Queen on Tour

It has been, we are repeatedly told, a truly historic visit. Not only historic but deeply symbolic too. In fact, it has been a historically symbolic and symbolically historic visit. This is, of course, Lizzie Windsor and Phil the Greek's jaunt to the Emerald Isle, so it is. As soon as the plane landed at Dublin airport, it was announced that the Queen was now eligible to play football for the Republic of Ireland, as well as Germany. It is thought unlikely she will be picked, though, as she has suffered a dramatic loss of form since she did her Achilles in at William's wedding.

Lizzie dutifully performed various memorial and ceremonial duties before she got down to the real reason for her visit - a trip to the Irish National Stud, or Colin Farrell as it is affectionately known. The Queen's vacant, dead eyes lit up when various gleaming stallions were paraded in front of her; she laid a wreath in memory of the Republican horses brutally murdered by the British in 1916; and she patted lots of wizened, tiny jockeys on their funny little heads. There was an embarrassing moment, however, when Lizzie mistook one of the horses for her daughter, Princess Anne. This was a ridiculous mistake to make as Anne was running in the 3.30pm at Kempton Park at the time.


(Wooden, clapped-out, unrealistic old nag views a demonstration of jockey skills)

Elsewhere, it has been a unrelenting litany of men behaving badly: Huhne, Laws, Fred the Shred, Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Ken Clarke, and Rooney. The latter caused a Twitter rumpus when he responded to abusive tweets by threatening his interlocutor:'I'll put u asleep within 10 seconds'. One can imagine the fierce look of concentration on his primitive features - the furrowed overhanging brow; the tongue jutting from betwixt his baboonish incisors; sweat gleaming on his potato skull - as his huge Scouse paws bashed out his reponse.


(Rooney: "Hey, Coleen, how do you spell 'u', our kid?")

It is thought Rooney aimed to carry out this threat by ambushing his abuser and forcing him to read his pisspoor autobiography.