By Richard Kay
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The Dimbleby presence may have been sorely missed during the BBC’s coverage of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, but the family are meanwhile planning a celebration of their own.
Sculptor Nick Dimbleby - younger brother of broadcasters David and Jonathan - tells me his daughter Maisie is to marry Old Etonian actor Will Adamsdale, whom she met on the London Underground.
But while Will, 38, made his film debut in Richard Curtis’s The Boat That Rocked and is appearing in Detroit at the National Theatre, 32-year-old Maisie’s bright start in acting did not blossom into a career.
Plans: Maisie Dimbleby is to marry Old Etonian actor Will Adamsdale
After starring in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, she gave up acting to teach in Hackney, East London.
The couple will marry in a Quaker service this summer near Maisie’s parent’s home in Clyst Hydon, Devon.
‘She is the first of our four children to get married so it’s lovely news,’ says proud father Nick. ‘We like Will very much.’
A former Tory MP caught up in the expenses scandal has made it on to the shortlist to become police commissioner for Surrey. Humfrey Malins, 66, who stood down as MP for Woking at the last election after claiming more than 20,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses for a flat in which his children lived rent-free, is one of three candidates who will be interviewed for the post. He says: ‘I have got some definite ideas about policing . . . and have, I hope, plenty to contribute.’
Shergar star Swinburn and wife split
Just a few months short of his tenth wedding anniversary, jockey-turned-trainer Walter Swinburn has come unsaddled in the matrimonial stakes.
Former hellraiser Swinburn, who rode Shergar to glorious victory in the 1981 Derby, is no longer living with his wife Alison, the mother of his two young daughters, at the marital home in Hertfordshire.
Instead Walter, 50, who was nicknamed the ‘choirboy’ for his deceptively angelic looks, has moved to London and is now renting a pied-a-terre in Mayfair, while Alison remains with the children at their Georgian mansion, Stocks, formerly the home of Playboy chief Victor Lownes and his bunny girl wife Marilyn Cole.
Swinburn, who will be at Royal Ascot this week, tells me: ‘I don’t want to go into the reasons — it’s personal. We chose to live apart and our priority now is our children. The simple truth is we ran out of petrol.’
Fresh start: Jockey-turned-trainer Walter Swinburn has come unsaddled in the matrimonial stakes
However, racing folk say their marriage was under considerable strain, not least because of his previously close racing connections with Alison’s wealthy father, Peter Harris, the Bourne Leisure tycoon worth around 360 million who also owns racehorses and used to train at Church Farm Stables, near Tring in Herts.
Three-times Derby-winner Swinburn took over as trainer from his father-in-law, once known as the ‘king of syndicate trainers’, in 2004. But Harris remained a significant figure at the yard, owning the majority of the 80 horses in training.
He wanted to divest himself of his racing empire and has gradually sold all his horses. Walter then decided it was no longer commercially viable for him to continue to run the yard. But he tells me he is not giving up racing, adding: ‘I am still heavily involved in a breeding operation.’
The parting from Alison is sad but amicable. No one else is involved, he says. Meanwhile Swinburn has taken his daughters riding in Hyde Park near his new home, where he booked a ride without disclosing his experience.
‘They put me on the biggest, fattest horse, resembling Nellie the Elephant, and even produced some steps for me to climb on to it,’ he tells me. ‘At one point the girl instructor told me off for holding the reins all wrong, but I swallowed my pride and said nothing. Even when my younger daughter told her, “Daddy won the Derby,” they didn’t catch on.’
Some welcome news for would-be BBC Director-General Helen Boaden. I gather her brother, Michael, a councillor in Carlisle, has just failed in his bid to become Labour’s candidate for the new 70,000-a-year post of Cumbria police commissioner.
With Ms Boaden having been shortlisted, the thinking is that political links, however peripheral, could be unhelpful as the Corporation seeks to avoid accusations of bias in its new D-G, who is expected to be paid in the region of 500,000 per year. It means Boaden, currently a popular head of news at the BBC, can breathe a sigh of relief as she waits to hear if she has made it through to the final round of interviews.
Model Lisa shows off her new man
Seven months after her divorce from Baron Steven Bentinck was finalised, striking model Lisa Hogan is enjoying a fresh chapter in her life.
My picture shows her out on the town for the first time with the new man in her life, Canadian Craig Cohon.
Once much admired by John Cleese, mother-of-three Lisa, 41, began dating Cirque du Soleil investor Cohon, 48, this year.
'Extremely tactile': Lisa and Craig at the party
They joined friends at a photo exhibition party thrown by Mary McCartney at Louise Blouin MacBain’s Notting Hill gallery.
‘They were extremely tactile with each other,’ says another at the party, where guests included Simon Mann, Jasmine Guinness and Lisa Butcher.
Since Lisa met divorced father-of-two Cohon in Moscow — where he is famous for introducing Coca-Cola and McDonald’s — their relationship appears to have gone from strength to strength.
‘Lisa was excitedly taking Craig around introducing him as her boyfriend to all her friends. She seemed very happy,’ says a pal.
She and Bentinck, nephew of the late Swiss steel tycoon Heini Thyssen, parted acrimoniously seven years ago. ‘It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders,’ adds the friend.
She may be the third wife of one of Britain’s richest men, but to Georgina Shipsey, Countess Cadogan is her much loved aunt. Dorothy Cadogan’s husband Charles is the owner of 93 Chelsea acres worth an estimated 3.4 billion.
But, says marketing consultant Georgina: ‘To me she is just my aunt — and a very kindly one too. Unlike her I’ve never found the right man so I’m on my own at 40. My parents passed away and Dorothy has stepped in. She’s like a second mother to me.’
As for marriage, Georgina tells me at a drinks party at Chelsea’s Royal Hospital: ‘I don’t mind who I marry. He certainly doesn’t have to be an aristocrat — just someone loving and kind.’
PS Royal Ascot is one of the Queen’s happiest weeks of year, where she loves the racing and the company of racing people. On Saturday she will be joined in the carriage procession by Toby Balding. Toby, one of the few men to have trained the winner of the National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle, is the brother of former trainer Ian Balding and uncle to the BBC’s Clare. He is thrilled to have been invited and was told HM had personally asked for him. It will be an especially poignant journey for Toby, 75, who suffered a stroke last year.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
HC grants divorce to Pak singer Adnan Sami - indiatoday.intoday.in
Adnan had married Sabah in 2001, divorced her in 2004 and remarried her in 2007. Their relation, however, soured again and Sabah moved the family court for divorce again in 2009 and had also filed a case under the Domestic Violence Act against Adnan.
Justice Roshan Dalvi today granted the estranged couple divorce while hearing a petition filed by Adnan challenging the order of the Family Court holding that the dissolution of marriage certificate produced by Galadari was invalid and hence they were still married.
In March 2011, Sabah had approached the Darul-Qaza, an Islamic body, which granted her 'fashk-e-nikah' or 'abrogation of marriage'.
The family court had, however, refused to accept the certificate following which Adnan approached the high court.
Justice Dalvi granted the divorce after observing that both the parties are not opposing the dissolution of marriage.
In such cases, where both the parties want to dissolve the marriage, the divorce should be immediately granted, observed Justice Dalvi.
The court has, however, left the other disputes regarding Meher, compensation and other domestic issues open to be decided by the family court.
Source: indiatoday.intoday.in
He was amazing in Campus, I can't believe they didn't make another series
- Emma, London, 19/6/2012 22:56
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