AMANDA PLATELL: Of late, no posh girl worth her pink Himalyan salt has stepped out without a £300 piece of croissant-shaped fabric (prices can rise to an eye-watering £900) atop their shining heads.

AMANDA PLATELL: England football hero Paul Gascoigne was cleared by a jury of sexually assaulting a woman on a train after 'innocently' kissing her to make her feel better.

AMANDA PLATELL: Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge was told when she graduated from Rada to capitalise on her winsome aristocratic looks.

The power of an iron fist in a velvet glove was shown to perfection by Newsnight's Emily Maitlis in her interview with Prince Andrew, writes AMANDA PLATELL.

AMANDA PLATELL: More attention is now given to Cowell's scowl, Amanda Holden's nipples and Alesha Dixon's barely clad thighs than to the real stars - the ordinary folk following their dreams

AMANDA PLATELL: Ant has treated you appallingly. But every tweet you post keeps you nailed to the cross of this broken marriage. You have to break away.

AMANDA PLATELL: It was a bracing moment when I read that the Church of England, my Church, declared that loving, long-term couples in civil partnerships should not have sex.

PLATELL'S PEOPLE: What a shining example of selflessness we have been given this week from a woman who is among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus plague.

ANDREW PIERCE: The Labour Party suspended Lord Lea of Crondall last week after the House of Lords' standards watchdog found he sexually harassed two women working in Parliament.

Four men and two women, will today sit in judgment in an anonymous office in the Whitehall edifice that houses the Treasury on the most contentious set of peerage nominations for a generation.

Despite being repeatedly tipped as a 'prime minister-in-waiting' since entering the House of Commons less than five years ago, Rishi Sunak has always been better known in India than Britain.

ANDREW PIERCE: Sunak's bold measures to tackle the economic devastation threatened by the coronavirus has found him allies in unexpected places.

ANDREW PIERCE - After her recent letter to the Times, Lady Marland has now left her husband, peer Lord Jonathan Marland with quite a conundrum to deal with regarding his personal wealth.

ANDREW PIERCE: Most politicians need a brass neck to survive in the Westminster jungle. But former Labour energy minister Lord Truscott is in a league of his own.

Chris Froome has insisted he is 'on the road to recovery' following his horror crash which saw him lose four pints of blood and required six-hours of surgery, and has admitted he feels lucky to be alive.

DANIEL BENSON - EDITOR-IN-CHIEF FOR CYCLINGNEWS.COM: Last Wednesday Chris Froome and the Team Ineos squad arrived in the outskirts of the French commune of Roanne.

Froome had been treated at the University Hospital of St Etienne, where he underwent a six-hour operation to repair a fractured right femur, broken hip, fractured elbow and fractured ribs.

Mark Cavendish has been left out of the Dimension Data team that will compete in this year's Tour de France. It is the first time in 13 years that the British rider will not compete in France.

Chris Froome admitted he is 'relieved' to be back home and will be following the Tour de France from his bed following the horror crash that left him seriously injured.

Team Dimension Data head of performance Rolf Aldag has made clear he will stay with the team for the remainder of the Tour de France as the row over Mark Cavendish's non-selection rumbled on.

Geraint Thomas took back control of the Tour de France on Thursday, with a surge of power taking him clear of his main rivals on the backbreaking finish to stage six in the Vosges mountains.

Geraint Thomas breathed a sigh of relief at the finish of stage eight of the Tour de France after he survived a team pile-up at the bottom of a fast downhill section on the approach to Saint-Etienne.

Valentin Anouilh, 21, spent six months training for the stunt which saw him soar over the heads of the elite riders as they sprinted through a valley near Saint Flour, Auvergne.

MATT LAWTON IN BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE: The race for the big prize might have failed to ignite here on the first day in the Pyrenees but there was no shortage of fireworks

MATT LAWTON ON THE COL DU TOURMALET: Owner of Ineos Jim Ratcliffe must have sat in the team car on Saturday afternoon and wondered if he had just bought a cycling team in decline.

Thomas has blamed a 'minor fuelling issue' on his seventh-placed finish during the Pyrenean stages over the weekend, which saw him twice left behind by his rivals.

The defending champion came off on a right-hander with around 130km of the 177km stage, which started and finished in Nimes, remaining. He was though soon able to rejoin the race.

Forecasters also predicted new temperatures highs in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, where the mercury is set to reach 104F (40C) for the first time on Thursday.

MATT LAWTON IN GAP: Team Ineos go into three massive days in the Alps that will determine the outcome of the most mesmerising Tour de France in decades, without captain Luke Rowe.

The 34-year-old suffered multiple broken bones after he collided with a wall during this year's event, but is ahead in his recovery and is targeting next year's race as a potential return date.

Chris Froome has revealed that he does not remember any part of the horrific crash that almost cost him his life during a training ride in May.

We've already seen coronavirus decimate the sporting calendar, with Euro 2020 and the Tokyo Olympics among dozens of events either postponed or cancelled. So what will be the next event to fall?

Sultry pop star Lana del Rey took the wraps off Jaguar's flashy new F-Type sports car, pictured right, as a string of new British vehicles stole the Paris Motor Show from under the noses of the French this week.

Major car makers including Vauxhall, Nissan, Citroen and Volvo will exhibit a range of their latest and yet to launch vehicles as well as providing test drives at the Future Drive Motor Show.

Mailonline has had an exclusive first drive of the astonishing new ‘green’ super-frugal car offering 2p a mile motoring that could swiftly put Osborne and the Treasury out of business.

RAY MASSEY: As controversial table-manners go, it certainly beats resting on your elbows. This remarkable stunt came as the dashing Earl of March hosted a sumptuous sponsors and press dinner.

That rare shaft of sunshine this week was enough for British supercar-maker Aston Martin to launch a blistering £200,000 flagship soft-top, a highlight of its centenary year.

This is not so much a van as a luxurious business-class aircraft cabin on wheels. I had to ferry three adults, two growing teenagers, and luggage.

Most of the hi-tech kit needed for the car to drive itself — from self-parking to collision avoidance — is already hard-wired into the new version.

The X Factor boss might have been holding court in Los Angeles but for motoring editor Ray Massey, nothing could upstage the Jaguar F-type.

This is the second generation of the family car that broke the mould and helped create a whole new segment of 'crossover' vehicles, which put a 4x4 shape on the frame of a hatchback.

The latest new Porsche roared into 'Motown' this week as all eyes turned to Detroit - the home of U.S. car-building, but a city that has known better times.

Ray Massey, motoring editor, brings the news of the Geneva Motoring Show 2014. He reports on the latest Audi's birthday car and the outbreak of furnishing wars.

She is known for her individual style, so it should come as no surprise that singer VV Brown has partnered with Vauxhall Motors to personalise and design her very own Vauxhall ADAM car.

A few weeks ago Ray branded the Government's electric car policy being in a mess. His Whitehall sources tell him it rattled cages at the Department for Transport.

The Mazda 2 is the fourth member of a line-up that includes the CX-5 sports utility vehicle, the svelte Mazda 6 saloon and estate and the Mazda3 hatchback and fastback

Land Rover Discovery Sport has also received 1,200 orders in three weeks. Chief executive Dr Ralf Speth said the cars are 'at the very heart of Britain's manufacturing renaissance'.

The event marks Parliament allowing motorists to drive without a man waving a red flag ahead in 1896. Hollywood drove a two-seater 1904 De Dion-Bouton

Expect prices from around £25,500 to about £43,000 for the pumped-up CLA45 AMG, which will accelerate from rest to 62mph in 4.7 seconds, thanks to its 360 bhp, 2-litre turbo engine.

Including the new BMW 6 Series Convertible, Coupe and Gran Coupe. The cabriolet will go from rest to 62 mph in just 5.5 seconds. All petrol models will have a sports tuned exhaust system.