Christopher Hitchens takes on new drug regime in hope of cancer cure



Buoyed by a visit by his friend, playwright Sir Tom Stoppard – and a note of encouragement from ex-President George W Bush whom he’s often mocked – British-born, Washington-based Christopher Hitchens has embarked on a promising new drugs regime which he hopes will cure his cancer of the oesophagus.

Says Hitch, 61: ‘I had 6billion DNA matches run – twice! – one each on my tumour and on my blood sample.

'So I am one of the first primates to have had his entire genome “sequenced”.

'They found a “match” that is specific for my condition, and are using a targeted drug called Gleevec which doesn’t have so many of the awful side-effects that nearly checked me out earlier this month. So after some hellish months I hope to find that the hanging-on was worth it.’



Although nominated for 12 Oscars, not everyone’s pleased with The King’s Speech. Stanley Baldwin’s grandson Edward is unhappy at the way the former Prime Minister, who resigned in 1937, is depicted as a ditherer who stood down on the basis that he misunderstood Hitler’s warmongering intentions. Says Lord Baldwin, 73: ‘It’s completely wrong. My grandfather understood Hitler and was responsible for the rearmament of Britain. It makes Churchill out to be the hero. It is bad history.’



Sir Sean Connery’s ‘unimpeachable proletarian credentials’ get a full airing in a never-before-seen 1967 documentary called Tales from the Shipyard, to be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival next month. He tells interviewer Bernard Braden: ‘I’d never considered myself a particularly political animal at all. But suddenly when I went up to Scotland to look at this Fairfield [Clyde shipyard] experiment it awakened all sorts of dislikes and likes that had obviously been kind of dormant in me – particularly against management. They’re too greedy and don’t put enough of what they take out back in.’ Bahamas-based Sir Sean, 80, pictured, of course, is one of the UK’s most distinguished tax exiles.

Wasn't it unsporting of Oprah Winfrey, 56, not to give Piers Morgan his first CNN scoop last week by failing to disclose that she had recently discovered she had a long-lost sister? She saved her announcement that she was reconciled with her half-sister, Patricia, 47, for her own show on Monday. When Morgan interviewed Sir Elton John last November, the singer similarly forgot to mention he was about to become a father. Celebrities can be so disobliging.

Former Liberal leader David Steel, 72, still smarts at Spitting Image’s portrayal of him as a midget in the pocket of Social Democrat leader David Owen, 72, but is far too well-mannered to criticise his former political partner. Not so Steel’s feisty wife, Judy, who tells me she has let rip at Owen in her forthcoming memoirs, Tales From the Tap End. She tells me: ‘My husband read it and thought I was far too nippy about David Owen and has asked me to tone it down. He is much more diplomatic than I am.’

