"Biggest Royal Crisis Since Abdication"

It’s been quite a week. I can’t begin to describe the complexities of my private life – let’s just say that jeopardising my integrity seems to have become standard practice for me these days and that really, you’d think I’d know better (especially at my age). But no, when I say it’s been quite a week, I mean news-wise.

We’ve had Osama bin Laden emerging from the gloaming after years of silence, sporting a brand new false beard; BBC’s Match of the Day’s ‘Goal of the Month’ competition has been dropped in line with the blanket ban on phone-in competitions; US adventurer Steve Fossett has vanished into thin air (very thin air, it seems); Pavarotti is dead; and the McCanns are now suspected of being responsible for the killing of little Madeleine. Quite a crowded week. Is there room for more? Well yes, indeed there is – for how could the week’s round-up be complete without its most grabbing and sensational headline?

"Prince Harry in trouble for making Chelsy wait."

Yes, dear reader, this astounding revelation may cause you to choke on your breakfast kippers with shock and horror, but I would ask you please to contain yourself. However much you might be reeling with disbelief at the enormous implications, ramifications and recriminations of this truly tragic event, you must try (hard though it may be) to retain a sense of proportion. The shocking details of this incident are particularly nasty and upsetting – according to the Daily Telegraph’s Stephen Adams, “Miss Davy seemed not to be amused after arriving at Heathrow on a night flight from Johannesburg at 6.30am to find the Prince was not there. The 21-year-old Zimbabwean blonde had to wait in a branch of Costa Coffee in Terminal 1. She tried calling the 22-year-old Prince but it appeared he had either overslept or forgotten.”

What’s to be done? The despair that the nation must feel on reading this alarming news is of justly appalling proportions. Do these people care so little for the wellbeing of the national psyche that they can put us all through this terrible ordeal so callously? Apparently, the bereft 21-year-old Zimbabwean blonde had to wait almost an hour for Harry to turn up. Yes, you read correctly – almost an hour. Can you imagine the torment and fear that the poor 21-year-old Zimbabwean blonde had to endure during those long, tortured sixty minutes? Sixty sickening minutes during which the very fabric of civilisation was in as much danger of being ripped apart as it was during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 (I remember how we all held our breath throughout those agonizing days, fearful that we were facing the abyss). I tell you dear reader, this event has left me debilitated, depressed and devoid of all hope. And also, strangely hungry.

I was listening to the radio recently and was informed that hunger (you can believe this or not) is about politics. Hunger is a result of poverty, not about a lack of food. However, this seems to conflict with the information that by the year 2050 we will need two planets’ worth of food to feed the world’s growing population. Where will it come from? Already, there is talk of something called the 'bottom billion' which is the number of people who even now don’t have enough food to eat and who are living under the poverty level. We have starved the earth’s soil in the celebrated chase for progress, and food – a simple enough requirement - is apparently not being planted because of the desire to keep the Lexus on the road, and the plane in the air. The world’s politicians are at fault (surprise, surprise) - they should support small scale farming instead of the great shibboleth of massive agri-business that they adore, and they should do this before the ‘bottom billion’ grows to embrace us all. What do we want? Freedom to fly, or freedom to eat? After all, flying can have its pitfalls – one day you might discover that there is no handsome Prince waiting to greet you from your flight. Surely, we all deserve to be spared from the horror of that?