EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Bestselling author Richard Osman’s wedding secret

No-nonsense presenter turned best-selling author Richard Osman said his upcoming wedding to Dr Who actress Ingrid Oliver would be “very un-showbizzy”.

However, their choice of location is full of glamour.

I hear the couple will exchange vows at Goodwood House, the Duke of Richmond’s seat in West Sussex, famous for the ‘Glorious Goodwood’ race meeting and annual Festival of Speed.

Osman, 51, grew up in Cuckfield near Haywards Heath, and his Thursday Murder Club book series was inspired by a visit to his mother Brenda’s retirement village in the county.

The broadcaster, who has two grown-up children from his previous marriage, met Oliver, 45, when she appeared as a guest on his show, House of Games.

A failed politician who helped destroy his party, former Lib Dem leader Sir Nick Clegg is nevertheless becoming one of the super-rich. I can reveal that the former Deputy Prime Minister has landed another payday.

Stock market filings report that he has sold nearly 17,000 shares of Meta, the Facebook owner for which he works as president of global affairs. The shares were awarded to Clegg at zero cost, netting him £1.6m.

Clegg, who is said to earn more than £15m a year, made a £3.6m profit from the sale of his mansion in Silicon Valley, California, after deciding to move back to the UK for family reasons. Chin chin!

BBC Breakfast weather presenter Carol Kirkwood has revealed why she intends to quit her job soon. The 60-year-old Scot explains: “I’m planning to retire in the next ten years because I don’t think I’ll be able to reach the Northern Isles when I’m 70.”

King of clubs and the art of partying

THE OCCASION: Opening party at Bacchanalia, the sumptuous new Mayfair restaurant from Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy, Scott’s and Annabel’s.

SUPER FOOD: Supermodel Naomi Campbell, 52, was among guests who dined on Greek and Italian canapés, such as oysters and spicy mignonette, sea bream with green apple and caviar, and mini tangy crab salad.

GODS: The world’s richest artist, Damien Hirst, 57, who attended the bash with ex-ballerina girlfriend Sophie Cannell, 27, has designed four custom-made sculptures for the venue, inspired by Greek mythology. He says: ‘I wanted to make the environment festive and hopeful.’

TALENT SPOTTING: Dutch model Lara Stone, 38, kept quiet about her ex-husband David Walliams, who has apologized for making disparaging comments about Britain’s Got Talent contestants.

PHONE WAR: Singer Florence Welch asked the star-studded crowd to put away their phones so they could concentrate on her song, Dog Days Are Over.

Hotel tycoon Sir Rocco Forte’s younger daughter Irene, who runs her own skincare company of the same name, takes feminism at work very seriously. The Oxford graduate, 34, reveals she has hired only women to work with her.

“We’re an all-female team, and even our scientific director is a woman,” she explains. “I believe all women have the ability to become empowered leaders, and we need to support each other.”

Historian Lady Antonia: Genes mean time is on Kate’s side

Distinguished Historian Lady Antonia Fraser applauds the Princess of Wales for continuing to wear her hair well into her 40s.

“I don’t think she should cut her hair,” the seventh Earl of Longford’s daughter tells me at the launch party for Rachel Kelly’s book, You’ll Never Walk Alone: ​​Poems For Life’s Ups And Downs, in Notting Hill.

“Women traditionally cut their hair after [having] children, but she doesn’t need to. She can do whatever she wants. She is beautiful and she is a good mother. She gets more beautiful as she gets older.’

Hays Travel boss Dame Irene Lucas-Hays, whose husband and business partner John died in 2020 after collapsing at the company’s Sunderland headquarters “while doing the job he loved”, is to be awarded a prestigious honor by King Charles.

I hear Dame Irene, 68 – whose company saved all 555 Thomas Cook stores and protected the jobs of more than 2,000 staff when it took over the travel agency in 2019 – is to become High Sheriff of Tyne and Wear.

“I’m sure Dame Irene will do an excellent job,” a royal source told me.

As High Sheriff, she will be the unpaid executor of the King’s writ in the region.

Sharif’s transex left just £38k

April Ashley, the transgender model and actress who made her name in the Swinging Sixties as the muse of David Bailey and lover of Omar Sharif, left just £38,000 in her will.

One of the first to undergo pioneering male-to-female reassignment surgery, she coached Eddie Redmayne for the film The Danish Girl in 2015. Protest documents reveal she left her literary estate and possessions to friends Beverley Ayre, a producer, and Lou Muddle, a project consultant.

Ashley, who died last December aged 86, had a gross estate of £90,000, reduced to £38,000 after her affairs were settled. The rest will go to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in her hometown of Liverpool.

The smart set talks about… Super Rich Money Struggle

It’s not just the lower orders struggling with the cost of living.

Super-rich beauty mogul Amanda Cronin says she has to make sacrifices. “I always fly business or first class, but recently my whole team and I flew in premium economy for work,” she tells me at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, London.

The former model, 54, received a multi-million pound settlement in 2019 after splitting from Monaco energy tycoon Mark Daeche. I revealed in July that she would be dating Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley.

She adds that she feels the pinch at check-out. “I just noticed that everything has gone up,” says the star of Channel 4 documentary The Millionaires And Me. “I go to the supermarket myself, but I can write a list and give it to my housekeeper to do.”

The castle’s Christmas atmosphere for refugees

It was an emotional night for two Ukrainian refugees who were taken in by Wimbledon commentator Andrew Castle and his wife Sophia.

On Thursday, they took the mother and daughter, Sofiia and Yulia, 13, pictured with Andrew, to the West End to see their own daughter, Georgina, far right, perform in Elf The Musical.

“They used to go to the theater in Mariupol that was destroyed by Russia when women and children were sheltered there,” Andrew says. Georgina adds: “I think they enjoyed the show.”

(Very) modern way

Viewers of writer Giovanna Fletcher’s CBeebies show The Baby Club may be shocked if they saw the more aggressive side of the 37-year-old.

The 2020 I’m A Celebrity winner, who has three sons with McFly star Tom Fletcher, said: “One thing I’ve found recently that really helps me is that once the kids are on school trips, I take some great songs and I’m just punching the c**p out of my punching bag. It’s getting it all out.’