Story with real legs in it

Sometimes I regret leaving the Daily Mail for The Sunday Times. What fun those four years were working for the Mail under the late Sir David English, to my mind the greatest editor England has produced.

Take, for example, last week's summit in Glasgow between Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, and the British Prime Minister, Theresa May. He would have expected me to focus not on trivial stuff, such as Brexit and the Scottish demand for a second referendum on independence, but on the real story - which of the women has the better legs.

The Mail's front page had a picture of Sturgeon and May sitting side by side - with the provocative but hard to ignore headline, Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!

Pages 6 and 7 were given over to "Sarah Vine's light-hearted verdict on the big showdown".

Sturgeon wasn't amused. "Brexit may risk taking Britain back to the early 1970s, but there is no need for coverage of events to lead the way," her spokesperson protested.

In my Fleet Street days, news editors would indicate a story had potential to run and run with the comment: "This one's got legs!"

This one on legs certainly had legs.

Harriet Harman, former Labour deputy leader (who accused an Indian professor of offering her sex for a better degree when she was at York University), raged: "Moronic! And we are in 2017!"

The Mail hit back, telling its critics to "get a life", and arguing that its coverage was meant to be "light-hearted".

May, whose likes clothes - she wore a sari during her temple visit in Bangalore last November - was amused and dismissed the row as "a bit of fun". 

Cannes row

Ahead of the start of the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, trouble has broken out over the official poster which features a photograph of Italian actress Claudia Cardinale swirling her skirt on a Rome roof in 1959

Apparently her thighs have been airbrushed to make them look slimmer. "Claudia Cardinale dropped a dress size in one swirl," said the Left-leaning Liberation.

The culture magazine Telerama commented: "While the poster is magnificent, the photograph has clearly and deplorably been airbrushed to thin the actress's thighs. What a pity."

Cardinale, who is now 78, dismissed the "fake row".

"This image has been retouched to accentuate this effect of lightness and transpose me into a dream character," she said loftily. "This concern for realism has no place here and, as a committed feminist, I see no affront to the female body."

Calcutta's loss

Oxford University is to emphasise its ethnic diversity by displaying paintings of 20 of its dons and famous former students at an exhibition at the Bodelian Library in November before they are hung permanently in the Examinations Schools.

They include an oil painting of Calcutta-born and Bethune College-educated Aditi Lahiri, 64, who earned two doctorates - one from Calcutta University in Comparative Philology and the other in Linguistics from Brown University - and is now Professor of Linguistics and Fellow of Somerville College in Oxford.

She "really, really tried" once to get a job in Calcutta University but was kept out by a department head who announced it would be "over my dead body".

She has been painted in a sari by talented British artist Rosalie Watkins - "it was a real privilege to spend time with Aditi and see her world".

The "immensely distinguished" Prof. Lahiri is one of the 20 following a recommendation from Somerville's principal, Alice Prochaska, who declares: "Aditi is Bengali but really a citizen of the world."

Just off the plane from a working trip to Jadavpur and Bethune, Aditi tells me: "Radhakrishnan was the first (Indian) male to have a chair at Oxford - I am the first woman."

Tata tea

The Tata-owned St. James' Court Hotel, Taj Hotel, in Buckingham Gate in London, home to politicians and Bollywood stars when they are in town, is starting a "Sherlock Holmes-themed tea service" from April 18.

There might be a mock murder or two to solve over tea, I am told - perhaps of a company chairman. Helpful clues will be served with the scones, cream and jam.

This was disclosed last week at the Tata Innovation Showcase, at the Royal Society.

Tittle tattle

The latest Private Eye cover features George Osborne, former chancellor of the exchequer, speaking to staff at the London Evening Standard, which he will soon edit.

Under the headline, "Osborne come-back as newspaper editor", the politician sacked by Theresa May is saying: "Hold the Front bench!"

Other balloons have quotes from assembled journalists: "It's the lead tory!"; "Read all about twit!"; "He's not a total banker, just part-time"; and "There's no conflict of interest - he's not interested in journalism."