Hey you, get off of my beach

When the dignitaries gather to mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day tomorrow will the vital role played by Sir Mick Jagger’s father be recognised? Months before the storming of the Normandy beaches, the late Basil Fanshawe Jagger was chosen to “toughen up” recruits.

Chris Jagger, Mick’s brother, said: “Dad was a PE teacher and they inducted him into the Army because people were just drinking and smoking. Dad was selected to get the new recruits into shape for one of the most important operations in recent history. Mick and I are extremely proud of the role he played.” Keith Richards’s father did his bit too. He was among the first to hit the beaches on D-Day and was awarded a gallantry medal after being badly wounded.

The Eighties are back in fashion and so are a-ha. But the band, in town to perform at the Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards, didn’t get to vote yesterday because of Norway’s EU isolation. “Norway is a rich country but we can benefit from joining the EU,” the singer Morten Harket told us. Chris Martin’s favourite band return to their “classic synth sound” with Foot of the Mountain. Is it influenced by Fairytale, Norway’s pounding Eurovision winner? “That’s a good song. Look, if we didn’t say that we’d get strung up back home.”

It looks as if Alan Johnson is measuring up the Downing Street blinds. Questioned about file-sharing when he spoke at a music industry conference, the ex-rocker replied: “If I was PM I would invite you into No 10 to explain that at greater length.” Pressed further, he said: “That is one to talk about in the [Downing Street] garden.”

Has the business of e-government descended into mindless abuse? A poignant message from the official Downing Street Twitter page: “A polite tweet to point out that @DowningStreet is run by non-political civil servants. We are not members of the Government or MPs.”

“I want a country house in Italy, France, Switzerland,” Uma Thurman tells Harper’s Bazaar. “I have aspirations in Mexico . . . virtually all coastal regions. I just have this constant curiosity to open a clam in every country.” A useful shopping list for her fiancé, Arpad Busson, the hedge fund tycoon

Coming out from under Tracey's bed

The Face: Steve McQueen

The 1999 Turner Prize was dominated by Tracey Emin’s bed, so it’s about time for Steve McQueen, the winner that year, to bask in the limelight. Not hard when you’re representing Britain in the 53rd Venice Biennale, which opens on Sunday.

McQueen, 40, was born in West London to Caribbean parents. He graduated from Goldsmiths and went on to Tisch School, New York, to study film but left because “they wouldn’t let you throw the camera up in the air”.

His art films are inspired by Warhol and Buster Keaton, but he’s also now lauded as the director of the 2008 Caméra d’Or-winning film Hunger, about the 1981 IRA hunger strike.

Despite his success the unassuming artist never forgets his mum. “Wherever he is in the world,” she said, “he always says ‘Mum, I love you’.”

Postscript

“You should see that man’s expenses,” said Emma Thompson, of Dustin Hoffman at the Last Chance Harvey premiere.

Helen Fielding is hard at work on Bridget Jones — The Musical. “I’ve been doing it for two years, and writing the songs.”

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