Royal slush

According to the Mail on Sunday, the Queen has told Gordon Brown that she is 'deeply troubled' by the scandal over MPs' expenses.

In 2006, it was revealed that the royal family cost the British taxpayer £37.4m, of which £5.5m was for travel, including £44,885 for a 'reconnaissance trip' to the US by Clarence House staff ahead of a visit by Prince Charles. In 2000 it was reported that the annual cost of transporting the royal family to their holiday home at Balmoral was £17,065. In 2005 Prince Andrew was criticised by the National Audit Office for spending £3,000 on a royal helicopter to fly him 50 miles to lunch with Arab dignitaries; in the previous year he cost the RAF £32,000 for supersonic jets to fly him between London and St. Andrews.

In other news: a pot was said to be 'extremely disturbed' by the blackness of a kettle.