The Londoner: ‘Time for museum of colonialism in East End’

Historian and author William Dalrymple has an alternative to toppling statues of slavers, telling the UK Punjab Heritage Association last night: “What this country badly needs is a good, balanced museum of colonialism, like the African American Museum in Washington, which has the most moving, brilliant, balanced display about slavery and that is full of statues of slavers and slaving memorabilia.

“You could happily take many statues of East India Company magnates and create a really good museum.”

Dalrymple suggests looking at the East End, where the V&A is opening a site. Promoting his latest book The Anarchy — history of the East India Company, he argued that Britain’s past is central to many citizens’ identity.

“Every brown person in this country is confronted by a statute like Clive [of India] sitting outside the Foreign Office. It is not an easy thing to live with, particularly if it isn’t mediated by a modern plaque explaining in a balanced way both sides of the story.”

He also said: “It’s not as if it’s an unmitigated history of complete horror. There are things the British people can be proud of but nonetheless, they need to know the nasty stuff … It’s a major issue of our time.”

---

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI, the big-boned opera singer, had a weak spot. David Wilson, the slight co-founder of charity War Child, tells the Camden New Journal of their pizza-eating contest one summer. “He had a pizza oven in the garden and his family kept piling them in and asking to see who could eat the most. In the end, he gave up – I won.”

---

TIM ROTH recalls Ian Townsend, his piano double for a film, being terrified of a pre-shoot meeting with his personal hero, composer Ennio Morricone, who died in July. Townsend had to play a piece of Morricone’s in front of him. Afterwards, Roth told Edith Bowman's Soundtracking, “there was this pause ... and Ennio went ‘OK’. And we carried on talking. Ian melted i

SW1A

SADIQ KHAN’S register of hospitality reveals that he has accepted a couple of Gallic gifts lately. President Macron gave him a copy of General de Gaulle’s memoirs in June, then the French ambassador handed over a Bastille Day hamper in July, which maybe didn’t hit the spot. The register adds of the latter it would be “impolite” and incur “undue cost to the authority to return”. Bon appétit.

---

IT’S not just the Prime Minister gnashing his teeth over a series of summer mishaps. We hear former Cabinet minister David Davis has had a couple of caps restored on his teeth that were “damaged by all the grinding frustration with the Government, especially over the exam fiasco”, he told a friend. Perhaps he can ping his dental bill to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson?

Toast to carnival past as party goes online

YASMIN EVANS was in throwback mode as she toasted the online-only Notting Hill Carnival with a snap from a previous year. “Carnival is freedom; a celebration of Who, What & Where we represent,” the DJ wrote. Last night, DJ Nate and the House Gospel Choir performed on live stream. Meanwhile Maya Jama looked effortlessly chic with a glass of red wine. The only way to see out summer.