SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Bicycle bandit mugs V&A boss Nicholas Coleridge for his mobile phone 

Nicholas Coleridge, ebullient chairman of the V&A Museum, has become the latest victim of London‘s crime wave.

He was mugged last week opposite the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the assailant cheekily bicycled off with his mobile phone.

‘I was talking on the phone and standing by the kerb to try and get a better line on the mobile,’ recalls Coleridge, ‘when he swooped past and punched me on the side of the head and my iPhone was whisked from my hand.’

Former fashion magazine bigwig Coleridge (pictured below) has an unerring eye for sartorial detail and passed on a description of his assailant to the police.

Nicholas Coleridge, ebullient chairman of the V&A Museum, has become the latest victim of London’s crime wave

‘He looked about 19 and was in a white synthetic hoodie.’ However, his mugger has still to be apprehended.

‘He had a thin, feral face,’ adds Coleridge.

‘As he rode away he turned around with a look of triumph and glee before pedalling through a red light towards Pimlico.’

Despite his tribulations, Coleridge has a grudging respect for his assailant’s bravado.

‘He was very impressive — a swerve of his bike, a punch of the temple and the snatching of the mobile.

Coleridge has a grudging respect for his assailant's bravado. (file photo)

Coleridge has a grudging respect for his assailant’s bravado. (file photo)

‘For the next 48 hours my hand reached out for my phone only to realise I hadn’t got one. To find oneself without Instagram, social media or contact lists was like a trip back to the 1980s.’

   

More from Sebastian Shakespeare for the Daily Mail…

Father-of-four Coleridge, 64, who is married to healer Georgia, is made of strong stuff as readers of his entertaining and adventurous diaries The Glossy Years will know. He travelled across Russia to Iran in his gap year and spent ten days in a Sri Lankan jail after being arrested while making a documentary about Tamil terrorism.

Last summer, after contracting Covid-19, he spent ten days at his local NHS hospital in Worcester and described lying in a ‘strange, semi-sedated dream world, oblivious that Georgia had taken a call from the doctor to tell her to prepare for the worst.’

Although never on a ventilator, he received oxygen daily and spent three weeks recuperating. ‘It was my first stay in a hospital, but I was beyond feeling scared.’

Despite becoming a successful radio and television host, Fearne Cotton admits she still harbours misgivings about her lack of higher education.

‘I come from a working-class background. It was all little moments of chance and luck to get anywhere near working in the industry,’ says the 39-year-old mother-of-two. ‘And I do often feel insecure that I didn’t go to university.

‘When I’m talking, I feel so paranoid that I’m going to be tripped up or found out.’

Former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey

Former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey

Former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey can’t fathom why so many artists vote Labour.

 ‘I’ve always thought artists should be Conservatives, because the artist tends to be an entrepreneur, a radical thinker, questioning the status quo — and frankly there’s also an element of wanting to make money,’ he muses.

‘So why aren’t more artists Conservative?’

We are almost a mother, reveals Mrs T actress

Actress Alexandra Roach

Actress Alexandra Roach

She married a club promoter she met on Facebook, and now actress Alexandra Roach — the young Margaret Thatcher (inset) in Oscar-winning film The Iron Lady — reveals she is pregnant with their first child.

The 33-year-old from Wales has confirmed she and her husband of three years, Jack Scales, also 33, are to become parents.

Debuting her bump, Alexandra has shared a photograph of herself wearing a black dress taken in Bristol, where they live.

‘I can’t wait to meet my new pal,’ she says. Her Killing Eve co-star, Jodie Comer, was among the first of her friends to congratulate her.

Carman joins the Diddy Men 

First, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe’s trial for conspiring to murder his lover Norman Scott was turned into an acclaimed TV series starring Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal. Now, another of the celebrated barrister George Carman’s cases is to be dramatised.

I hear that former BBC legal correspondent and barrister Clive Coleman has just completed a script for ITV based on entertainer Ken Dodd’s three-week trial for tax evasion, to be called Doddy, and focusing on the unlikely relationship between Carman and Dodd.

Carman got Dodd off at Liverpool Crown Court. Carman noted after hearing evidence from HMRC’s finest: ‘One thing we have learned from this trial is that comedians are not chartered accountants, but sometimes chartered accountants are comedians.’ Dodd, who was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours, went on to joke about the trial in his shows, describing himself as ‘a failed accountant’, and quipped: ‘I told the Inland Revenue I didn’t owe them a penny because I lived near the seaside.’

Here’s one that yoga fan Cara designed earlier… 

She was named Britain’s highest-earning model after raking in £15.7 million last year, and now Cara Delevingne is looking to try her hand at designing clothes instead of just wearing them.

The 28-year-old daughter of property developer Charles Delevingne reveals she has co-created a woke ‘eco-conscious’ yoga collection with the sports brand Puma, called Exhale.

Cara Delevingne is looking to try her hand at designing clothes instead of just wearing them

Cara Delevingne is looking to try her hand at designing clothes instead of just wearing them

She shared a picture of herself in a blue crop top and leggings she co-designed, which comprise — as the whole collection does — at least 70 per cent recycled polyester.

‘Yoga is one of my biggest passions; it has impacted my life in such a positive way,’ says Cara.

‘It’s one of the best ways we can relax in these times of chaos.’

Prince Charles is trying to boost fertility this spring. His stately home in Ayrshire, Dumfries House, is to host a Women’s Health Conference next month, focusing on the menopause and fertility.

‘The virtual conference will feature live Q&A sessions with both healthcare professionals and complementary therapists who specialise in everything from reflexology and meditation to yoga and nutrition,’ explains Carolyn Paton, health and wellbeing co-ordinator for the Prince’s Foundation. 

Woolly herd enjoy Alice’s anniversary 

A tenth wedding anniversary is traditionally marked with tin. But socialite Alice Naylor-Leyland has celebrated hers with a herd of South American animals.

The 34-year-old, who is married to Tom Naylor-Leyland — son of baronet Sir Philip — reveals he presented her with five alpacas yesterday at their Cambridgeshire estate, Stibbington House, to mark their marital milestone.

‘Welcoming the Fab Five,’ says the mother of three, describing them as the ‘newest addition to the family’.

Alice has a playful side with animals: for her 30th birthday party, she dyed her sheep pink and blue.

Alice Naylor Leyland has a new family.....a group of llamas!

Alice Naylor Leyland has a new family…..a group of llamas!