No one lives the rock star life quite like Sting, whose talents have earned him a £320 million fortune, with a spectacular collection of properties around the world, including a seven-bedroom beach house in Malibu and a Tuscan estate with its own vineyard.
But never assume that these riches have blurred The Police singer's vision — especially when it comes to throwing a party, as he and his wife, film producer Trudie Styler, did just before Christmas.
The setting was Lake House, a magnificent 16th-century manor house, set in 800 Wiltshire acres, which the couple snapped up in 1990 for £7 million.
Though built on an epic scale and, following refurbishment, almost sinfully comfortable — once prompting Trudie, 68, to reflect that they could warm an 'entire hamlet' with the heating system they'd installed — the couple opted to hold the party in a marquee in the grounds, re-sculpted soon after their acquisition of the manor, by the doyenne of landscape design, Arabella Lennox-Boyd.
Perhaps few, if any, would have detected anything displeasing about the marquee — but Sting, I'm told, did. Inspecting it before guests arrived, he noted an aesthetic deficiency. 'It was the guy-ropes holding up the marquee,' my Wiltshire mole tells me. 'He said they were too visible — and ugly.' With time short, a speedy solution was needed. The answer was to head to a nearby nursery and make a last-minute purchase — a mass of Christmas trees. 'The marquee had about 20 or 30 Christmas trees around it in the end, just to hide the guy ropes,' I'm told.
Just one problem remained: the speedy buying had been overdone. 'They'd bought about 50 trees,' my source claims. 'The ones they didn't need were returned to the nursery.'
This yielded a bonus for locals who'd waited till the last moment to buy a tree. 'The nursery gave them away. A lot of people ended up with free Christmas trees.' A bit of recycling of which Sting, 71, and Styler, who established the Rainforest Foundation back in 1989, could only approve.
When I ask Sting about how his party went, he tells me, simply: 'Merry Christmas, everyone.'
Isaac Ferry played matchmaker when he introduced his father, the Roxy Music legend Bryan, 77, to his friend Amanda Sheppard, 39. The party planner became Bryan's second wife.
Now, DJ Isaac, 37, has found a wife of his own. I hear he's become engaged to an American, Elizabeth Quartararo, with whom he's been living in Mexico.
'I'm the luckiest man alive and cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with my beloved Elizabeth,' he says. 'We are looking forward to celebrating with all our friends in the near future.'
Elizabeth studied at the private American University in London.
King Charles is mourning his first cousin, Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, who died yesterday aged 89. The Margrave was a son of Prince Philip's sister, Theodora of Greece and Denmark. Relations with our Royal Family are so close that the Margrave's son and heir, Bernhard, was one of only 30 mourners at Prince Philip's funeral, held under strict Covid restrictions at Windsor last year.
Some actresses might be flattered to be cast as a woman with a much younger lover, but Olivia Colman has revealed that she tried to have her racy scenes removed from the forthcoming film Empire Of Light, directed by fellow Oscar winner Sir Sam Mendes.
'I always wanted Sam to take out the sex scenes because I was so embarrassed,' says the actress, 48, who stars opposite Michael Ward, 25, best known for his role in crime drama Top Boy.
'I said, 'Why can't they go for the kiss, and cut, and then pretend that it had already happened?'
Colman plays a cinema manager who develops a relationship with ticket-seller Ward in the romantic drama, set in Margate, Kent, in the 1980s.
'Michael was much more mature than me and helped me deal with my nerves,' she adds.
Known for her unmade Bed, Tracey Emin is surrounded by unopened gifts. 'Christmas has come and gone . . . I still haven't opened my presents,' the artist admits.
'I will eventually . . . the longest it ever took me was July. I made myself open them before my birthday.' Emin, 59, adds: 'I have a massive problem opening things. It's mental and physical. Related to when I was a child.
'It's all part of my obsessive compulsive disorder. It drives me mad and everyone else.'
