Have Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got engaged secretly? EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE asks if the royal has followed older brother William in privately popping the question

By Ephraim Hardcastle for the Daily Mail

Published: 20:36 EST, 13 December 2016 | Updated: 21:10 EST, 13 December 2016

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Have Prince Harry, 32, and his girlfriend Meghan Markle, 35, got engaged secretly?

Reporters who cover his public engagements are told no questions about Ms Markle will be answered, although he and the American actress have been an item since August.

A secret engagement would give them a breather prior to the media storm a marriage announcement would entail.

Prince William got engaged secretly to Kate Middleton while they were on a safari holiday in Kenya in 2010. Only Margret Lekartgi, a 22-year-old Masai maid, was in on their secret.

A secret engagement would give them a breather prior to the media storm a marriage announcement would entail

Describing Twitter as a ‘stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous’, Stephen Fry, 59, announced in February that he was quitting the social media website.

He was distressed that his joke on TV about Bafta award-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan looking like a ‘bag lady’ backfired.

Now he’s back, promoting his appearance on James Corden’s US chat show – ‘Fun times with James Corden on The Late Late Show couch’ – and plugging his latest appearance in the US sitcom The Great Indoors – ‘Another The Great Indoors day dawns.’

You can’t keep an old Twit down.

Describing Twitter as a ‘stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous’, Stephen Fry, 59, announced in February that he was quitting the social media website - but now he's back

The Prince of Wales appeared in the TV recording of the Royal Variety Performance last night, pictured, acting as stooge to Britain’s Got Talent winner, soldier-turned-magician Richard Jones.

Charles wrote down two numbers at random and threw the paper into the audience. Jones had to guess what the numbers were. Charles once fancied himself as a magician.

He even has his own cape and wand. In 1975, he joined the Magic Circle, which preserves the trade secrets of magicians. ‘He is rather good at keeping secrets himself,’ says my source.

Noting that Sir Mick Jagger has now fathered a baby boy with 29-year-old ballerina Melanie Hamrick, entertainer Bette Midler, 71, says: ‘Congrats to Mick Jagger on becoming a dad again at 73. Which reminds me, I need to pick up a pregnancy test. I’m 936 weeks late!’

The Queen’s cousin and confidante Margaret Rhodes described in her memoirs paying her last respects to the Queen Mother and delivering a final curtsey.

At Mrs Rhodes’s own funeral at Windsor this week the Queen bowed deeply as her friend’s coffin was borne out of the church.

Her presence – HM rarely attends funerals – ensured that Mrs Rhodes’s obsequies were recorded in the Court Circular.

The Queen’s cousin and confidante Margaret Rhodes described in her memoirs paying her last respects to the Queen Mother and delivering a final curtsey

Why does former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley seem to be the only MP with a clear-headed view about how we can leave the EU?

He points out: ‘There is no point in negotiating a temporary transitional deal to be followed by a permanent deal.

A temporary deal will take as long to negotiate as a permanent deal.’ Is there a sinister reason for the Government’s foot-dragging?