Learning Curves

Supermodel Lily Cole has made her debut on the cover of French Playboy. The Marks and Spencer model has her hair in pigtails and is wearing only white socks for the cover shoot. She is seen clutching a giant teddy bear to her breasts, strategically positioned between her legs, and is pictured above the tagline Sweet Sixties Lily Cole. Flame-haired Cole, 20, has posed for a 14-page spread inside the men’s magazine. The shoot is said to have been inspired by the cover of French musician Serge Gainsbourg’s 1971 album “Histoire de Melody Nelson”.

Even before the pictures were published, some Christian groups immediately condemned the Playboy images as degrading without actually having seen them! They have called on customers to boycott M&S, saying the store is indirectly supporting Hugh Hefner’s notorious publication by continuing to employ Cole. But a spokesman for M&S said, “It’s entirely her own choice as to what other work she accepts and we would not wish to interfere with her career.”

“St. Trinian’s” star Lily deferred her place at Cambridge University. She won a place at King’s College two years ago to study social and political sciences but took two gap years off to concentrate on her modelling career. She has now switched to the three-year history of art degree. Miss Cole is also rumoured to be dating actor Jude Law, 35, after they were spotted together in public on several occasions during the summer. And there was me, 49, thinking I was in with a chance!

Dreamy Lady

The Second Season of “The Tudors” concluded recently on BBC Two and was promptly released on DVD on Monday, as was a set containing both last year’s run together with this latest offering. The total of twenty episodes reached a grisly culmination with the heartless execution of Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn. I think this was a shame! And, for all her stoicism, I expect she probably thought the same!!

Why do you think Anne’s death was a shame, Tim, I hear you all cry? Well, it means actress Natalie Dormer won’t be in the next series! History should’ve been rewritten in order to accommodate a lady with such gorgeous eyes. Some may think them narrow but that is part of her beauty. She positively smoulders.

Even when in danger of losing it, the girl kept her head! The doomed royal had Hans Matheson hear her last confession… that she hadn’t actually done anything wrong!!

Ironically, Hans, as the dastardly and corrupting Alec d’Urberville, in “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”, had donned preacher’s robes over on BBC One, whereupon one of our heroine’s milkmaid chums comments that he doesn’t look much like a man of the cloth…

Obviously, the producers of “The Tudors” thought otherwise. But, Hans could do nothing to save the lovely Natalie, despite the repeated postponement of her wanton slaying due to the late arrival of the axe man. And, I’m not talking guitar heroes here!