Countdown to the royal divorce - part 7

Well, what a weekend. I sometimes think that I am too kind by nature, and need to adopt a more abrasive approach to those who believe that they cannot do without my counsel.

I made the mistake, early on, of not switching my telephone off on Saturday morning, and had to deal with a stream of assorted Windsors and Parker-Bowles in various states of panic about the damned wedding. I had already made it clear that I would not be attending, and that they should learn to fend for themselves, but no detail was too trivial to lead them to think it needed my attention. William, our future King Thicky the First, is top of the list. “I didn’t get invited to the rehearsal”, this at 4:45 in the morning. “It isn’t you who is getting married Bill, you soft sod,” I admonished, “when it is your turn you will probably have someone there to tell you. If you get to the stage where there is some unbelievably thick bimbo escorting you wherever you go, it is a sign that your family have found a suitable mate, and that should give you a clue.” Harry has the idea of revenge, following the episode where a congress of Parker-Bowles pinned the motto “arsehole in chief” to his back during the last wedding, and only clever editing by the BBC prevented it from being broadcast. He wants help from me, inevitably. “Use your imagination, young Henry,” I tell him wearily, “if there is one thing you should have taken from your time at Eton, it is the ability to take the piss.” I make oblique references to pageboys and laxative chocolate, and hope that he takes the hint, but am not too optimistic. Then I get a call from Camilla asking why I told Harry to dress up as a page boy, and smear his face with Toblerone. I told her that it was a tradition in Henley, which, unsurprisingly, she accepted without any argument.

I turned the telephone off, to watch the cricket and rugby, and “forgot” to switch on the answering machine.

The next ordeal is the nonsense surrounding the preparations for Harry’s 21^st. I told Charles to lock the silly little bugger in the Tower for a week as the only way to prevent all of the bad publicity that it is going to generate.