Robbie exorcises ghost of Winner: Singer and his wife call in Native American healer to cleanse house they bought after director Michael's death

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Haunted house: Robbie and wife Ayda

Robbie Williams' £17.5 million mansion is no doubt in need of a good scrub after having the builders in for three years.

But more unusually, the rock star and his wife Ayda Field are enlisting a Native American healer to burn herbs in order to cleanse the house of the stubborn spirit of its former owner, the irrepressible film maker Michael Winner.

The quirky couple insist Grade II-listed Woodland House in West London is haunted by dark energies. Death Wish director Winner died in the house at the age of 77 in January 2013. Robbie bought it in December that year.

Ayda, 37, is spooked by the thought of the late bon viveur 'watching over her' and criticising her interior decor for the Victorian mansion.

'I am kind of concerned because I'm like, "Michael, do you like this? Is this OK with you?" says Ayda.

'He was such a larger-than-life character.' Loose Women presenter Ayda plans to have the house saged: a Native American ritual where bundles of dried sage are burned to cleanse a space of negative energies.

'I am going to have it blessed, saged, the whole LA thing,' she confirms.

But a friend of Winner's, Barry McKay, is appalled at the idea. 'Isn't that all a bit New Age faddish? ' he remarks. Michael would consider this all bonkers, especially having his spirit expunged. He once said he hoped to exert a presence at Woodland House from the afterlife...and so he should'.

'I would say that any evil spirits in that house would have been caused by whoever made a practice of sticking pins in voodoo dolls.'

'If the house is haunted by Michael Winner, it can only be a result of him being upset over all that happened from the moment he passed away.'

Director Winner died in Woodland House (pictured) at the age of 77 in January 2013

Winner's ghost may not go quietly, as Robbie and Ayda move in to the 46-room pile with their two young children, daughter Theodora, four, and son Charlton, two.

After Winner almost died in Barbados from a rare bug found in oysters, he said he hoped to exert a presence at Woodland House from the afterlife.

He said in 2008: 'I often see tour groups looking at the house, and I think I'll leave them an audio guide when I've gone.

'It'll be me speaking from a waxwork model of myself that will greet them in the hall.'

A voodoo doll, complete with pinpricks, was also found after his death, which we understand did not belong to Winner.

But Angels singer Robbie, who is in tune with the paranormal through his UFO-spotting jaunts, won't exorcise the charismatic director completely.

As an 'ode' to tropical foliage fan Winner, the former Take That star will keep a brass palm tree ornament in the master bedroom.

Ageing Hollywood lothario Warren Beatty's daughter Ella will 'come out' at the Debutantes' Ball in Paris on November 26. The annual shindig, dreamt up in 1992 to promote the French way of life, honours the offspring of parents distinguished in business, politics and the arts. Ella, 16, follows in the foosteps of her sister, Isabel, who came out in 2014. Their sister Kathlyn, came out in 2007 — not as a debutante, but as a transgender man called Stephen Ira. 

Instead of sending his constituents a Christmas card with a festive theme, former deputy speaker Nigel Evans MP intends, once again, to send one featuring himself. 'He's already been looking through all the photos of himself that have been taken over the past year,' I'm told. 

Madonna makes an exhibition of herself... again

True to exhibitionist form, Madonna was no wallflower on her recent debauched night out with hell-raising supermodel Kate Moss.

New behind-the-scenes photos from earlier in the evening show the high-spirited singer sitting on the floor of a gallery, one leg raised high in the air while clutching a glass of rose as she tried to re-enact a picture of herself on the wall above.

Dressing like someone a fraction of her age, 58-year-old Madonna teamed her £585 Gucci zebra-print heels with a bondage-style leather jacket embellished with pearl shoulder pads, a matching peaked cap and ripped black jeans. With amused gallery guests looking on, Madonna rolled about on the floor playing with her phone.

After losing her bitter custody battle with ex-husband Guy Ritchie over their teenage son Rocco in September, perhaps she needs a good lie-down.

New behind-the-scenes photos from earlier in the evening show the high-spirited singer sitting on the floor of a gallery, one leg raised high in the air while clutching a glass of rose

Wild night: Madonna cavorts in front of guests at an art show (left) and with Kate Moss (right)

You could forgive Michael Heseltine for not having an exact recollection of events leading up to the 1964 strangling of his Alsatian, Kim, given it happened so long ago.

He told Tatler magazine how the dog had suddenly started biting him after he went to pet it. When his wife Anne was interviewed about the episode in 1990, she revealed that the incident was actually instigated by the former deputy PM. 'The dog got a thorn in its paw which my husband inadvertently pressed and the dog went for him,' she said.

At least the rest of her account seems to corroborate Hezza's version of events.

'He got the dog by the collar and twisted it. The dog coughed and then stopped and later had to be put down.'

Duke's girl and a royal surprise

Lady Charlotte Wellesley, the daughter of the Duke of Wellington, married Colombian Alejandro Santo Domingo this year

Among the political flotsam at the State Banquet held by the Queen for the president of Colombia this week was a surprising couple.

The Duke of Wellington and his wife, Antonia, were among the guests invited to dine at Buckingham Palace. No doubt Her Majesty was honouring them for the intimate links their family has forged with the South American nation hit by civil war and the drugs trade.

The Duke's daughter, Lady Charlotte Wellesley, married Colombian Alejandro Santo Domingo this year.

Not that the marriage involved any financial sacrifice: Alejandro's family has an estimated fortune of £2.8 billion.

Why did Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt appear to be ostentatiously chewing gum in the Commons yesterday? According to an aide, Hunt has a peculiar facial tic of moving his jaw when he is deep in thought, making it look as though he's chewing sweets, even when he isn't.

Kathy berates builders for NOT wolf-whistling

Saucy authoress Kathy Lette, 57, has been moaning that she doesn't get wolf-whistled any more, not even when she recently deliberately paraded in front of builders — twice — in one of her trademark Nineties-style miniskirt outfits.

'The other day, striding past a building site in a miniskirt, I steeled myself — and whistling came there none. So I sashayed by again, still no reaction,' she wails. It was not always the case. In her youth, she recalls: 'There must have been a building boom because my entire teens seemed to be an embarrassing ordeal of men ogling and whistling.'

She felt 'intimidated' then but not any more, and requests: 'Builders, when I walk past, please whistle away.' Maybe she could train her husband, QC Geoffrey Robertson, to throw a few whistles her way every time she enters the house?

No wonder Jeremy Corbyn can't get a seat on the train — the Portcullis House machine which prints MPs' travel tickets has been 'out of service since September', according to a parliamentary answer procured by Labour's Frank Field. The alternative Trainline machine in the Parliamentary Travel Office has also been unable to print Hon Members' tickets this month. Have the authorities tried filling it with paper?