night of the Proms, said the lyrics to Rule, Britannia! were 'incredibly problematic' just seven months ago, it felt like a worrying sign of things to come.
Thanks to the dozens of readers who pointed out that Salisbury cathedral is not in Somerset. It was a production error in last week's column, not a late April Fool. Former Tory MP for North East Somerset Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg got in touch to say he was tickled 'by our expansion, it is a beautiful cathedral'. He explained: 'I am delighted to see that Somerset has conquered Wiltshire. If it hadn't been for us, in 878 Wiltshire would have been Danish anyway.'
Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope. You can reach him at [e-mail]
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