Camilla’s ex Andrew Parker Bowles represents Queen Consort at funeral of John Bowes-Lyon

Since Harry and Meghan are 5,000 miles away in California and Prince Andrew has been banned from civilized society, the king’s vision of a “slimmed” monarchy looks too meager.

So step forward as a new member of ‘The Firm’.

I can reveal that Brigadier General Andrew Parker Bowles performed his first royal duty on behalf of the Queen Consort on Tuesday.

He formally represented his ex-wife at a funeral – and friends argue that this could be the first engagement of many. ‘

Andrew likes to do whatever is asked of him,” one of his friends tells me. “He still has a warm relationship with Camilla.”

The news was included in the Court Circular, the official record of royal engagements.

“The Queen Consort was represented by Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles,” it reads about his attendance at John Bowes-Lyon’s funeral at the London Oratory. Bowes-Lyon, who died last month at the age of 80, was a great-nephew of the late Queen.

Formally representing Camilla meant that Parker Bowles, 82, was given a prominent pew in the Roman Catholic Church.

He and Camilla, who married in 1973, have two children. They split in the 1980s and finally divorced in 1995, with a royal biographer once remarking: ‘It is said that an English gentleman will always lay down his wife for his country and this was certainly true in the case of Andrew Parker Bowles. ‘

Camilla married Prince Charles in 2005, while Parker Bowles exchanged vows with Rosemary Pitman in 1996. She died in 2010.

Parker Bowles and Bowes-Lyon were cousins. Their great-uncle was the legendary roué Raymund de Trafford, whose bedroom athleticism prompted his brother to offer him £10,000 if he agreed to be neutered.

Raymund replied that he would ‘have one ball cut and settle for £5,000’.

Eddie attached on the red carpet

ripped jeans have been trendy since the 80’s and now Eddie Redmayne is taking a look at formal wear.

The Old Etonian, 40, showed up for a New York screening of his new movie, The Good Nurse, wearing a tailored suit with slits across the elbows and waist, as well as white stitching on the lapel. It was created by Maison Margiela, the French fashion house led by designer John Galliano.

“It’s all about choosing something you feel comfortable in because red carpet events never stop being surreal,” Redmayne said of his style in the past.

Emma is happy to be in the hospital again

Emma Samms first pushed herself into the collective male consciousness as Fallon Carrington Colby – the character on the 80s soap opera Dynasty, once summed up as “a spoiled bitch” whose idea of ​​fun is sleeping with her father’s driver.

Now she returns to another American soap with which she has an even longer connection: General Hospital.

“I started working on this show 40 (gulp) years ago,” says the evergreen Samms, 62, who has temporarily left her home in the Cotswolds for an intense filming schedule in LA

‘Lots of lines. It’s like taking an exam every day for three weeks,” she says, explaining that the show airs “one hour, five days a week.” But there is help from her husband, former BBC newsreader Simon McCoy. He helped, Emma says, “figure out the Wi-Fi, air conditioning, and coffee maker.”

Icons from the 60s reunited

Two icons of the Swinging Sixties got back together this week when Twiggy showed up at the launch party for her fellow model Pattie Boyd’s book, My Life In Pictures.

Boyd, 78, who was married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, inspired such classic songs as Something, Layla and Wonderful Tonight. She stayed close to Dame Lesley Lawson, 73, as Twiggy is formally called, who appeared with her in Vogue Italia in 1970 (right).

“We certainly weren’t spoiled,” Boyd says, reminiscing about their heyday at the party at The Lower Third bar in Soho.

“If you were booked for a shoot, you had to bring dark shoes and light shoes, jewelry, makeup, accessories, combs, and this and that. Plus we only got £4 an hour – things have changed drastically; everything is super glamorous.’

Oasis bros in new wonder brawl

They sang Don’t Look Back In Anger, but Oasis stars Liam and Noel Gallagher are once again puzzled over their legacy.

Singer Liam, 50, has accused his 55-year-old brother of preventing his recent solo performances of Oasis songs from being included in an upcoming documentary, Knebworth 22. Liam played some of the band’s songs during two summer gigs in Knebworth, in Hertfordshire. , but they will not be included on screen after Noel’s intervention. Liam snaps, “No Oasis songs, because the angry squirt blocked them.” Can’t they reconcile their differences over a Champagne Supernova?

Traumatized by a break-in to their £31.5million West London mansion while they were asleep earlier this year, David and Victoria Beckham have been given permission to install ‘Fort Knox-esque measures’ in their £6million converted barn in the Cotswolds . The West Oxfordshire council has given the green light for an additional security building at the house, which already has 24 hour security and a gatehouse.

Eton College Provost Lord Waldegrave had a new job for those who played for ‘Strawberry’ — the friendly Eton cricket team that play for fun — at a dinner for students who left 40 years ago.

A guest tells me, “Waldegrave said that, given recent events, it might be better to take the political class not from Eton’s scholars, but from Strawberry.”

Boris Johnson, the most celebrated scholar of the year in question, stood out for his absence.

Ripped jeans have been on trend since the 1980s and now Eddie Redmayne is taking the look over to formal wear.

The Old Etonian, 40, showed up for a New York screening of his new movie, The Good Nurse, wearing a tailored suit with slits across the elbows and waist, as well as white stitching on the lapel. It was created by Maison Margiela, the French fashion house led by designer John Galliano.

“It’s all about choosing something you feel comfortable in because red carpet events never stop being surreal,” Redmayne said of his style in the past.