Washington Post headline: “Bush No Worse for Fall.” No worse than what?

Top Prince Harry chat-up line (and I’m not making this up): “Do you want to come back to my palace?” Yes, it’s been a hell of a week for British gossip, starting with the Harry Smokes Pot one. Charles made him go to a rehab clinic for a day and get the royal tour, which everyone praises as excellent fathering, although one wonders if that was really what the patients needed. How’d you like to be the one who threw Harry out of a bar or restaurant? It does actually happen. Once after calling a chef a “fucking Frog”, indicating that he has his grandfather’s talent for international relations.

Also on the gossip mill, the Archbishop of Canterbury is retiring and will be replaced by... well, Prince Charles wants someone who will be on his side in the re-marriage fight, but the gambling money, 3 to 1, is on a Pakistani, about whom a huge number of rumors have been let loose, not that anyone’s racist mind you. Seems he bought his first post, and used to be a Catholic and eats babies.

And Cecil Parkinson. A feeding frenzy delayed for 18 years is an ugly thing. Lord Parkinson (various cabinet posts in the Thatcher administration) schtupped a secretary, who refused to get an abortion. The kid came out with a brain tumor and autistic and with other things wrong. Their was a gag order on the press and on the mother and the kid, which lasted until she turned 18, last week. She’s already been the star of a documentary, and the story is that the gag order actually prevented any acknowledgment of the kid’s existence by anyone: no parts in school plays, no name up on bulletin boards etc. Total bullshit, it turns out, but a great story.