Members of the Royal Family will, for the first time ever, pose nude for a calendar, to be sold in aid Prince William's wedding bills.
"Well of course we could ask the government to stuff a few more sheets on the press when they're printing their next batch of money, " said Palace spokesperson Sir Hamish Snobworth IV. "But the feeling was that might plunge us straight back in to a Candle in the Wind territory, in terms of public sentiment."
Still wondering how next to clean the chandeliers, following manufactured umbrage following a really slow news day at the Daily Mail, the Palace is said to be extremely sensitive to any perception that funding for the upcoming wedding might be interpreted as pulling a Fergie.
"Then Camilla, Duchess of Co-Respondent pointed out several members of the W-I had funded comfortable lives in sunny tax havens after undertaking similar fundraising ventures," Snobworth continued. "It was generally agreed the calendar idea struck the right balance between somebody else's money and the modern age. And, really, since we can hide behind the W-I it really does score the double, dunnit?"
But plans to have the calendar in stores for the Christmas rush bogged down over finding twelve members of the Royal Family who were up to the job.
"We've only managed January and February thus far. March if Peter Phillips hasn't added too much married-man paunch. After that, unfortunately, the problem is slim pickings. Or rather, the absence thereof."
The project was further mired in "a furious row over whether to use Testino or Snowdon. Rather unproductive, like parsing the difference between Vaseline or cataracts on the lens."
Unconfirmed at press time were rumours that Sorry Ferguson, Doshless of York, will receive a fiver for every day between now and the wedding that passes without her giving an interview.
