Beckhams Cotswolds Plans Fall Through

Resplendent in an impeccably tailored suit – and a shirt with the sort of cut-away collar long favoured by his new chum – Sir has looked every inch the Establishment figure during , which he’s watched from the Royal Box (where else?).

But his flawless, almost regal appearance evidently cuts little, if any, of the proverbial mustard down in Oxfordshire – at least, not among council bigwigs who’ve been sifting through Becks’s latest plans for embellishing the Cotswolds retreat that he and his wife Victoria snapped up for £6.15 million in 2016.

Barely had an ecologist ruled that Sir David should remove the ‘fire pit’ on the island in his man-made lake, as I disclosed last month, than other officials delivered an even blunter verdict on his plans for the nine-bedroom house.

David, 51, and Victoria, 52, had intended to enhance what their planning agent describes as ‘the west elevation of the west wing’ by adding an ‘oak-framed balcony’ – only to have this seemingly modest proposal condemned out of hand.

Planning officer Nathan Harris kicks off by expressing ‘concerns in relation to the siting and design’, adding that he feels the balcony ‘would detract from the simple agricultural character and form’ of the property. Though how many ‘simple agricultural’ buildings boast a gym, spa, cinema, games room, ‘Estonian sauna’, hot tub and plunge pool is open to question.

Harris concludes that, while the Beckhams’ residence ‘isn’t listed’, he feels ‘the proposal would fail to conserve and enhance the building’.

But it’s the council’s senior conservation and design officer, Bryan Martin, who really puts the boot in. Branding the balcony a ‘non-starter’, he fulminates that not only would it be ‘a domesticating feature’ but it would also ‘obscure the threshing doorway – a characteristic feature’. There is, he adds, perhaps rather triumphantly, ‘no obvious way to do anything like it’.

Salman's got me hooked on sports, says author's wife

Sir Salman Rushdie is known for his literary brilliance, but his greatest triumph at home could be turning his wife, the poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths, into a sports fanatic.

Sir Salman, 79, was feted at the Liberatum Cultural Honour Gala in London, where his American wife spoke of her new fixation.

Lady Rushdie, who is 32 years his junior, tells me: ‘He’s converted me into caring about the Tottenham Spurs [sic], the Yankees, and England’s next match in the World Cup, while I have reciprocated by forcing him to watch endless episodes of Law & Order.’

Rachel became the author’s fifth wife in 2021, the year before he lost sight in one eye during a murder attempt.

She says life at their New York home takes on a special energy whenever Sir Salman starts work on a new book.

‘Our home sparkles when Salman begins a new story. I also make sure that we have a solid supply of vodka tonics.’

Nigel Farage’s open warfare with Sky News over its ‘harassment’ of his daughter creates a certain awkwardness for Westminster secretary Caroline ‘Sugar t**s’ Edmondson, who was given her colourful nickname by former boss Mark Garnier MP. The convivial Caroline left Garnier’s employment after the Tory asked her to visit a sex shop on his behalf.

Now she runs Farage’s parliamentary office. Her husband, meanwhile, is the veteran TV reporter Jon Craig who works for... Sky News.

Dame Judi Dench has revealed she once posted a dead rat through a neighbour’s letterbox.

‘The boys played cricket in the garden and they were always batting balls into other gardens,’ she says of her two older brothers. ‘One lady, Ms Lazenby, never threw them back. So they found a dead rat and parcelled it up and said, “Judi, will you put this through her door?” So I squeezed it through.

‘They tied a message to the rat saying, “Give us our balls back!”’ She adds on Radio 4’s This Natural Life: ‘I don’t think we ever got our balls.’

A special 4th July for Lady Violet

When Lady Violet Manners accepted a proposal from William Lindesay-Bethune, she described him as her ‘Caledonian Cowboy’ after he got down on bended knee in Colorado’s picturesque Rocky Mountains while wearing a Western hat.

So how fitting that their first child should be born on the 250th anniversary of the creation of the United States of America.

‘Our little boy John arrived safely into this world in the early hours of 4th July,’ says Lady Violet, 32, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland. Her husband, who has the title Viscount Garnock, is based between Texas and Scotland because of the low or no-alcohol spirits brand that he co-founded.

Known for his trademark Yorkshire tones, Sean Bean bravely attempts an American accent in new Western movie The Isolate Thief.

‘I did a lot of work on the accent because it’s not one that I’ve played before,’ the Sheffield-born star, 67, explains. ‘Because we were shooting up in Arkansas, I thought I’d base the accent around there. I went there ahead of time so I could be around people and listen to their rhythms and their vowel and consonant sounds.

‘It all sounds very technical, but I think I got it in the end... it was very important for me to get that right and to become part of this ensemble who are all otherwise genuine Americans.’