Billionaire Blasted by Locals for Fireworks Stunt

He lavished £28million on his daughter’s wedding, snapped up Bernie Ecclestone’s 12-bedroom London town house for £64million and donated £5million to the after becoming chummy with .

But last year steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, 75, reportedly became the latest billionaire to leave Starmer’s Britain, opting for residency in Switzerland, though apparently intending to spend plenty of time in where he’s acquired a ‘baroque mansion’ for £152million in a gated community dubbed the ‘Beverly Hills of the Middle East’.

But if the neighbours of Alderbrook Park, the billionaire’s 400-acre Surrey estate, concluded that was the last they’d heard from Mittal and his family, they’ve been traumatically corrected.

All was blissfully quiet – until last Saturday evening. Then, I can disclose, rural tranquillity was shattered by devastating pyrotechnics.

‘It wasn’t a normal firework display, it was enormous,’ one local tells me. ‘The fireworks were like gunships. I don’t know where they got them from. They engulfed the whole Surrey landscape. My whole house shook.’

Others have vented their frustration publicly. ‘As soon as the fireworks started, my horses cantered off,’ says one equestrian who was close to Alderbrook at the time – not that those much further away were spared.

‘Scaring animals in Shamley Green,’ says another, two miles distant as the crow flies from the detonations. But worse followed. On Sunday night, there was another thunderous display – starting much later. ‘After 10pm when children have school the next day?’ wailed one distraught parent, with another labelling the Mittals ‘utterly selfish!’

This time, the noise carried further. ‘Omg I can hear it from Albury Heath,’ noted one local, echoed by another in Bramley: ‘Can hear them over the TV.’

Both Albury Heath and Bramley are four miles from Alderbrook.

The Mittals declined to comment but a friend assures me that efforts have been made to apologise for any ‘unintentional disruption’.

Adds the chum: ‘The last thing the family would want would be to upset residents.’

They may care to heed a suggestion. ‘Perhaps Mrs Mittal can celebrate with just a cake next year?’ muses one local, who believes that the first night’s bangs were for Mittal’s wife Usha’s birthday – and the second for the Hindu festival of Akshaya Tritiya.

Zawe laments fickle fashion

Actress Zawe Ashton, whose partner is Avengers star and Old Etonian Tom Hiddleston, is used to the red carpet.

But having welcomed her second child earlier this year, the 41-year-old, who recently attended the Olivier awards in London, admits that she now considers herself to be ‘plus-sized’ which she says makes her less attractive for brand and sponsorship deals. 

‘Being plus-sized, having not previously been and then working that whole journey through,’ she muses.

‘But being in a bigger body, the performative nature of allyship from brands when it came to women and bigger bodies was a facade. When you’re in a bigger body you don’t get a ticket at the table, no one wants to help you.’

The sensual secret shared by Jude Law and Jorginho... 

The actor – who has an 11-year-old daughter with singer Cat Harding, now married to Jorginho – also shares the midfielder’s penchant for a ‘seductive’ scent.

Fragrance guru Azzi Glasser reveals Jorginho recently attended one of her scent workshops in London at his wife’s request.

‘He left with Mystere Vetivert,’ she tells me of the £259 perfume, described as ‘rich, charismatic and seductive’. The same scent, it turns out, has been Jude’s signature for a decade.

‘He buys bottles of it,’ adds Azzi.

Walliams' ex Lara enjoys a laugh with a giraffe

As one of the world’s most famous supermodels, Lara Stone isn’t easily upstaged.

But that’s exactly what happened when the Vogue cover star enjoyed a safari holiday in Kenya recently.

The ex-wife of comedian David Walliams visited the Giraffe Manor where she was seated in front of a plate of dried grass pellets to entice wandering giraffes.

She was delighted when one popped its head through the window to sample the snack.

‘So lucky to experience this trip to Kenya,’ says Lara, 42, who shared a photo of the comical moment online.

‘The unforgettable memories and the magic will stay with me forever.’

Hugh and new love have a (glitter) ball

Hugh Bonneville appears to have swapped Downton for the dancefloor.

The 62-year-old, who found global fame as the straitlaced Earl of Grantham in the ITV period drama, stepped out this week for a date night with his girlfriend, vegan activist and influencer Heidi Kadlecova, 58, in matching glitterball-inspired outfits.

Heidi, with whom Hugh struck up a romance in 2024 following his split from his wife of 25 years, Lulu Williams, the previous year, shared a selfie of the pair online, describing him as her ‘ride or die’.

A far cry from Downton Abbey’s drawing-room decorum.

Green light for Becks' plan 

His rural credentials are beyond question – last year, he guest edited Country Life magazine. That’s just as well, because I can disclose that Sir David Beckham has been told to get his green fingers in action at his £12million spread where he hopes to construct a new ‘gravel track’.

This is OK, says the council’s ecology bigwig, as along as Becks establishes ‘a wildflower meadow’ and undertakes ‘supplementary tree planting’. Saplings are out of the question – not for the council, but for Becks who says that he goes for ‘bigger trees – they have an instant impact’.

Its alumni include scores of brave naval gentlemen – plus the late Soho boulevardier Jeffrey Bernard and ribald film director Ken Russell.

But today sees what’s possibly the biggest dust-up in the history of £54,000-a-year Pangbourne College, Berkshire. After 100 years, it’s called time on the Old Pangbournian Society in favour of what mutinous critics decry as the ‘wokey’ Pangbourne Community, whose membership won’t be limited to Old Pangbournians. ‘We’re being keel-hauled,’ one OP tells me, before today’s extraordinary general meeting. The school assures me that alumni are ‘a valued part of the wider Pangbourne Community’. But, for some, the gangplank never looked more inviting…

Graham Norton is wasting no time installing the essentials at his new London pad.

I hear the effervescent broadcaster, 63 – who recently moved house with his husband, filmmaker Jonathan McLeod – has had a hot tub fitted in his back garden. ‘I find the summer’s not so warm – so you can stay out and keep warm.’

The bibulous star adds: ‘I love a plastic glass of wine that floats on top of the water. That’s living.’

Stylish Alexa Chung is on a mission to make ageing cool. The model admits: ‘I don’t mind feeling old. I think we need to claim it back.

‘You can’t be shamed if you own the thing: I am old. When I say my age to someone, they’re like, “Oh my god! Really? Oh, don’t worry, you don’t look it.” I’m like, it’s OK if I do. I feel this exact amount of years on earth. I really feel them and I’m thrilled with them. I’m not worried about that.’

You’re only 42, love!

(Very) modern manners 

He's a veteran of stage and screen, but there was a time when suave Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston was far more naive. In his earlier career, the US actor thought it was fine to casually kiss female friends on the lips.

Fortunately, his innocence did in fact lead him to his wife, Robin Dearden, whom he met on set of a TV series. He said: ‘We were kissing one time. The proper duration of a platonic kiss is one second.

‘If you go over one second it is no longer platonic. Robin and I did just that.

‘We kissed and we just stayed too long. Something was brewing.’

The couple have been married since 1989 and have a daughter, actress Taylor Dearden, 33.