EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Meghan Markle in tricky lifestyle brand launch as Netflix won't air her cooking show until 2025

Meghan's global trademark difficulties with her American Riviera Orchard-branded jam have been compounded by Netflix

The jam's launch is inextricably linked with a cookery programme already filmed for Netflix which doesn't seem to be in a hurry to show it. 

Sometime in mid 2025 has been pencilled in. Will we also get to see her new dog treats range? 

When she unveiled it on the same day that Kate attended Trooping the Colour – her first public appearance this year – the Princess of Wales won that battle for the headlines. One flunkey referred to Meghan as the Pedigree Chump.

Netflix has compounded Meghan Markle's global branding trademark difficulties

Netflix has compounded Meghan Markle's global branding trademark difficulties

Her American Riviera Orchard jam (pictured) is linked to a cooking show that Netflix appears to be in no hurry to show

Her American Riviera Orchard jam (pictured) is linked to a cooking show that Netflix appears to be in no hurry to show

The show is now pencilled in for 2025. Will we also get to see her new dog treats range?

The show is now pencilled in for 2025. Will we also get to see her new dog treats range?

 

Emmanuel Macron's splashing out just over £400,000 on a banquet for King Charles's state visit would have appalled the late Queen. 

The famously frugal monarch had reduced her banquets from eight courses to four and, for Barack Obama in 2011, she axed the soup, cutting them to three. 

Instead, she dazzled her guests with George IV gold and silver tableware, pudding served on Queen Victoria's 1877 Minton and fruit on George III's hand-painted Tournai.

 

Prince Andrew fretted about the Palace's budget for replacing missing teaspoons, often skulking in a corner at receptions to spot miscreants. And, sometimes, he would ask the Master of the Household's department for a report on losses. 

A former member whispers that teaspoons regularly disappeared as did napkins, cutlery in general, butter dishes, sugar tongs, glasses and, in the past, ashtrays. 

In fact, anything that can be swiftly and easily concealed in a 'pocket, bosom or handbag... and avoid the eagle eye of the Duke of York!'

 

Relaxing in her West Sussex beach hut, Kate Winslet is accosted by a passing teacher who struggles to identify her. 

'I'll give you a clue,' offers Winslet. 'I was in a film about a boat.' 

'Bridget Jones!' exclaims the tutor triumphantly.

Kate Winslet was accosted by a passing teacher who struggled to identify her

Kate Winslet was accosted by a passing teacher who struggled to identify her

 

Former Match Of The Day presenter Des Lynam, 81, recalling his first BBC salary of £2,030 a year in 1969, is asked by Radio Times if his successor Gary Lineker is worth £1.3million a year. 

'I don't suppose you can justify it in terms of what a nurse or fireman does, but it's the market,' he says. 

'You can't say that anybody saying a few words into a television screen is worth more than someone who saves lives, but money dictates. He's a very lucky chap.'

 

The closing credits of the BBC's final Paris Olympics extravaganza contained more names than a Hollywood Ben-Hur-like blockbuster, prompting questions about how much the coverage cost. 

Certainly more than the Beeb shelled out to the International Olympic Committee for the 1948 London Games. The Corporation offered £1,000 but the IOC let the cameras in for free.