The Curse of the Windsors

It has been a weekus horribilis for Britain's Top Family. Each day, a horrified public has sprinted downstairs to switch on the telly or rip open the newspaper, tuts and shusshes at the ready, thinking it couldn't get worse but discovering — Jeeezus — it could! Was it just seven short days ago that Prime Minister Blair rose in the House to make the statement that stunned the world?

"I regret to announce, and believe me Honourable Members I'm just as gob-smacked as the rest of you, that Prince Charles has only gone and lost Buckingham Palace in a game of three card brag," intoned a visibly-shocked PM. "A Mr Richard 'Diamond Dicky' McCall will be taking up residence just as soon as the Royal Family can move out."

Blair continued: "Prince Charles' office has released a personal statement: 'One had a prial of threes and Mr McCall had a prial of aces. One's hand was unbeatable under normal circumstances. However, one felt a twinge of dismay upon the discovery that one was playing in an "aces high" club. One's been a right one, one can tell one. One's mum threw one, too'."

So it began. Though it was common knowledge that the Queen was fond of a flutter on the gee-gees, the true extent — and consequent damage — of her family's gambling has remained a closely guarded secret. Until now. The scroll of shame is astounding:

• The Queen Mother spent the last year of her life in hiding from underworld heavies after running up massive cock-fighting debts. She was also a regular attendee at badger-baitings, bare-knuckle fist fights and wrestling matches. It was rumoured that she was Kendo Nagasaki.
• Princess Margaret was pathologically unable to resist "having a go on the bandit" and wouldn't stop until she had "dropped the bastard". It was the inability to get her off the machine in the Scunthorpe British Legion for 36 hours that lead to her banishment from Royal engagements. The infants school she was due to open visit had no option but to call in Jim Bowen as a last-minute replacement.
• Will Carling won Princess Diana after Charles "twisted" on 18 (he got a seven). The fact that he already had an five-card trick leads some to believe he may actually have been trying to lose.
• Prince Edward, Elton John and George Michael bet annually on who can get the most instances of the words "puff", "back-scuttler" or "arse-bandit" within a 10-word radius of their names.
• After the Queen lost them in a high-stakes game, Britain had to go to war to win back the Falklands. ("It was a marked deck. No one's that lucky. No one," she later claimed.)
• Prince Andrew married Fergie after a bloke down the pub bet he wouldn't. It is not recorded what he spent his £20 winnings on.
• Prince Philip never bets. But if he did, he would lose.
• Prince Harry. In public, sans paper-bag sur le ginger bonce. Got to be a bet, surely.

"It's the Curse of the Windsors," explained Royal Correspondent Sy Cofant. "Horses, dogs, darts, who can piss the highest, who can fart the longest, they'll bet on just about anything. It's an addiction. They need therapy. But I doubt they even care."