His first year as monarch has been beset by challenges that neither he nor anyone else envisaged when he was crowned.

So it was with relief that some of King Charles‘s most ardent supporters greeted a discreet recent announcement from the Palace.

Officers at the Royal Thames Yacht Club — which has cherished its royal association since its foundation in 1775 — were, I can disclose, informed that the King would remain its Patron.

Just as hearteningly, they learned that its next most senior honorary position, that of Commodore, which Charles held for 12 years while Prince of Wales, would remain unfilled — fuelling hopes that it will be taken by the Princess of Wales when her own battle with cancer is safely behind her.

‘People are thrilled the King is staying on,’ an old sea dog tells me, adding that those at the club are acutely aware of the pressures on the ‘slimmed down’ Royal Family.

The Yacht Club’s next most senior honorary position, that of Commodore, which Charles held for 12 years while Prince of Wales, would remain unfilled — fuelling hopes that it will be taken by the Princess of Wales when her own battle with cancer is safely behind her

Officers at the Royal Thames Yacht Club — which has cherished its royal association since its foundation in 1775 — were, I can disclose, informed that the King would remain its Patron

The entrance to the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, London

A review of more than 1,000 royal patronages was recently completed, with the Palace announcing that its conclusions would be ‘shared with relevant organisations’.

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After berating a noisy crowd in Cannes, Sarah, Duchess of York plans an assault on the French airwaves.

‘Obviously, the club isn’t a charity, so there’s relief as well as jubilation that the King is remaining as Patron,’ adds my man in the clubhouse, which is enviably positioned overlooking Hyde Park. Of course, strong ties with the Royal Family are no guarantee against stormy waters. In 1986, Prince Andrew succeeded his elder brother as Commodore. Such was his fondness for the club that, latterly, he took to dining there — alone, apart from his bodyguard.

Following his ‘car-crash’ interview with Emily Maitlis in 2019, cautious soundings were taken to see if he would stand down. It transpired that he was disinclined to do so, because the Royal Thames wasn’t a charity.

Only in 2021 did Andrew finally bow out, since when the club has yearned to welcome Catherine in his place, as I revealed last year.

‘She would be a great role model,’ a member told me. ‘But royal protocol dictates that it’s up to the Royal Family to make the first move.’

C atherine can undoubtedly make waves in a way that Andrew never quite could. She is ‘a really good sailor’ — the verdict of Olympic gold medallist Sir Ben Ainslie, after she joined him, and the rest of the British team, on a catamaran for a race against New Zealand in Plymouth Sound in 2022.

A friend of the Princess of Wales tells me: ‘Decisions about her patronages are on hold until doctors give her the green light to return to public engagements.’

To be Blunt, Emily hates the red carpet

As one of Hollywood’s best-paid actresses, she’s made a fortune of more than £60 million for starring in blockbusters including the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer.

Yet for Emily Blunt the price of fame can be dehumanising.

‘You’re not human on a red carpet,’ moans the star of The Fall Guy. She adds: ‘It is something that is so outside of normal life.’

‘You’re not human on a red carpet,’ moans the star of The Fall Guy, pictured at that film’s premiere in Los Angeles

The 41-year-old Londoner, who is married to U.S. actor John Krasinski — the father of her two daughters — explains: ‘We all normalise it to this day, because it is the only way to try to zen your way through it, because it is so abnormal.

‘My dream would be to put on a beautiful dress and just go straight to the event, rather than do the red carpet. That level of exposure is sort of terrifying.’

(Very) modern manners

Travelling light is not an easy task for Mexican socialite Gabriela Gonzalez, who has had to hire a van just to transport her luggage around Europe. ‘I have 20 suitcases and it was impossible to bring them with me on the flight,’ she tells me. ‘There’s so many dresses, shoes and bags.’

Mexican socialite Gabriela Gonzalez pictured at the 77th Cannes Film Festival

Even his wife has to beware the kiss of the vampire

She is closing the shutters on her cult fashion label, whose darkly romantic creations have made it a favourite with the likes of the Princess of Wales and Sienna Miller.

Yet it appears Susie Cave still takes pleasure in being The Vampire’s Wife.

The designer, 57, was spotted in London’s Notting Hill with her Australian rocker husband Nick Cave, 66, who appeared somewhat vampirical as he readied to give her a kiss on the neck.

The pair, who married 25 years ago, have been plagued by tragedy in the past decade.

Sienna Miller was spotted in London’s Notting Hill with her Australian rocker husband Nick Cave, 66, who appeared somewhat vampirical as he readied to give her a kiss on the neck

The pair, who married 25 years ago, have been plagued by tragedy in the past decade

In 2015, one of their twin sons, Arthur, died aged 15 after falling from cliffs in East Sus𝓈ℯ𝓍.

The family endured further tragedy in May 2022, when Nick’s son Jethro, 31, from his previous relationship with model Beau Lazenby, died two days after he was released from prison in Australia.

Susie launched The Vampire’s Wife in 2014, but had to close the label this year, blaming upheavals in the fashion industry.

The smart set’s talking about… Julian’s joy over his boy’s engagement

He lives in some style in Dorset — where he’s one of His Majesty’s Deputy Lieutenants — and has won an Oscar and innumerable other awards. But Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes — more formally, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford — is currently giddy with joy for a quite different reason.

His son Peregrine, 33, has just announced his engagement to a sparkling brunette, Henrietta Gunn, 32, who heads the ‘bespoke’ department at Halcyon Days, the maker of luxurious trinkets which has held numerous royal warrants.

‘It’s thrilling news,’ Fellowes tells me. Ever the storyteller, he talks of his son ‘moving on to the next chapter’, explaining that Peregrine met Henrietta, an alumna of £43,000-a-year Blundells School, while they were working for film producer turned business titan Charles Finch.

Peregrine, 33, has just announced his engagement to a sparkling brunette, Henrietta Gunn, 32 (pictured)

Peregrine, who’s since followed his father into what Fellowes has called the ‘snake-pit’ of the film world, once shared a flat with India Rose James, heiress granddaughter of the stupendously rich ‘King of Soho’, Paul Raymond.

But though not moving at the same breath-taking pace as his father — who famously proposed to his future wife, Emma, a great-great-niece of Lord Kitchener, just 20 minutes after meeting her — he’s now let love smoulder into flame.

To Henrietta’s complete satisfaction… ‘The last few days have been a whirlwind,’ she tells me. ‘We are all very happy and excited for what is ahead.’

 

Did TV daredevil Bear Grylls push his luck by going public with his friendship with Russell Brand after the latter’s baptism in the River Thames?

I ask because of a recent development at the Bear Grylls Adventure attraction in Birmingham. ‘All ‘Bear-branded’ merchandise has had at least 70 per cent knocked off its price,’ a visitor tells me. ‘There’s no discount on anything else.’

It is, surely, a coincidence that Brand, who until quite recently led a restless private life, has been accused of several 𝓈ℯ𝓍ual offences — every one of which he vigorously denies.

Did TV daredevil Bear Grylls push his luck by going public with his friendship with Russell Brand after the latter’s baptism in the River Thames?

Petrolhead Rowan Rolls back the years

Having caused mayhem in a Mini as Mr Bean, and wreaking havoc in an Aston Martin as Johnny English in the spoof spy films, Rowan Atkinson is set on reliving his times gone by behind the wheel.

‘In the last year or so I’ve taken the opportunities, when they’ve arisen, to buy back several cars that I’ve owned previously,’ he reveals.

Rowan Atkinson is set on reliving his times gone by behind the wheel

The comedy star, 69, adds: ‘I don’t know if it’s a symptom of advancing years and an increasingly reflective state of mind.’

He divulges of his latest repurchase, a 2004 Rolls-Royce Phantom that he bought back at auction: ‘I sold the car after six years and 60,000 miles.’ The miles weren’t enough to keep them apart, as he says: ‘I just loved the Phantom — and I love it still.’

 

Spare a thought for novelist Jeanette Winterson, who will be hiding away from the influx of ‘zombie tourists’ revving down to the Cotswolds to tour Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm this weekend.

‘They turn up, park anywhere, take a few selfies, leave loads of litter, drive away,’ she fumes. ‘Punters heading to Clarkson’s farm shop make a day of it and come to the Slaughters [a pair of picturesque villages].’

Winterson, 64, who’s lived in the Cotswolds for more than 30 years, says she tries to avoid the chaos: ‘At the weekend, I race round, do my shopping, and rush home by 10am. Then I lock myself in till Monday.’

Spare a thought for novelist Jeanette Winterson, who will be hiding away from the influx of ‘zombie tourists’ revving down to the Cotswolds to tour Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm this weekend

 

Society jeweller Theo Fennell’s daughter Coco, whose engagement to TV comic John Robins was called off in 2021, has, happily, found love again — if this photo of the fashion designer with her new beau, photographer Maximillian Webster, is anything to go by.

The blue-haired sister of Oscar-winner Emerald Fennell, 35, shared a snap of herself and Maximillian, 38, whose photographs often consist of partially nude subjects, at a friend’s wedding in Bergerac, France.

‘They’re very much in love,’ a pal tells me.

The blue-haired sister of Oscar-winner Emerald Fennell, 35, shared a snap of herself and Maximillian, 38

 

No star-studded event would be complete without exceptional cocktails, and the art of making a good Negroni or Campari Spritz still holds dear for world-renowned bartender Tommaso Cecca.

‘A good life means good things and good things mean a cocktail made in a proper way,’ he tells me at the Campari Lounge in Cannes. ‘It’s important to focus on quality and richness of flavour.’

I’ll raise a glass to that.