Equipped with a solitary loo 'used promiscuously by men and women' alike and a proprietor who favoured a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan 'Rehab is for quitters', the unique legend of London's Colony Room Club can surely never die.But that hasn't prevented its closure just three years after the drinking den was triumphantly revived, its walls painted a bilious green instantly familiar to habitues of the original Soho premises, once visited by Princess Margaret and where a young Daniel Craig was a barman.The original premises also hosted luminaries including broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and artist Tracey Emin.The resurrected basement version nearby, which found favour with Bob Geldof, didn't expire quietly. Indeed, the scenes following its demise would, I'm told, have gladdened the heart of its founder, Muriel Belcher, a combative lesbian who greeted regulars such as artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud with 'Hello, c***y!' and that of her successor, Ian Board, a homosexual bruiser who drank so much that his bulbous nose 'pulsated like a rancid tomato'.I understand that Darren Coffield, author of Tales From The Colony Room: Soho's Lost Bohemia and the artist responsible for its re-creation, was livid to learn that the site was wanted by its owners. 'He said he was given eight days' notice, which was ridiculous – it didn't give him time to let everybody know,' a friend tells me.'As soon as he heard, he rushed down with three suitcases and packed up everything he'd put in the club.' Coffield, 56, a member since 1988, had collected a treasury of its bric-a-brac – but not the AK-47 assault rifle in a display case. London's Colony Room Club, which is sadly closing down, once hosted luminaries including broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and Dame Tracey EminA spokesman for the couple who own the premises, restaurateurs Tom Onions and his wife, Prue Freeman, assures me there were 'several months' of discussion about the closure.Describing the Colony Room's second incarnation as 'a much-loved pop-up installation', he adds that its lifespan, initially intended to be three months, was 'extended to three years'.I'm assured that the AK-47 is being held for its owner, Dan Macmillan, grandson of prime minister Harold Macmillan and an old flame of Kate Moss, who also did a shift behind the bar.Archie has a very Poppy birthday do! When I revealed two years ago that model Poppy Delevingne was going out with Archie Keswick – described as 'the most eligible bachelor you've never heard of' – his friends told of how he hated being photographed.Happily, Archie – a member of the Jardine Matheson dynasty, which owns the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and has a reputed fortune of more than £6billion – appears to have overcome his aversion to the camera lens. Archie Keswick and Poppy Delevingne looked smitten as they posed at his 45th birthday partyHe was happy to pose in a tender embrace with Poppy, 40, during a recent trip to Tuscany in Italy.She posted the picture online to mark his 45th birthday this week. 'Happy birthday to my favourite human,' Poppy said. They have a one-year-old girl, Kaia Moon, together.King Charles is selling prints of one of his own paintings for £10,000, but now his royal Collection Trust wants someone to look after the work of an even more expensive artist. It's advertising for a £35,000-a-year catalogue researcher to log almost 600 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci ahead of a major publication. The advert on the royal website states: 'Based at Windsor Castle, you'll help prepare a comprehensive scholarly catalogue of the Leonardo drawings, scheduled for publication in 2030/31.' Ex-royal chaplain: I've lost faith in King's right to rule King Charles has broken his Coronation oath to defend the Christian Faith, Queen Elizabeth's ex-chaplain says. Buckingham Palace replaced the King's title as 'Defender of the Faith' with 'Protector of the Space for Faith within the Multi-faith Nation' in this year's Sovereign Grant Annual Report. Gavin Ashenden, who quit as the Queen's chaplain after nine years having criticised a church service at which a Muslim student was asked to read from the Koran, is horrified. He says the King 'has deserted Christian allegiance, turned his back on his Coro nation oath [and] repudiated the support and promotion of a Christian culture'. 'Some are asking whether his behaviour is sufficiently subversive as to raise questions about his capacity to fulfil the office of King.' Hats off to Alexa's eclipse headwearSolar eclipse glasses clearly weren't enough for members of London's beau monde as they watched the sun being blocked out by the moon while on holiday. Model and television star Alexa Chung and Bob Geldof's 35-year-old daughter Pixie wore handmade tin foil hats at a watch party in Sicily. Pixie, the 35-year-old daughter of Bob Geldof, sported an artistic hat at an eclipse watch party Alexa Chung, 42, was seen in a simpler version of the tin foil hat, sharing photos of it onlinePixie's even featured a sun and a moon, while Alexa's was a simpler affair.'The watch party, when the moon mogged the sun,' wrote Alexa, 42, alongside these photographs she posted online. The pair were joined by Pixie's husband, musician George Barnett, 38, with whom she has a five-year-old daughter. It's the sort of thing that sweet dreams are made of – the possibility of a Eurythmics reunion. 'I think it would be sad not to,' says Dave Stewart, who formed the 1980s New Wave pop duo with Annie Lennox. 'We have a couple of recordings nobody's ever heard that we did in 2000. They're amazing – they sound like classic Eurythmics.' Richard Osman is used to plotting fictional crimes, but his latest nearly landed him in a real-life legal drama. The author, 55, used the New Forest hotel The Pig as a setting in the 2024 best-seller We Solve Murders because he'd stayed there and knew its layout. But in his forthcoming sequel, We Chase Shadows, there's a scene in which the manager is bribed for information. 'I am not allowed to write that because that would be libellous,' says Osman. 'I thought, 'OK, I will put them in a completely different hotel'.'