Bardot offers Kate advice about the thrill of the chase

Unless one has a robust constitution, it is best not to ask Brigitte Bardot her thoughts about race, immigration or homosexuality. On the subject of ensaring young men, however, the French actress has winning form.

Bardot has fired a broadside at Prince William's belle Kate Middleton, accusing the good middle-class gal of trying too hard to fit in with aristocratic life.

The trigger (excuse the pun) for this attack was Kate's recent deer-stalking trip in the Scottish Highlands with the Royal Family. She was pictured a fortnight ago, dressed in camouflage and dangly pearl earrings, as she lay in the heather peering through the telescopic sight of a bolt-action hunting rifle and firing off shots. She joined up later with Wills, a keen stalker who inherited his grandfather Prince Philip's passion for stag-hunting.

No one has yet figured out whether Kate shot true and was "blooded" by the ghillies (when a hunter's forehead is smeared with the blood of their first kill). "How sad," Bardot tells the television interviewer Daphne Barak. "She was trying to win him [Prince William] and his family. But this is not a way to get a man. And I do know one or two things about it, you know."

A mean-spirited handful of Wills's more blue-blooded acquaintances are said to have briefed against Middleton's background and cruelly nicknamed her mother Carole, a former flight attendant, "Doors to Manual".

It seems Kate will be damned either way.

Dustin dishes out the jobs in the Last Chance saloon

How To Get Ahead In Hollywood, Part I. You are a young actress, recently graduated from acting school, and have auditioned for the part of a jazz singer in a rom-com, Last Chance Harvey, currently filming in London. Starring in the flick are Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman.

You gatecrash the launch of Hoffman's wife's cosmetics label at Harvey Nichols. Then you walk up to the small man and introduce yourself, interrupting his chatter about face products, and explaining you are waiting to hear back from the director.

Dustin looks you up and down, likes what he sees, and says: "Yeah? Hold on a minute." Then he marches over to the film's young British director, Joel Hopkins, pulls him out of his conversation, and says, smiling: "If you don't give this girl a role in the film then I'm not doing it."

The baffled director stutters: "Yes, absolutely!"

The actress, in this case the stunning Tolula Adeyemi, begins screaming with delight.

Hoffman turns to Pandora – "That's your story" – and exits. Here endeth the lesson.

Time to junk Pete's obit

Some good news yesterday for the serial heroin abuser and skanky musician Pete Doherty: a magistrates court lifted his drug treatment order and wished him all the best with rehab.

It was a rare bit of encouragement for Doherty, who commented on his substance intake outside court: "I've just had enough really." A statement with which it's hard to disagree.

I just wonder whether the BBC are so confident in his rehabilitation.

A knowledgeable source from the Beeb informs Pandora, rather morbidly, that an obituary package on Doherty has been ready to roll for months.

"We only prepare obituaries in detail for the royal family, big politicians, and public figures suffering from a serious illness," I'm told. "But, for obvious reasons, we made an exception." Spike it!

Dinner, darling

First Maggie Thatcher goes for tea and biscuits at No 10. Then Norman "the soap" Tebbit foams at David Cameron. Now a mole claims to have overheard John Major's Cabinet brainbox William Waldegrave at Duke's in St James's saying he is to dine with the Chancellor, Alistair Darling.

Note to WW: For pudding, Darling is said to be fond of the hard cheese and sour grapes.

* Spotted "mixing it up" in the dim underground station in Shepherd's Bush, west London: the former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd.

Hurd was dressed in black tie and surrounded by youths, some wearing hoods. A commuter says: "He looked like he was bricking it. The trick is to wear an overcoat over your dicky bow."

Life's a beach for Grade

Bong! Like Paul Daniels sawing off Debbie McGee's legs, ITV's executive chairman Michael Grade pulled off a splendid magic trick this week, giving the nation back Sir Trevor McDonald, just a few days after auditors revealed the £8m systematic defraudment of ITV viewers by premium rate competition lines when the winner had already been selected.

Pleasing, then, to hear that Grade has found time to get out of the office for a bit of R&R. He has gone "away", rumoured to be on holiday in Portugal.

"Why do you want to know?" hisses Grade's agent and sister, Anita Land, in an email when I ask. I reply. Then: silence!

If Grade is trying to escape the unwashed, baying hacks who want a token blood sacrifice (one of Ant or Dec would do), Portugal would not be the quietest destination.