Me and the monkey

There are some disadvantages to being as low-tech as me - in that I have not got the faintest clue how to get a video onto this posting. Gave it a shot and got fed up.
So instead of that, I will merely provide you with the link. Thus:

http://video.travelmail.co.uk/?VideoID=eurodisney_edit_320x240

It's vomit-inducing stuff of the family at Eurodisney. Why do I put it on - well, it may not be much, but I tell you that pix of the kids are going to be a sight more appetising than pix of me.

To business: Now that we are on the very eve of the Clavier launch day, the phones have just been ringing - ringing! - off the hook as newspapers get wind of this EXTRAORDINARY story that is about to break.

Yesterday it was the turn of the Edinburgh Evening News, the local paper, and I had 30 minutes on the phone with affable Rosalind as I told her about my merry days at Eton and the Soaraway.

And, for the first time, I made a new connection. For I realised there is a genuine link between The Sun and Eton - in that, if you mention that you have served time at either place, there tends to be a collective raise of the hackles. People immediately start to get sniffy.

I also had the Evening News photographer over, along with a trainee, Lewis, who was learning the ropes.

Now one of the main things about being a monkey (journo technical term) is that you have to butter people up. You've got to get the people on side before you start taking their pictures.

Which means, obviously, that you've got to look the part. And above all dress inoffensively.

I didn't have the heart to tell Lewis that a two-inch bolt through the top of his ear would probably not go down well on Fleet Street.