Camilla's health has been a concern since she returned from Australia

Queen Camilla’s health has been a concern since she returned from the tour of Australia and Samoa, and has led to her missing the start of the Qatari state visit. 

Her Majesty suffers with long-distance travel. The journey home from the Pacific in October included a stopover in India for a restorative stay at a spa. 

The original plans for the King’s visit to Australia to open the 2018 Commonwealth Games didn’t include Camilla – but in the end it was thought essential PR that she make the trip. 

A mole whispers that it might be time for the Queen to bow out of accompanying her husband on global travels. 

My source suggests that, having transitioned from wicked stepmother – in Harry’s eyes – to gracious Queen, she has nothing left to prove. It’s not her fault she fell in love with a man whose realms span the globe.

LBC’s James O’Brien unveils an image-changing recollection of Keir Starmer from Philip, a Reigate Grammar School classmate who phones into the station to describe teenage Sir Keir’s skill with his fists against another pupil called Matthew. 

‘Him and Keir were having the most almighty punch-up. And I do mean punch-up. It wasn’t a scuffle – it was fist to face, heads knocking back,’ he tells O’Brien. 

‘I’ll give Keir credit though. He stood his ground. He was giving as good as he took.’ Give me the child...

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wore a hat at Horse Guards Parade to welcome the Emir of Qatar at the start of his visit. 

The emir, having been educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, will be alive to the comedy of Left-wing English fashion sense, so resisted asking why she had an upside-down flowerpot on her head.

Gillian Anderson tells Stylist magazine about Want – her book of women’s fantasies. 

‘We set up a big pink box on [London’s] South Bank that you could walk into and write on the walls. Women went in alone and wrote down their fantasies – everything from alien sex to reconnecting with first loves,’ says the X-Files star. 

Gillian, a word in your shell-like – is it possible some of your fantasists were having a giraffe?

Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer steered himself in to the Santa Rita Cigar Smoker of the Year Awards at Boisdale, Canary Wharf, on Monday night with his bandaged left foot suspended in a Heath Robinson-esque contraption. ‘I’ve had an operation for flat feet,’ he explained. Alas, he didn’t take the title. 

Cigar-chomping Piers Morgan won.

Lord Soames, having described Jacob Rees-Mogg as ‘an absolute fraud’ when he sprawled across the front bench during a Brexit debate, is unlikely to have taken out a subscription to watch the Moggy reality show on Discovery+. 

‘He is a living example of what a moderately cut double-breasted suit and a decent tie can do with an ultra-posh voice and a bit of ginger stuck up his a**e,’ said Sir Nicholas. No Christmas card this year, then?