EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Sage advice for hospital staff treating Princess Anne from a nurse who recalled the 'only way' to stop the 73-year-old from leaving prematurely

Medical staff tending Princess Anne at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when she suffered a chest infection in 2016 recall a formidable patient. 

Remembers one nurse: 'She wasn't a good patient, thought she wasn't really ill and constantly wanted to get up and go home.' 

What to do? 'The best advice is to keep her husband, Sir Tim Laurence, or one of the children on hand,' says my source. 

'They're the only people who can tell her to behave. Once she was home she was generous with thank you notes, flowers and a charitable donation.'

The King's wining and dining of Japan's Emperor Naruhito at Buckingham Palace last night prompts recollection of the late Prince Philip's diplomatic fib when, on a state visit to Tokyo with the Queen, he claimed he'd never been to Japan before. 

In fact he was there after Japan's surrender at the end of WW2. 

Later Philip mischievously observed: 'I'm not always as tactless as people make out.'

Did the heart of Corbynista MP Dawn Butler miss a beat when Luther heartthrob Idris Elba shared a platform with Keir Starmer to highlight the Labour leader's plans to tackle knife crime? 

Dawn dines out on her teenage crush on Idris, sharing a smooch and remembering: 'It could have been a big romance...in another world, I could be married to Idris Elba.'

No sooner does Sir Trevor McDonald, 84 tell Saga magazine he turned down a BBC job, as he would've felt like a token black presenter, than his old chum Michael Cole reminds him that he was once a BBC reporter. 

'Trevor worked at the BBC from 1969 to 1973 and was pictured in a publicity photograph looking like the earnest newsman he was, all frown and glasses,' says Cole, formerly the Beeb's Royal Correspondent. 

'He joined ITN only after he had proved his worth at the BBC.' Senior moment, Trev?

Centre court brat John McEnroe urges his friend Sir Andy Murray to confirm his retirement at next week's Wimbledon. 

Recalling the Scot's weeping when he lost the 2012 final to Roger Federer, he tells Radio Times: 'It was beautiful to see that side of him – usually he's a pretty stoic guy. 

'If Andy knows this Wimbledon will be his last, it's better that he says it beforehand. 

'Then it would be even more emotional, garnering the kind of ten-minute standing ovation you see at the Cannes Film Festival.'

Liverpool versifier Roger McGough regrets never meeting Philip Larkin when he was Hull University librarian and Roger was a teenage student. 

But he does accuse Larkin of intellectual theft. 

'I always got the feeling that he'd nicked one or two of mine – the ambulance poem, I'm sure.' 

So what rhymes with nee-naw, Roger?