ALEXANDRA SHULMAN’S NOTEBOOK: Thanks a lot, Meghan, you’ve stolen my thunder

Meghan has stolen my sign-off. How can I continue to end emails and letters with the words ‘As ever’, which I’ve happily used for years, now that it would sound like an endorsement for her new homeware brand, As Ever?

Sign-offs have always mattered to me, possibly because I did a Pitman secretarial course after I left school and had drummed into me the difference in usage between ‘Yours faithfully’ and ‘Yours sincerely’.

I doubt very much whether most people know the difference and I’m not sure if younger people even use either term but those small phrases tell larger stories.

There’s a world of separation, too, between ‘With best wishes’ and just ‘Best’. Or ‘Yours’ and the more affectionate ‘Love’. ‘As ever’ had a nice touch to it. A little fond and a touch gracious, hinting that there is a relationship to continue. 

But now? Well, it’s for the dust-heap. I don’t want anyone thinking about Meghan’s plum jam after reading my carefully crafted words. ‘As Ever’, the last time I’ll be using it.

Allure of Alice’s wonderland

Speaking of lifestyle brands, I’ve become fixated on Mrs Alice, the camp, over-the-top homeware website from Alice Naylor-Leyland. 

She poses in wildly extravagant outfits next to tables laid with so much kit that it makes a Buckingham Palace State dinner look plain.

But with its self-mocking humour it’s everything Meghan’s earnestly wealthy Californian brand is never going to be as she wafts around in white.

Though I am never going to host a shooting weekend, Mrs Alice’s partridge tablecloth, photographed at Belvoir Castle, is calling to me for our London kitchen table. Just a nod towards the stately pile we are never going to live in.

Kate’s better off in a Caribbean cocoon

World news is particularly turbulent at the moment. After all, what’s the point of knowing Trump’s latest lunatic pronouncements when there’s nothing you can do about them. It’s tempting to do a mindfulness session instead of listening to Radio 4’s Today.

And so it is, with immaculate timing, the Middleton clan, along with William and Catherine, are on Mustique for half-term, which is as otherworldly as anywhere that is still on Planet Earth.

More expensive than mindfulness, but just as effective.

There are many more beautiful Caribbean islands. There are more sensational oceans to swim in and more dramatic landscapes to walk through, filled with more exotic flora and fauna. But Mustique is unique in its ability to insulate you from reality.

There’s only one food shop, but that’s no problem because you don’t need to go food shopping. That’s all done by the rental villa staff who will provide everything, including beautifully laid picnic tables on a beach which they have reserved for lunch. 

You don’t even need a credit card since a signature and the name of the villa can get you everything. There’s no need to be stressed about traffic because there’s nowhere other than someone else’s villa to travel to, and the only transport is golf carts.

There’s no litter, no homelessness, no Tube strikes.

The island is the most glamorous compound imaginable, where, as you sip pina coladas in the beach cafe or knock a ball around on the spotlit tennis club courts, or be served Buck’s fizz by your private pool, it’s easy to forget that Putin and Trump are doing their best to blow up post-war peace.

If I were the Waleses, I’d be considering whether to risk the wrath of the schools and stay another week. There’s nothing very jolly to get back to.

I’m banking on a cash comeback

A new chequebook has just arrived in the post. This may not seem so strange but I haven’t been sent one for years. It was oddly comforting to see the thick wodge of pages – even if my only regular cheque-writing is for my mother and my yoga teacher.

However, the other day I had to use a cheque to get some cash out of my bank, a sum greater than the ATM allows. Not that you would have thought it was ‘my’ money, given the interrogation involved in this process.

It’s as if cash payments now can only be thought of as something dodgy. I’m beginning to think it might be sensible to keep a stash of notes under the mattress, old-style, ready for the proverbial rainy day when I want to get hold of it without all the fuss and implications of underhand money-laundering.

Is this the end of a British Bond?

I doubt anything good will come of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson handing over creative control of James Bond to Jeff Bezos’s Amazon. 

The Bond movies need British blood coursing through their veins – a touch of snobbery, a sly humour, with clear water between them and any gangbusting, violent American thriller.

This also marks the final severance of my admittedly very, very small connection with Bond, which is that I went to primary school with Barbara Broccoli. 

Our class were all taken to see an early screening of her father Cubby’s production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for Barbara’s birthday, which I remember at the time was the ultimate in birthday parties.

She’s managed Bond so well for decades, but now she’s decided she’s done her time with 007, I fear for its future.

Cancer charity’s massive own goal

When I was treated for colon cancer last year, one of the best things that happened was being introduced to Katherine, my Macmillan nurse. 

She was a hugely helpful liaison with the massive machine that is the NHS, which can be very daunting when you feel so fragile. Anyone who can help you feel an individual rather than an NHS number is essential.

I have emerged as a great fan of the charity but even so it sounds like an own goal to advertise for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion boss on several times the salary of a nurse, at the same time as cutting 400 jobs. 

All that’s necessary is someone who gets the job done, no matter their colour, race or gender.