Is Alexandra Shulman no longer in Vogue at the Daily Mail?

The Prada-wearing Newcastle conwoman who posed as "Vogue editor" or "editor of Vogue" - agency copy needs only a bit of reshaping - gets wide media coverage today. But nowhere does it say which Vogue editor Emma Charlton pretended to be when she fraudulently booked a top British hotel for an £80,000 shindig.

Since it must be assumed the Press Association report failed to specify, the Daily Mail alone has opted for American Vogue, if only as an excuse to put up a pic of its editor Anna Wintour for a sexed up The Devil Wears Prada reference. Commonsense dictates that Charlton would have posed as the British Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman - who is not half as chic as Wintour and has not been depicted in a movie or played by Meryl Streep: she is known to be distressingly normal and pacific in her responses to daily life. Her affable and chirpy boss Nicholas Coleridge can't abide divas. Say "Prada" and you don't automatically think of Shulman. She's not thin, either. Her chipmunky chops are positively squeezable with only the rumour of a hammock-style second chin.

Once upon a time Shulman was a fashion columnist on the Mail until she was dropped in March of last year due to "budget cuts". Her gig was passed to the professional loony Liz Jones who once edited British Marie Claire. All papers are cutting back but I remain unconvinced that money lay at the root of this cut. What could be better than a Vogue editor writing about fashion? Does someone at the Mail think that Alexandra falls slightly below the soignée standards of her US counterpart? The question's not rhetorical.

Paul Spike - now he's in Palma!

Further to the news that Paul Spike was last seen running a bar in Deia (selling yummy bagels), I now learn from an anonymous contributor (my thanks btw): "Sophia [Hesselgren] left Paul about 2 years ago and is now very happy in London, Spike lasted a little longer in Deia but, not suited to being mine host, left his bar for Palma about six months ago." What an interesting board game Spike's life would make. It might feature a map of the world with hot and cold spots, rather like his career.

Paul Spike is undead in Deia

The well-informed nsfl has located Paul Spike for me (see labels for previous posting) - my thanks:

"Mr Spike and Sophia Hesselgren are in Deia. They always used to spend half the year there anyway. Last time I saw him he was going to write a book about the Great War. He knew Robert Graves. Graves knew everyone. My parents spent three days of their honeymoon with Graves in Deia.

I hope you are well, Madame. x"

Share the experience of Deia.

Alexandra Shulman, Paul Spike and ... revenge

The UK Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has moved her jowly chops an' size 14+ an' all into a swanky – what a ghastly word! – £2.5+m four-bedroom property in Kingswood Avenue, London. The Evening Standard's property goss Compton Miller reports that she will share the house with son Sam from ex-husband Paul Spike.

Ah, yes, Spike. His last career high was as editor of Punch back in '97. Regrettably, it fell to Madame Arcati – or her like – to end his career there when he purloined some ideas from her/him/it for the Mohamed Al-Fayed-owned satirical magazine and used them without proper credit.

Arcati took instant revenge and wrote up a fascinating lunch she/he/it had with Spike at an Italian restaurant just across the road from Harrods, during which the editor foolishly rubbished various of his colleagues such as Peter McKay (now on the Mail as Ephraim Hardcastle) and Al-Fayed himself – and even admitted he (Spike) was uncertain of the English sense of humour as a New Yorker; a somewhat terminal confession. A few days later he was fired, in the same week Diana died. He subsequently challenged the journalist Tim Satchell to a fight in the Groucho after falsely accusing him of being the author of the assassination piece – the boggled twat plainly had no recollection of his conversation with Arcati.

Some may know Spike as "Ralph Hoover", author of an appreciated novelisation of Terry Gilliam’s long-forgotten debut movie Jabberwocky. I have no idea where Spike is now though someone suggested he was running a bar on some hot island with a girlfriend. Perhaps one of my foot soldiers could enlighten me as Alexandra settles into her micro-palace.