Glad tidings of comfort and joy this week as William and Kate returned to Westminster Abbey to record a carol service to be broadcast on ITV on Christmas Eve. The Abbey was, of course, the scene of the last major public meeting between the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Meghan and Harry (a Commonwealth Day service in March 2020) before relations went spectacularly awry.

So there were amused smiles in the congregation when they opened the service sheet to find the Cambridges’ little nod to the royal twosome in California: the Sussex Carol. It was sung just after the Duke of Cambridge had read, from St Luke’s Gospel, that “there was no room for them in the inn”. Oh dear.

Caught on camera

Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, owned up to his part in Matt Hancock’s downfall this week. He told a live recording of Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast that the fateful CCTV camera was put up in the Secretary of State’s room when he oversaw an office move.

“I honestly didn’t have any idea where it was pointed but for Matt it was very, very bad luck,” Hunt said, adding: “If it was someone trying to catch him out doing some mischief that camera would have been pointed at the sofa, not the door.”

Hunt also lifted the lid on his embarrassment when, during his time as foreign secretary, he said, during a visit to Beijing, that his Chinese wife Lucia was Japanese. He desperately tried to phone her to warn her of the gaffe. When he eventually got through, Lucia answered in her best Japanese: “Konnichiwa – darling!”

Recycle like a star

Lily Cole has been handing out the kind of eco-advice that only a supermodel worth £10 million can offer: suggesting people should reuse their couture gowns. “I wore my old McQueen dress for the Fashion Awards, because sustainability means loving things MORE and committing to them!” she reveals.

What’s wrong with going to Oxfam?

Rewards for failure

More on why honours for prime ministers appear to have stopped with Tony Blair. I disclosed last week that the current situation means Theresa May is styling herself Lady May after her husband Philip was knighted. Friends of the former Labour PM have since confirmed that Blair “hasn’t been offered one”.

Privy Council expert David Rogers tells me former prime ministers are sniffy about peerages because they tend – with some notable exceptions like Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson – to be given to politicians who lose elections. This would explain why William Hague, Michael Howard and Neil Kinnock are in the Lords along with David Owen and David Steel. “Heath, Major, Blair, Brown considered themselves far too successful to go to the Lords and mix with failures,” Rogers says.

Rock on, Tony!

Great excitement about Harry Hill’s upcoming musical Tony! – a “rock opera” about “the life of former Ugly Rumours front man and Britain’s first pop prime minister”. Hill and his co-writer Steve Brown have been putting on “work in progress” previews of the show. ITV political editor Robert Peston – who was recently spotted having lunch with Hill at The Wolseley restaurant in Piccadilly, London – has been lucky enough to see it, and says it is indeed “very funny”.

Peston has also just published his own novel. “Fingers crossed The Whistleblower will be a TV series,” he tells me. “The musical can wait.”

Renouf to put you off your dinner

Paddy Renouf – who lived for free at the Savoy hotel as its resident “London expert” – has been sharing tips from his time as a tour guide to the stars, when he would carry out all manner of odd requests for high-paying guests.

They’re lucky he wasn’t in charge of room service if his tips for a good sirloin are anything to go by. “I buy a simple supermarket steak, cover it in black pepper and leave it in the fridge for a week to give mould a chance to grow,” he says. “Then do it for two minutes on each side in a hot pan and it’s restaurant standard.” I wouldn’t try that at home.

Pi to the power of six

Spotted at the press night for Life of Pi at London’s Wyndham Theatre: the author of the best-selling book that spawned the play, Yann Martel, who confessed he had seen it “five or six times” because he loved it so much. Has he never heard of Netflix?

Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope, the Telegraph’s chief political correspondent and the author of the daily Chopper’s Politics newsletter. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk