The phone alone princess is engaged, then calls for help

The Princess of Wales is a fairy tale princess, we are told. Yes, indeed she is, and today we are continuing the very fairy tale on which she is based]

The Tale of the Lonely

Princess (Part Two)

'M OTHER] Father]' said the prince. 'I have asked a girl to stay at the palace this weekend] She is called the Princess Bulimia and she is very beautiful] I think I may want to marry her]'

'Do you indeed?' said the queen, his mother. 'Well, first of all there are three questions I have to put to her and which she has to answer correctly before she can be your bride.'

'Oh, mother,' said the prince testily. 'For heaven's sake, don't go on asking every new girlfriend of mine what her name is, how long she has worked here and whether she enjoys it. It's so embarrassing.'

'All right, then,' said the queen. 'But we must give her the usual test to see if she is really a princess.'

So when the Princess Bulimia came to stay, they gave her a bed with 20 mattresses and, under the bottom mattress, a hard pea. In the night the princess tossed and turned and got no sleep at all. When she came down in the morning, they asked her how she had slept.

'Very badly indeed,' she said. 'Some idiot had put this under my bottom mattress.'

And she held up a small microphone bugging device.

'Nothing to do with us, dear,' said the queen. 'It was a pea I put there, not a bug.'

'A pea?' said the princess. 'This is a household of nutters] I have never been so outrageously treated in my life] The press shall hear of this at once]'

And she threw herself down the stairs to show that she meant business, though luckily she ensured that she was not hurt.

'Well, she is a princess all right,' said the Queen. 'She certainly behaves like the ones I know. Take her my boy, and the best of luck.'

The night before the royal wedding the princess was up late when her only friend, a little mobile phone, gave a discreet ring.

'Hey, sweetie darling,' she said to the phone. 'Isn't it exciting] I'm getting married tomorrow]'

'That's what I wanted to talk to you about,' said the phone. 'Are you sure you're not making a big mistake? Do you really think he is the man for you?'

'Of course I do]' said the princess. 'He's so rich] And, let me see, what else? . . . Yes, he knows a lot about architecture] Why, only this morning he was telling me all about how he was going to get our palace redesigned along more neo-traditional lines] And he was telling me how it was high time this country got back to basics]'

'Did he mean basic private morality?' said the mobile phone.

'No, I don't think so,' said the princess. 'I think he was thinking more of education, housing, culture, things like that. Why do you ask?'

'Oh, nothing,' said the mobile phone. 'But if you ever come across someone called Camilla, just watch out, that's all.'

And the next day the prince and princess were married. And for a while they lived happily ever afterwards, and they had two lovely children. One day the mobile phone called to see how she was.

'Oh, sugar]' said the princess. 'I haven't heard from you in so long] How are you, darling]'

'Fine, fine,' said the phone hastily. 'How's yourself?'

'All right,' said the princess. 'I have two lovely boys called William and Harry . . .'

'Blimey,' said the mobile phone. 'I hope your husband is not a fan of the William books.'

'Why?' said the princess, who was a real princess and never read books.

'Because there are four boys in a gang in those books, and two are called William and Henry.'

'So?' she said.

'So, your next son is scheduled to be called Prince Ginger.'

But before that could happen a wicked witch called Camilla put a spell on the prince so that he could not face being anywhere near the princess any more. And the princess called up her friend the mobile phone to ask if he could take the spell off the prince or at least put one on Camilla.

'No,' said the phone, 'I can't. The best I can do is put a spell on the Prime Minister so that he steals the prince's ideas about going back to basics, which should drive the prince wild. But what I can do is put a magic spell on you so that, even though you are apart from the prince, people will always call you a fairy tale princess.'

'Me?' said Bulimia. 'But I am not a fairy tale princess. You stupid little phone, you know that I tend to get hysterical and lose my temper, and be tactless, and go behind people's backs, and not toe the line . . .'

'My, my, my, we are in one of our moods today,' said the phone, and rang off.