Bond girl's ex to wed his man...


Wedding bells: Simon Woods, right, with his husband to be, Christopher Bailey at a GQ event in 2008

Wedding bells: Simon Woods, right, with his husband to be, Christopher Bailey at a GQ event in 2008

He met and fell in love with Bond girl Rosamund Pike at Oxford University, only to break her heart.

Nine years later, Old Etonian actor Simon Woods is to marry . . . his boyfriend.

Pride & Prejudice star Woods met Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey in 2009.

Since then, their relationship has gone from strength to strength, and two years ago they were pictured together at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.

Woods, friends with Chelsea and her husband Marc Mezvinsky from his Oxford days, had introduced them to Bailey, who designed the suits for the groom and ushers.

Now Woods, 32, and Bailey, 40, are tying the knot in a small civil ceremony of their own next month.

The couple arrived at Chelsea Register Office this week to give notice of their forthcoming partnership.

The banns list them as Simon Douglas Nigel Murray Woods and Christopher Paul Bailey. Bailey’s profession is given as ‘designer’.

Curiously, Woods — who starred alongside Keira Knightley in Jane Austen’s classic as Mr Bingley, opposite his ex Rosamund — lists his occupation as ‘writer’.

It is thought they plan to invite only close family and friends on the day.

They are allowed a maximum of 38 guests to fill the venue’s traditional Brydon Room, which is decorated with crystal chandeliers and gold curtains.

Long lost love: Rosamund Pike and Simon Woods met at Oxford university and dated for two years in the early noughties

Long lost love: Rosamund Pike and Simon Woods met at Oxford University and dated for two years in the early noughties

Excluding additional flower arrangements and music, the hire of the room will cost them between £300 and £525.

After dating Rosamund for two years at Oxford, the pair split and Woods reassessed his sexuality.

He then embarked on a relationship with a male sculptor, before dating theatrical knight Sir Peter Hall’s stunning actress daughter Rebecca, currently starring in steamy BBC drama Parade’s End.

Four months ago, Rosamund Pike gave birth to a son by  her partner of two years, Robie Uniacke.

Woods says: ‘If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d rather not talk about it, but thank you for calling.’

Actor: Simon Woods with Matthew MacFayden as Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice from 2005

Actor: Simon Woods with Matthew MacFayden as Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice from 2005

Miranda looks on the light side

Light-harted: Friend's say Miranda Hart has lost nearly two stone

Light-harted: Friends say Miranda Hart has lost nearly two stone

She is the most in-demand comedienne in Britain.

But we are about to see a little less of Miranda Hart, at least if she gets her way.

The 6ft 1in star has always used her statuesque appearance as part of her humour, but her size has been considerably diminished in recent weeks.

According to friends, Miranda, 39, has lost nearly two stone in weight.

‘She looks absolutely wonderful,’ says a pal who saw her the other day. Viewers of the next series of her eponymous TV series will not fail to notice the difference.

The elder daughter  of naval officer David Hart Dyke, 72 — whose destroyer HMS Coventry was sunk in the Falklands War  — Downe House-educated Miranda has also made fun of her middle-class Hampshire background.

A grandfather, Sir William Luce, was the former Governor of Aden and her uncle is the former Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce.

Although a natural comic, Miranda has always found the dual tasks of writing and starring in her own skits stressful.

Says the friend: ‘She gets very stressed making her TV programmes and tends to relieve her anxiety by eating more. This time she is not doing that.

‘She is not on a crash diet but is being very careful about what she eats — the result has been quite dramatic.’

 

Cross-dressing artist Grayson Perry caused something of a dilemma at the Central Synagogue in London when he was a guest at the weekend wedding of gallery owner Victoria Miro’s son Oliver to interior designer Deborah Bass.

Ceramicist Perry, whose latest exhibition was staged at Victoria’s huge warehouse gallery in North London, wore one of his trademark pretty frocks to the nuptials and caused some confusion as to where he should be seated.

It was an orthodox Jewish ceremony, where men sit on one side and women on the other.

There was talk about the well-built blonde in a dress with a yarmulke on her head and where he/she would sit, I am told.

But Rabbi Barry Marcus, who conducted the ceremony, tells me: ‘I didn’t notice him — but my focus was on the bride and groom. A dress? It doesn’t matter what he wears, whatever he is comfortable in. But if he is a man, he would have to sit with the men.’

 

Cheska's spanking good read

Submissive fan: Made in Chelsea's Cheska Hull is championing 'the next Fifty Shades'

Submissive Diary fan: Made in Chelsea's Cheska Hull is championing 'the next Fifty Shades'

Ever since bondage blockbuster Fifty Shades Of Grey became a best-selling phenomenon, publishers have been gagging for the next big thing.

One racy contender is Diary Of A Submissive, written by self-proclaimed feminist Sophie Morgan.

She has penned a frank account of her own masochistic experiences as a ‘submissive’ in the bedroom — and now she has her first fan.

Made In Chelsea star Cheska Hull is championing the book and will read two extracts at the launch party next month.

‘I really enjoyed reading it. I liked Fifty Shades, but in my opinion this is better written,’ says literary-loving Cheska, a St Mary’s, Wantage, gel.

‘In the past, I would have considered myself a bit of a prude, but to be able to get up and say “c**k” in front of lots of people is rather empowering,’ she confides.

So will Cheska indulge in the spanking salon laid on by erotic emporium Coco de Mer at the do? ‘God no, I draw the line at that!’

 

Ahead of David Cameron’s widely anticipated re-shuffle, one person hoping for promotion is gaffe-prone Claire Perry.

 
   

More from Richard Kay for the Daily Mail...

The ambitious MP has just completed a tour of 14 towns and villages in her Devizes constituency and, remarkably, says it has left her in buoyant mood about the future of her troubled Government.

However, it appears she has no intention of saying sorry for her remarks in a debate at Marlborough College, where she claimed the Duchess of Cambridge might be pregnant ‘and that would be good for the economy’.

When I ask about suggestions she has apologised to Cameron and Buckingham Palace, she texts: ‘That’s not correct and I do not wish to comment further.’

It's already a crowded market, but royal biographer Christopher Warwick’s new tome on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee should certainly stand out for one reason — its price.

The coffee-table book, published by Taschen, costs £99.99.

‘It’s not the most expensive of their publications,’ insists Christopher, well-respected author of books on Princess Margaret and Sir Peter Ustinov.

Indeed so. A limited edition book on Marilyn Monroe is selling for £1,250 and another on The Beatles has a price of £1,000.

 

PS... Fifteen years to the day since Princess Diana’s death and with no official event to mark it, rumours swirl to fill the vacuum.

An Australian writer claims 26 people participated in a cover-up at the inquest while I hear of a new figure who points to an even more sinister conspiracy.

Credo Mutwa, a Zulu shaman from South Africa, says Diana was urgently trying to talk to him shortly before her death.

He says the death (in a car crash) of Lesotho’s King Moshoeshore in January 1997 was the work of  a ‘hit squad’, also responsible for the accident in Paris. Deep waters!

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