EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: At least Jodie Kidd's got the hen do(s) sorted... the model has still not fixed a date for her wedding more than a year after she got engaged

Jodie Kidd has still not fixed a date for her wedding, more than a year after she got engaged to former Royal Marine Joseph Bates.

The 44-year-old model has, however, already enjoyed the first of her hen nights with pals.

‘I’m having so many of them,’ she tells me at a party to celebrate the launch of Metropolitan Casino Mayfair, where she was joined by fellow TV personality Kirsty Gallacher, 47, and American Pussycat Dolls singer Kimberly Wyatt, 40.

‘It’s just a really good excuse for me and my best friends to go out and have a lovely dinner. The first one was, basically, because a few of my girlfriends hadn’t met each other. We all went to Annabel’s [nightclub] and had a delicious meal.’

Of her wedding plans, she confides: ‘It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple of years, so we’ve got to sit down and get a date in the diary. We’ll try and do it this year.’ 

The 44-year-old model Jodie Kidd has, however, already enjoyed the first of her hen nights with pals

The 44-year-old model Jodie Kidd has, however, already enjoyed the first of her hen nights with pals

Of her wedding plans, she confides: ¿It¿s been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple of years, so we¿ve got to sit down and get a date in the diary'

Of her wedding plans, she confides: ‘It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple of years, so we’ve got to sit down and get a date in the diary'

 

Is Alice going to copy Kate with ex Hince, too?  

Lunch outing: Alice Dellal appears to be taking the supermodel's place in the affections of Kate's ex-husband Jamie Hince, 54

Society model Alice Dellal hit the headlines when she replaced Kate Moss as the face of expensive lingerie label Agent Provocateur in 2008

Marriage: After his four-year marriage to Kate (pictured on their wedding day) ended, The Kills guitarist Jamie vowed to move to Los Angeles, saying London had 'lost its energy and soul'

 Dellal, 35, is enjoying a blossoming friendship with Jamie Hince, the 54-year-old rock star who divorced Moss in 2016

Stepping out: As Richard Eden's exclusive photographs show, Alice, 35, is enjoying a blossoming friendship with Jamie Hince, the rock star who divorced Kate in 2016

Alice, granddaughter of late property tycoon ‘Black Jack’ Dellal, enjoyed an organic lunch with Hince in Notting Hill

Society model Alice Dellal hit the headlines when she replaced Kate Moss, who is 14 years her senior, as the face of expensive lingerie label Agent Provocateur in 2008.

Now, she appears to be taking the supermodel’s place in the affections of Moss’s ex-husband.

As my exclusive photograph shows, Dellal, 35, is enjoying a blossoming friendship with Jamie Hince, the 54-year-old rock star who divorced Moss in 2016. 

Alice, granddaughter of late property tycoon ‘Black Jack’ Dellal, enjoyed an organic lunch with Hince in Notting Hill, West London, before they looked round the shops together. 

Clearly, Hince is enjoying the capital’s charms again. After his four-year marriage to Moss ended, The Kills guitarist vowed to move to Los Angeles, explaining that London had ‘lost its energy and soul’.

 

Now love split Heston to wed: 'I've found my other half...'

I can disclose that the celebrity chef, Heston Blumenthal, has found love with another French woman, Melanie Ceysson

I can disclose that the celebrity chef, Heston Blumenthal, has found love with another French woman, Melanie Ceysson

Diners at his three Michelin star restaurant, The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, can look forward to such mouth-watering surprises as ice-cream curry and fish eyeball cocktail.

Heston Blumenthal’s love life is, however, even more unpredictable.

Three days ago, I revealed that the TV chef, 56, had split up with Stephanie Gouveia, the mother of his youngest child who had been regularly described as his ‘wife’. Friends of the French estate agent told me she had, in fact, never legally married Blumenthal, who is 21 years her senior.

Now, I can disclose that he’s found love with another French woman, Melanie Ceysson. 

And they’re already engaged. ‘I have found my other half,’ he tells me from France, where they are living in a national park.

Blumenthal’s spokeswoman was reported to have said that he married his previous girlfriend, Stephanie, in the Maldives in 2018. However, her spokesman told me this week: ‘Marriage should be recognised by legal authorities. This wasn’t. What happened does not constitute a marriage in a legally binding sense.’

This time, the chef insists the ceremony will be legally binding. ‘I am going to get officially married to Melanie,’ he tells me.

Blumenthal, who attended £22,530-per year Latymer Upper School in West London, declines to give more details about his new fiancee.

They are understood to have been a couple for some months. She is thought to be in her 30s and worked with him, having previously been employed in the hospitality business in France.

In addition to his five-year-old with Stephanie, Blumenthal has three children with ex-wife, Zanna, whom he divorced in 2016.

During their marriage, he had an affair with U.S. cookery writer Suzanne Pirret, who has said her favourite things are ‘food and sex’.

 

The smart set's talking about... Lady Tamara's nuptials

This should be the most rock ’n’ roll wedding among the aristocracy this year. 

Lady Tamara Conyngham — whose ancestral seat, Slane Castle, in the heart of Ireland’s Boyne valley, has hosted concerts by rock legends including the Rolling Stones, U2 and Queen in its grounds — has got engaged.

Lady Tamara (left), 31, who works in marketing, is to be married to Cian Speers, an executive at a loyalty app company

Lady Tamara (left), 31, who works in marketing, is to be married to Cian Speers, an executive at a loyalty app company

Lady Tamara, 31, who works in marketing, is to be married to Cian Speers, an executive at a loyalty app company.

‘We are delighted to be hosting the wedding in Slane Castle,’ her father, Henry Mountcharles, 8th Marquess Conyngham, tells me.

He became so close to U2, who recorded their classic 1980s album The Unforgettable Fire in the library at his castle, that the band’s bassist, Adam Clayton, became Lady Tamara’s godfather.

 

 Keep it to yourself, but...

As the shooting season draws to a close, one day’s sport has indelibly imprinted itself on those who were entertained last week by a family boasting at least a brace of peerages and an extravagant fortune.

Rather than staying at ‘the big house’, guests were sent to cottages on the estate — ‘freezing and filthy’.

There was, alas, no comfort eating —‘the food was vile’.

Surely the shoot yielded compensation? Er, no. ‘Eight guns,’ I’m told, ‘brought down a total of five birds.’

 

Here's an offer that may be irresistible to members of the Royal Family. 

Next month, sporting holiday company Your Golf Travel is to give away 10,000 golf balls with the Duke of Sussex’s face printed on them.

They will be hit in more than 25 countries. ‘Please note — while you can enjoy these spare balls on every course, they are consistently lost and not found, but seem to play best on American soil,’ the firm’s boss, Ross Marshall, tells me.

‘Prince Harry balls will be “whacked” from Sussex to Cambridge, Balmoral, and everywhere in between.

‘We’re hoping to see as many of them leave the country as possible.’

 

Very modern manners

What do you get your mother for her 60th birthday? A special piece of jewellery or a designer handbag, perhaps?

Well, Dame Emma Thompson’s daughter, Gaia Wise, has revealed that she celebrated by having a tattoo inked on her own body — of her mother’s footprint.

‘The tattoo was taken from a print that my parents did when I was born and shows my mum’s big foot next to my baby foot,’ the aspiring actress tells me at a red-carpet event, where she showed off the unique design.

‘It was very painful because I got it on the ribs. It was the first one I had done, and, obviously, the more tattoos you have the less adrenaline your body produces, so it’s more painful.’

Gaia, 23, whose father is the Oscar winner’s second husband, Strictly star Greg Wise, adds: ‘I do remember lying there and the tattoo artist kept on asking if I wanted to stop, but I just said, “Carry on, I have to get this done.” It’s very special to me and my mum loves it.’

 

Nadiya's diet secret: crisps and sarnies! 

Nadiya Hussain may be a second generation British Bangladeshi whose father owned an ‘Indian’ restaurant, but she’s not been able to eat spicy food and curries since being pregnant.

‘After the first trimester, when the sickness had stopped, it was egg sandwiches,’ says The Great British Bake Off winner, 38. 

Asked what food she survived on while pregnant with her three children, she says: ¿Egg mayo sandwiches, with a dash of salad cream'

Asked what food she survived on while pregnant with her three children, she says: ‘Egg mayo sandwiches, with a dash of salad cream'

‘I was so scared of eating anything with too much flavour, like spices and stuff, so I was completely off curries, anything spicy.

‘After having my son 16 years ago I can’t eat super-spicy food any more.’

Asked what food she survived on while pregnant with her three children, she says: ‘Egg mayo sandwiches, with a dash of salad cream just for a little extra flavour and black pepper, and that’s it — on white bread — and Marmite crisps.

‘I went through 12 packets of crisps a day, for about four months. And my son was a whopper.'

 

It assumed the role of financial magician in Prince Andrew’s life when one of its oligarchs paid £15 million — £3 million over the asking price — for his Berkshire home, Sunninghill Park, which had languished on the market for five long years.

Now, I can reveal, a private inquiry in Kazakhstan, the authoritarian central Asian republic, is playing its part in enriching three parliamentarians - Lord (Ken) Macdonald, Sir Robert Buckland and Labour MP Rushanara Ali. 

The trio have immersed themselves in a privately funded Commission of Inquiry into the detention of Zhanbolat Mamay, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, convened by legal firm Bindmans ‘on behalf of citizens of Kazakhstan’. 

The commission is already paying off — certainly for Rushanara Ali. In the latest Register of Members’ Interests, she records it’s paying her £10,000 for 32 hours’ work.

 
The business the actor, 30, uses to channel his earnings, Upperroom Entertainment, generated £900,000 in profits last year

The business the actor, 30, uses to channel his earnings, Upperroom Entertainment, generated £900,000 in profits last year

Peckham-born John Boyega caused a furore when he criticised Disney over its treatment of his Star Wars character, Finn, accusing it of deliberately sidelining his role and using him as a token diversity prop.

Happily, the row doesn’t seem to have affected his bank balance.

I hear that the business the actor, 30, uses to channel his earnings, Upperroom Entertainment, generated £900,000 in profits last year.

Its latest earnings, in the year to January 2022, take accumulated profits held in the firm to £11.4 million. 

It is one of his five companies, which include Upperroom Properties, whose newly published accounts report ownership of £4.2 million worth of investment property. Clearly, the Force is with him.