This, from today's media.guardian.co.uk:
"Tabloid newspaper vaults, Monkey is assured, are full of glorious scoops too explosive ever to see the light of the day. Until now. Heard the one about the Princess of Wales, Stephen Hawking, Will Carling and Victor Lewis-Smith? Piers Morgan has, and now the Mirror editor has let the cat out of the bag. It all began when Lewis-Smith, notorious prankster and occasional TV critic, telephoned Diana's office pretending to be Hawking; slow-motion electronic voice and all. His impersonation of Hawking was so good, the dreadlocked one got all the way through to the Princess, who seemed strangely unfazed to be receiving a call from the author of A Brief History of Time. "How's Will?" apparently enquired Lewis-Smith/Hawking (forgive us if we paraphrase a little). "He's fine," she replies, "He's at Eton and he's settling down, beginning to concentrate on his studies," replied Di. "No, not that Will," said the prankster, "Will Carling." Cue bemused silence. "Is it true that Will Carling is big?" More silence. "Is it right he is so big he may have to be buried face down on his stomach?" Something to do with rigor mortis, Monkey imagines, but let us carry on. Lewis-Smith/Hawking then asked, "Have you read my book?" Yes, replied Diana. "What did you think of my theory of [insert extraordinarily complicated space-time continuum theory here]?." Unfortunately,he never got to hear Di's reply, as the professor's voice was muffled out by a series of cod-explosions and yelps, before another voice appears on the phone to inform Diana, "I'm afraid Dr Hawking's electronic voice box has exploded. It happens when he gets over-excited." We know not how, but a tape recording of this dialogue has ended up in the hands of Mirror editor, Morgan, who has been playing it to executives and columnists (one of whom is Lewis-Smith himself) at Christmas parties. Several, loyal to the crown, have said it makes "uncomfortable listening" but quickly admit they were rolling in the aisles. So come on Piers, don't be a Scrooge. Put down your moral compass, stick it on your website and let us all join in the fun..."
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