Plans are afoot for Kate and William to visit Ireland in 2014.

Buckingham Palace is reportedly finalising plans for the Royals to follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth, who visited Ireland, to a rapturous reception, the year before last.

The trip is expected to take place in the first half of next year and has been planned since before Kate’s pregnancy.

The Irish Sun reports that Prince William’s role as a search and rescue helicopter pilot in the Irish Sea is to be a central focus of the historic visit.

An insider told the paper: “The fact that Prince William is based in Anglesey in Wales gives a good hook for the visit. There is a lot of co-operation between Britain and Ireland in that area. Very tentative steps were taken before the Duchess of Cambridge became pregnant, but obviously because of the baby that had to be put on hold."

After Pippa Middleton's bottom, get ready for Cressida's ass.

It hadn't escaped the Royalist's attention that there may be several crude variations on epically named Cressida Bonas's last name, and now, thanks to that bastion of tabloid journalism the Sunday People, it emerges that Cressida is known as Bonne Ass by her friends thanks to her enviable derriere.

This, alone, is reason enough to throw out the Leveson report.

According to the People, the nickname is 'hated' by Cressdia "and she has asked pals to stop using it".

In one of the most bizarre cases of royal selling-out ever seen, Pippa Middleton has signed a deal to pen a column – entitled, excruciatingly, “Pippa’s Friday Night Feasts” - for a British supermarket’s in-house magazine.

True, the supermarket in question is Waitrose, Britain’s poshest, where Tony Blair used to get his groceries, but still.

Of course, Royals have been publishing books for donkey’s years, and while the occasional comment piece by Prince Charles about where he gets his suits is unlikely to provoke any ire, this is a slightly different deal, and one which will raise eyebrows at the palace, where the young royals have been noted for their Olympian self-control in accepting no freebies.

Pippa was banned by the palace from promoting her recent book on entertaining, and forced to decline an opportunity to be an NBC special correspondent.

 Party Pieces, the website owned by Kate Middleton's parents Carole and Michael, has been accused of selling party goods made in Mexican ghettos by families making as little as 10 pence (15 cent) per hour.

The products in question are candy-flled pinatas.

An investigation by The Daily Mail found that the pinatas are being produced in hillside ghettoes surrounding Tijuana, by families who say they are providing "slave labour" to produce the items.

A spokesman for the company said that as a responsible retailer, it took the allegations "very seriously and we will work with our suppliers to carry out investigations into these claims".

Party Pieces was founded in 1987 by Carole Middleton, after she gave up work as a British Airways stewardess.

She built up the firm with her husband, Michael, and it now employs more than 30 people, including their daughter Pippa.

Yes, he's back on form. Prince Philip on a vist to a hospital the other day gave one of his famous remarks when he told a Fillipino nurse her country must be 'half-empty' as all her country's people were "here, running the NHS."

How we laughed!

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas’s decision to ‘come out’ as a couple by publicly embracing on the ski slopes of Verbier on Wednesday was a move that took the UK’s corps of royal journalists and palace insiders equally by surprise.

Harry has made no secret of his hatred of the press coverage of his and William’s personal life, so it seemed odd that he was willing to put the relationship – which up until now he has successfully kept unsubstantiated – in the headlines. Cressida now seems almost certain to be a fresh subject of fascination for the public, which means her life will change beyond all recognition.

So why did he do it?

It is unlikely, young London socialites who know Cressida, say, to have been as a result of pressure by her to come out. Desperation doesn’t play well at the court of this 21st century Prince Hal, and Cressida has won Harry’s heart by being incredibly laid-back about their relationship. It’s not in her nature to hassle him about anything.

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas are officially an item.

He’s complained before about the difficulty of finding the right woman to take on the role of being his partner, but it appears Prince Harry has finally found love.

For, astonishingly, the third in line to the throne kissed and hugged his blonde society girlfriend, model Cressida Bonas, in full view of fellow skiers and photographers on the slopes at the Swiss ski resort of Verbier yesterday. The pictures are all over the UK press today.

The PDA between Harry, 28, and Cressida, 24, came after the two spent an evening kissing and cuddling at a birthday dinner for 20 hosted by Prince Andrew at a local  restaurant. During the dinner, according to a witness quoted in the Daily Mail, Cressida sat on Harry’s knee as they kissed.

Prince Harry has gone on a skiing holiday with Cressida Bonas, the London socialite with who he as been frequently linked, giving new legs to months of speculation that the two are an item.

It's not the first time the two have gone on holiday together; last year cressida accompanied Harry on a vacation to Richard Branson's Necker Island, before Harry went on with his male pals to Vegas.

And we all know what happened then.

Clearly a woman not to be putt off her prince by a few photos of him playing naked billiards, Cressida flew out to Verbier at the weekend to join Harry, who is on holiday with his cousins Eugenie and Beatrice, according to the Daily Express.

A pregnant woman visited an alcohol rehab facility in south London today - and the global press went mad.

It helped, of course, that the woman in question was Kate Middleton, out on her first official engagement of the year, and that the unborn child will one day be king or queen of England.

Yet still the Royal bump watch madness which descended on South London today as Kate Middleton arrived at her first public engagement today since intimate photos of her and William on a private holiday on the beach in Mustique were published around the world was astonishing.

Kate wore a grey wrap dress by MaxMara - and no coat so we got maximum visibility - as she arrived at Hope House, a 22-bed all-female residential facility for recovery charity Action on Addiction, of which she is a patron.

Much criticism for Hilary Mantel, the extraordinary writer of Wolf Hall (which I have read) and Bring Up the Bodies (which I haven’t yet.)

The writer has said in a lecture about Royalty that Kate Middleton is a "jointed doll" perceived as having “no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore”. She went on that Kate has a  “perfect plastic smile”, had been “selected for her role of princess” to “breed in some manners” and because she was “irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character”. She also said, "In her first official portrait by Paul Emsley, unveiled in January, her eyes are dead."

Now British PM David Cameron has waded into the row, speaking in India, where he is on a tour, Cameron said, "What she said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided”, he blustered, “We should be proud of [Kate]…not make misguided remarks”.

Has he even read the piece?

Is there a more beautifully British word than 'snogging'? It's so redolent of tongues and teenage kicks.

Which is why we are delighted to read - on twitter of course - that Pippa Middleton has been spotted not just 'snogging' but 'aggressively' snogging her new boyfriend Nico Jackson in bar in a Swiss ski resort.

Mike Goldstein tweeted: “Pippa Middleton snogging her boyf aggressively next to me at the bar.”

And chalet firm Mountain Exposure posted: “Pippa Middleton wandering round Zermatt. Let’s hope she’s enjoying the snow!”

We always thought one of Kate's strengths was her ability and willingness to recycle clothes. Kate has shown herself unafraid to spin the same frocks around the block several times, and often over several years.

In fact, you hear more people these days moaning about Kate recycling clothes, arguing duty demands she dazzle us with new choices every outing.

But Vivienne Westwood thinks she doesn't recycle enough.

"I don't have any advice to her, except I think it would be great if she wore the same clothes over and again, because that's very good for the environment and it would send out a very nice message," Westwood said at her Red Label fashion show at London Fashion Week.

Apologies, Royal fans, I have been remiss of late on the updates, lured away from my beat by the bright lights of London Fashion Week.

I interrupt my fashion reporting to bring you this breaking news from tomorrow's Daily Mail - the young man with whom Pippa Middleton was photographed frolicking and holding hands on the beaches of Mustique in the most recent set of unauthorised Kate snaps goes by the name of Nico Jackson.

And, the Mail reports, the amazing news is that he is not ridiculously posh! He went to a regular, free school and is - gasp - 'the son of a retailer'. I know! Trade!

The Mail reports that "for two years he dated Alice Farquhar, the daughter of Captain Ian Farquhar, master of the Beaufort Hunt. Alice is the sister of Prince William’s former  girlfriend Rose. However, they split last summer."

Cate Blanchett she 'aint.

But this warts-and-all painting of Queen Elizabeth I, depicting her with facial wrinkles, is being exhibited at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, after being newly authenticated as the real deal.

Its only marginally less flattering than Kate's new pic.

According to The Telegraph it was produced "by the studio of Gheeraerts in the early-mid 1590s."