Diary: Lou Reed makes Boyle’s day

(EPA)

Warbling Scottish eccentric Susan Boyle has already turned her vocal talents to a number of potentially unsuitable cover versions: "Wild Horses", by Keith Richards and the allegedly underendowed Mick Jagger, to name but one example.

Ms Boyle's latest single is "Perfect Day", written by Richards's fellow former heroin-lover Lou Reed. (The song, it is often claimed, is an ode to that very narcotic.) It was rumoured, then denied, that Reed thought the Britain's Got Talent runner-up's cover inferior to Duran Duran's and that he therefore prevented her from singing "Perfect Day" on America's Got Talent earlier this year – which means Ms Boyle flew to Los Angeles and back for nothing.

As if to dispel that rumour, Reed has unexpectedly directed the video for her effort which was released yesterday. The one-time Velvet Underground frontman's film is a remarkably traditional, picture-postcard evocation of the Scottish Highlands, with Ms Boyle standing by a loch looking moody. I'm not entirely sure she's got that lip-synching down pat just yet, though. Maybe Cheryl Cole could give her some tips.

* Rory Stewart, Conservative MP for Penrith and the Borders, would make a formidable internet dater: the former soldier, Harvard academic and celebrated author enjoys spending time with friends (the Prince of Wales, for example), long walks in the country (Cumbria) and international travel (Iraq, Afghanistan). But can he boast a GSOH? He did once make a humorous comment comparing the Lib Dems to the Taliban, suggesting that "neither go away, [but they'll] never form a government", or words to that effect.

On the other hand, when my predecessor Pandora published the aforementioned humorous comment, Stewart humourlessly vowed never to speak to this newspaper again; an honourable chap, he has thus far kept his promise. He did recently speak, however, to The New Yorker, for that most serious of organs' 10,000-word-or-so profile – somewhat longer than the average mysinglefriend.com profile – during which interview he happened to compare himself to Alexander the Great (as well as Achilles, Caesar, Byron and Lawrence of Arabia). Stewart said of this apparent hubris: "If you try to put it down in black and white, the irony vanishes and the monstrous egotism is revealed." I think he was joking, but I can't be absolutely sure.

* Lord Young of Graffham, another chum of Prince Charles, was last week named as the Government's new "Enterprise Tsar", so it's perhaps a touch inconvenient that his own most recent business venture was a flop. Last year Lord Young – Mrs Thatcher's one-time Trade Secretary and author of a scintillating new government report on health and safety – helped to set up Invest & Give, an investment fund that benefited from new tax relief rules by donating part of its investors' costs to the Prince's Trust. The Prince was said to be delighted by the admirable scheme, which was overseen by a handful of high-flying fund managers from leading City firms. A year later, however, investors have been informed that Invest & Give is being wound up due to lack of interest. Better luck next time.

* Thanks to that unfortunate engine explosion over Indonesia, the Airbus 380 is now the least comforting airliner in the sky. However Qantas, its six-strong A380 fleet still grounded, nonetheless went ahead with its 90th birthday celebrations in Brisbane last weekend, enlisting a morale-boosting turn from actor John Travolta, who flew himself to Australia in his favourite pilot uniform. "I can assure you that [Qantas's] is the hardest [pilot] training in the world and that's why you guys are so safe," the actor and Qantas-qualified helmsman reassured airline employees, before singing a medley of numbers from Grease.

* Political blogger and sayer of the unsayable Guido Fawkes carried a compelling ad on his website yesterday for a topical T-shirt featuring Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the man behind the unpaid-work-for-the-jobless initiative. IDS is pictured sporting a Nazi uniform and a Hitler moustache beneath the words "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("work makes you free"). Unlikely, I fear, to be worn in polite company.