William Hickey

Bringing the gossip since 1933

- By Robert Meakin

MARKING 20 years since she began advertising her Dover home as a holiday let on Country Cottages Online, celebrity vulgarian Miriam Margolyes, pictured, announces: “It’s not glamorous, but it’s peaceful. I wanted others to experience the calm I’ve always found there.”

Described as the “nearest property to France”, the isolated residence, called The Gun Emplacement, hasn’t always been as calm and peaceful as the star likes it. Unbeknownst to the actress at the time, it was once used as a secret helicopter drop-off point by Merseyside gangsters, smuggling in cocaine from the Continent...

SACKED from MasterChef this week for once using “an extremely offensive racist term” - he has “no recollection” of the incident - John Torode has just pulled out of a planned headline appearance at the upcoming Seaham Food Festival in County Durham.