Richard Eden: Could this be the start for Princess Beatrice’s husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi?

Princess Beatrice’s husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi took part in the royal carriage procession at Royal Ascot yesterday – but could the property developer soon switch from horses to football?

I only ask because Edo, 40, enjoyed a night out in Mayfair this week with Amanda Staveley, 51, who helped a Saudi consortium take over Newcastle United and joined the board.

They were joined by the Yorkshire woman’s Iranian husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, 50, also co-owner of the Toon.

“They seemed to be deep in conversation and really hit it off,” a fellow guest at the event tells me.

Staveley has a connection to Edo because she is an old flame of her father-in-law, Prince Andrew.

The smart set takes care of… the father of the Detmar jet set

Some suggest her family is cursed, while others say she is damned for her own misdeeds.

So it’s heartening to hear the balance Detmar Blow has achieved in his personal life, 17 years after suffering the loss of his first wife, the inimitable style icon Isabella Blow, who was fatally poisoned by herbicide.

Two years ago he broke up with Martha Fiennes, sister of film stars Ralph and Joseph, to whom he had been engaged since 2016. Now, I can reveal, he maintains a very friendly relationship with Mara Castilho, the Portuguese-Brazilian. artist with whom he had a son, Sasha, a year after Issie’s death, and married in 2010, although she left for Lisbon in 2011.

“Sometimes I stay with Mara in Lisbon to see Sasha,” Detmar, 60, tells me, adding that during term time, when Sasha is at the £46,000-a-year Bedales school, Mara comes and stays. remains at Hilles, the Arts and Crafts House in Gloucestershire built by his grandfather.

Before playing the role of John Falstaff in Player Kings, Sir Ian McKellen felt the need to explain why he was wearing a fat suit.

‘Would it really be better if I gained weight and, once production was finished, lost it again?’ asked the star, 85, best known as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films.

And I hear that Sir Ian, who spent much of this week in hospital after falling off stage mid-performance at the Noel Coward Theater in the West End, was saved from worse injuries thanks to the thick jumpsuit he was wearing under the costume .

“It was the fat suit he had to wear as Falstaff that saved him,” a source tells me. “He pretty much bounced off it.”

McKellen, who was treated for injuries including a broken wrist, said he would not return as Falstaff for the three remaining shows in London. Let’s hope he returns to full health soon.

Guinness the only singer

Fashion icon Daphne Guinness’s penchant for extraordinary flat platform shoes isn’t just about style. She says she has health benefits.

“People ask all the time why I’m always in this place,” says Lord Moyne’s daughter. The 56-year-old singer, who just released her fourth album, called Sleep, explains: “The thing is, I can bend over, relax my back and move my hips. When you’re warming up for a vocal take, you want to have your diaphragm and muscles Bottom center in shape.

“It’s not a fashion statement, it’s comfort, it’s my physical health, which for me is crucial.”

Journalist Colin and his new wife Olivia’s extended family

When newscaster Colin Brazier’s wife, Jo, lost her battle with breast cancer in 2018 at the age of 55, he was left a widower and father of six.

Now, however, he has remarried, to a family friend who also lost her spouse.

This is Olivia Warham, 54, whose husband, Mark, was a colorful city financier.

“Olivia and I feel incredibly lucky to have found love after a loss,” Brazier, 56, tells me.

‘We want to thank all our friends, and particularly our children, for supporting us through the good and bad times. We are incredibly excited to set out together in search of pastures new.’

The couple exchanged vows at Our Lady of Victories Church in Kensington, west London, in front of their nine children (above).

Keep it to yourself but…

A recently heartbroken beauty of a certain age is revered by her surviving contemporaries for an energetic act of reinvention.

Many decades ago, at London’s Portobello market, he purchased an antique ring bearing a coat of arms and the name of a continental family.

Thereafter he wore the ring and splendidly adopted the noble name as his own.

Prince’s polo buddy hangs out with childhood friend Sophie

Prince William and Harry’s polo teammate has found love in ‘young Judi Dench’.

William Melville-Smith, 37, who played with the royal brothers in the 2016 Audi Polo Challenge at Ascot, will date Sophie Kennedy Clark, 34.

The actress played the younger version of the Dame Judi character in the award-winning 2013 film Philomena.

“We’ve known each other since we were kids,” Sophie tells me on the opening night of the Raindance Film Festival at London’s Curzon Mayfair cinema. ‘We went to school together.’

Sophie, granddaughter of Scottish singer Calum Kennedy, and her boyfriend attended King Charles’ alma mater Gordonstoun.

(Very) modern manners

Known for talking to his plants, King Charles now offers a ‘sound bath’ at his Norfolk retreat.

For £25 per head, visitors to Sandringham Estate can take part in a “summer sound bath” where they will experience “a variety of instruments including drums, crystal bowls, chimes, gongs, tuning forks, Himalayan singing bowls, smoothies”. , rattles and many more’.

A spokesperson explains that sound therapy “is recognized as a beneficial approach that not only helps treat physical ailments but also contributes to emotional balance and mental tranquility.”