Dishing the dirt on diary editor Sebastian

Sebastian Shakespeare, editor of Londoner's Diary in the Evening Standard, has finally succumbed to the inevitable. Today he writes in the Standard about the infamous fracas last Friday morning when he left the safety of his west London home only to be confronted by an unidentified assailant who tipped a bag - not a bucket, as earlier reported - of horse manure over him. Monkey can assure readers that the perp was not, repeat, not, Standard editor Veronica Wadley. Shakespeare reports that the "cream-faced loon" had taken offence to a "story I had allegedly written in the Standard". "Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. In my case it was warm and fragrant though happily not liquid." Times food critic Giles Coren dismissed rumours he was to blame, taking revenge for a piece about his late father Alan. Coren told the Independent he was in New York at the time of last Friday's incident. "Shit happens," concludes Sebastian. "I am happy to report that I am now smelling of roses."