ITV’s programme The Savoy at Christmas recalls the halcyon days when the hotel was once a sort of upmarket canteen for some senior Express execs. There’s a tale of Sir Larold Lamb being forced to take public transport to the Strand when his office car was off the road. Hopping aboard a west-bound No. 11 Routemaster outside PA, the great man ordered the conductor: ‘Take me to The Savoy!’

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Who knew? Elizabeth Taylor amassed a fabulous fortune from films, including a percentage cut of Cleopatra, and husbands but this was easily eclipsed by a perfume she developed and marketed in 1991. White Diamonds, described as ‘a magical and glamorous fragrance’ has brought in £1.5billion (and counting).Channel 4’s Wagatha Christie trial re-enactment (bit tedious, isn’t it?) gives everyone another chance to laugh at Peter André’s allegedly diminutive cock. Not that André, a genial chap, seems fazed. Apparently, at an after show media trough fest to mark his West End turn in Grease he handed around a tray of chipolatas to hacks to help the medicine go down. 

Incidentally, another name for the Rooney-Vardy libel tussle: The Scousetrap.  

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How the ‘mighty’ have fallen: jungle over-achiever Matt Hancock entered the book charts at 191 with his much-hyped Pandemic Diaries. Now, though, it has plummeted out of the Top Thousand altogether, comprehensively outsold by The Air Fryer Cookbook. Ouch!

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Just when you thought it was safe to return to the No10 rose garden … BoJo takes the first important step on his comeback trail. The ousted prime minister has flown to Rupert Murdoch’s ranch in Montana to beg the media mogul to support him when, the theory goes, May’s local election results make Rishi Sunak’s position untenable. 

Apparently, Murdoch ‘heard him out’ and now Victoria Newton, Tony Gallagher and Emma Tucker are said to be dreading the phone call telling them to back Johnson.

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Darts? That’s for cissies. Latest craze in the US, says The Economist, is axe throwing. Some 20,000 competitors take part in 324 dedicated venues (up from 16 in 2017) all over the country. Chucking axes at wooden targets is also popular for team-building, stag dos and break-up parties where women target pictures of their exes. As retired cop Dean Cooper, from Texas, says: ‘I get to throw sharp stuff into wood and drink beer with friends. What’s not to like?’

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My snippet recalling Dorothy Parker’s Wrath of Grapes warning to those who, ahem, like a tincture prompts old chums to message The Goss with other examples of her keen wit.

From Country Boys’ Billie the Ghillie (and he should know): ‘I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.’

And from a feature writer who, wisely, wishes to remain anonymous: ‘I’m not a writer with a drinking problem but a drinker with a writing problem.’

Finally, from cheeky little Flo, who sometimes used to assist Alice (as in ‘pass the sickbag’) in the Express Grill Room: ‘I like to have a Martini: two at the very most. After three I’m under the table; after four I’m under my host.’

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As the Christmas party season builds to its over-loud, often embarrassing, sometimes vomit-flecked climax let’s remind ourselves of, and heed, Dorothy Parker’s warning about the Wrath of Grapes.

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Worried how Donald J Trump is faring two years after his fall from grace? Don’t bother. Legal problems aside, the 45th president is like a pig in shit, says the Washington Post (it didn’t really but you know what I mean). The strawberry blond-tressed 76-year-old plays 18 or 27 holes of golf six days a week using a golf buggie equipped with a laptop and printer which a lackey, who rides shotgun, uses to show him nice media coverage. On ‘quiet days’ another lackey calls his allies to request they phone him ‘to boost his sprits with positive affirmations’.

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Talk about the cost of living crisis: loaves of a Japanese-style milk bread are selling for £11.40 a pop in London and £15 in Los Angeles. The Tokyo bakery Gina Nishikawa, which created the latest must-try nosh called Shokupan, has a secret (up till now) ingredient for each loaf: a spoonful of honey.

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A bearer pads into my den bearing a cleft stick containing a dispatch from a chum at the Mirror. The message reads: This is the first par of the latest Hi folks, coming after our paltry 3% and all the misery of staff cuts and rota mischief:

'Hi folks

This week I've begun my annual tradition of reading A Christmas Carol … It's a reminder on the importance of reflection and a great recharge of your empathy batteries!'

My contact commented: 'Presumably he's lost the charger for the 'self-awareness batteries’.

To spare the author’s blushes I hesitate to name him. Suffice to say it’s Big Jim, who may or may not be CEO of Reach.

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