by Director Jemima Goldsmith, who has had a string of high-profile romances, often wishes she had an arranged marriage instead. Saying she was “someone who did the exact opposite,” she Goldsmith said, “Frankly speaking personally I could have saved myself a lot of headaches and headaches if I’d had someone fix it for me.”
Goldsmith wrote a romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do With It? and she told Australian TV that she came out of talks with friends about who their parents would choose for them. “If you had healthy, functional parents who would agree — which I don’t — who would they choose for you and would it work?” she said.
At 21, Jemima married cricketer and politician Imran Khan and went to live with his family in Pakistan. “I’ve gotten to see arranged marriages up close … and some of them have been—to me, with my preconceptions—surprisingly happy and successful,” she said. “I think there’s a lot to be said for simmering and then boiling,” she said, “walking in love rather than running.” She continued to have relationships with Hugh Grant and Russell Brand.
Jemima added, “I come from a long line in my family of ill-suited marriages and ill-suited matches.” Khan’s father, the late Sir James Goldsmith, once said: “When a man marries his mistress he creates a vacancy.”
Corbyn’s ghost is still at large
Labour’s foreign affairs man David Lammy expressed his deadlock for the government in a speech at Chatham House yesterday, promising he would deliver a ‘Britain Reconnected’, including better ties with the EU.
We were intrigued when Lammy said his foreign policy would be “for the many, not the few.” Although Tony Blair used the slogan, derived from a Shelley poem, he is famously associated with Jeremy Corbyn’s two election campaigns. Although Lammy nominated Corbyn for the Labor leadership in 2015, he has long since disowned the old socialist and now enjoys a place in Keir Starmer’s top team. Language theft?
Daisy’s night terrors
STAR WARS actress Daisy Ridley says she could relate to her role as a socially awkward office worker in the new film Sometimes I Think of Dying, as she too has anxieties. “I’ve had moments where I think I’m useless company,” Ridley says. “I eat really well and I say one thing and then I go to bed thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s not what I meant. Like, what if they take it badly?’” Join the club.
Loyal to German playwrights
WRITER David Baddiel spoke at the Anne Frank Trust luncheon at the Hilton on Park Lane yesterday, held ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Baddiel said his Jewish grandfather “never stopped being German” despite Nazi persecution: he was sent to Dachau before fleeing to Britain. “Even though Germany destroyed his life, he went to his grave saying Goethe was a better playwright than Shakespeare,” Baddiel said.
Johnny is definitely the dad
Diary of the Londoner November 25th
Yesterday, TORY Congressman Johnny Mercer did some parenting in addition to his daily office work. He titled this shot “Daddy daycare”. Elsewhere, singer Lily Allen showed off a new haircut. Last night, Spice Girl Emma Bunton supported her bandmate Mel C at the latter’s new Sadler’s Wells dance show, while Sam Smith invited fans, including influencers Anastasia Kingsnorth and Saffron Barker, to a show at Soho’s The Windmill. And in Stepney Green, stars Máiréad Tyers and Bilal Hasna attended a screening of their new superhero comedy series Extraordinary for Disney+.
