Diary: Janet steps in, right on cue

(Alan Davidson)

To the Groucho Club, naturally, to see "contemporary circus visionary" Nell Gifford win the inaugural Groucho Maverick Award for her visionary contemporary circus. The prize was presented by Janet Street-Porter, who took the opportunity to debunk a pair of legends surrounding the club's snooker table, which she supposedly donated some years ago.

"Actually, I sold it to them," she declared of the table, which appears in the memoirs of two Groucho regulars: Blur bassist and cheese-maker Alex James, who once slept under it, and the actor Keith Allen, who claimed to have had his way with Ms Street-Porter on it.

The Maverick Award judges gathered around said snooker table to deliberate, I'm told – at which meeting Ms Street-Porter denied having ever succumbed to Mr Allen's charms, let alone on a snooker table. Mr Allen was not available for comment, but a Groucho Club spokesperson maintained that Ms Street-Porter did indeed donate the table, and that it resides in a room once trashed by Liam Gallagher. Ah, memories.

* Celebrated society photographer Richard Young tells me he's planning a documentary about his early life. "It's going to be about my childhood, all the way through the hedonistic days of the Seventies, where it really was sex, drugs and rock'n'roll – with an emphasis on the first two," said the snapper, whose retrospective, Icons, is currently on display at Claridge's. "It will trace my life and career up till 1983, because that's where all the best fun was. I've bought a 1970s camcorder to film it on, and it's going to look brilliant." Photography wasn't his only ambition, Young revealed: "If I hadn't been a photographer, I'd have been a music producer. My film will have an absolute killer soundtrack; I'm hand-picking every single song."

* Stephen Fry, briefly tarnished national treasure, and Robbie Savage, joint holder of the record for most yellow cards in Premier League history, haven't a lot in common. But yesterday Savage followed Fry by flouncing off Twitter, claiming he'd been misunderstood.

The Derby County captain, 36, caused a stir when he defended footballers' wages. "People who save lives and fight for there [sic] country and put there [sic] lives on the line should be on more than me but that's not my choice," he tweeted, not unreasonably. The Daily Star, however, chose to focus on his boast that trick-or-treaters would be deterred by the lengthy driveway leading to his £2.5m Cheshire mansion.

"You can't be yourself on here!" Savage then lamented. "People twist things so that is it x au revoir". Fans clamoured for the French-speaking midfielder's return to Twitter. "No that's it," he insisted. "100% that's it!" Still, six hours later, he was back. To accusations of attention-seeking, he replied: "If I want [attention], I'll just go to the Trafford centre in my Lambo[rghini]!"

* Lord Archer's Mini, I'm reliably informed, appeared in the news before he and his mistress Sally Farmiloe made use of its fully reclining leather Recaro seats in a Mayfair car park. When its interior was first given the "Margrave" upgrade, Lord Archer – né Jeffrey – paid £23,000 for it, says Michael Standring of Mini specialists Wood and Pickett, who are now offering the historic vehicle on eBay for a bargain £10,000.

An Austin Rover employee allegedly tipped off the News of the World, Standring says. "Apparently, a photographer was hiding in Berkeley Square Gardens and photographed [Lord Archer] taking delivery of the car. When he saw the article, Archer blew his top. The lad who sold the story got £500." So that's how they get all those exclusives, the swines.

* Bad news for diarists in need of a political quip at deadline time. Steven Pound, MP for Ealing North, tells the Ealing Leader newspaper he's accepted Miliband (E)'s offer of a job in the Commons Whips Office. "Life as a secular monk now beckons," says Pound, "and my devoted admirers – both of them – in Ealing North will be seeing and hearing a lot less of me in the media." Presumably, this also spells the end of his burgeoning stand-up comedy career. A sad day.

highstreetken@independent.co.uk