Perplexing developments. A fortnight ago, we showcased TV presenter Myleene Klass's latest pitch for headlines – her claim to have stolen loo roll from the pope's residence while filming there some years ago. Now, Myleene's publicity operation is one of the hardest-working in showbiz. But as a machine, it calls to mind the Bagpuss episode in which the mice on the mouse organ pretend to have invented a chocolate biscuit mill, but in fact are merely spewing out the same digestive before trundling it round the back to be spewed out again.
So imagine my consternation to receive information from someone with 20 years' experience producing live TV broadcasts and documentaries from the Vatican, including for Heaven and Earth, for whom Myleene was working at the time of the loo-roll pilfering. My correspondent confesses himself "intrigued" by Myleene's claim that the stolen loo roll was decorated with "papal wreaths all over it in little green laurel leaves". "Such attention to detail is most impressive," he flatters. "During my visits to the Vatican State I have been graciously afforded the use of the 'facilities' … Toilet tissue throughout the Vatican is uniform – plain white and a touch below Andrex standard."
Well. This leaves me with no choice but to issue Myleene with an ultimatum: habemus papam ... no, that's not right. Ah yes: habeas corpus. Produce the body – or rather the loo paper – and we can lay this important debate to rest, and get back to disporting ourselves with such fripperies as the eurozone debt crisis. Ms Klass, Lost in Showbiz grants you the indulgence of a week to come up with the tissue or a fragment thereof, or else we must file the headline-grabbing tale of your stolen loo roll in the same repository which contains your claim to have given birth under a false name so as to get no special treatment ("completely impossible", according to the hospital) – and, indeed, your claim to have been warned that the law gave you no right to defend yourself in her own home (cobblers, to paraphrase the official statement from Hertfordshire police).
