London - Has a Palace physician forgotten to remove a hirudo medicinalis - or medical leech - from the Queen's nasal passage?
Red top fears for a right royal RIP are rife this weekend amid reports of HM's recent spate of nosebleeds.
On Monday a reception for First Royal Wedding Gravytrain Bank of Bucklebury Common account holders was cancelled at the last moment.
"One 'atishoo!' and we thought she'd sneezed out a large chunk of septum," Prof Sir Harold Culpepper-Shipman MD commented.
"The said leech was eventually identified as a rogue hirudinaria manillensis - or Mexican leech.
"It splatted all over the Queen's face, it's legendary healing sombrero bloated with bile."
The use of parasites to bleed the royal personage is a 'humor balancing' tradition going back to the 17th century.
A royal pharmacopeia describes mature adults reaching up to 20 cm in length and sporting a wide spectrum of colorways - including a thin royal purple 'go faster' stripe on the dorsal side.
A postmortem on the little bleeder today revealed it had two suckers - one anterior and one posterior sucker - which healing lore dictates are used on different parts of the Royal body (don't ask).
"Of course, it could just have been a dodgy line of coke, heheh!" a Daily Smearer editorial chuckled.
Prince Philip's colostomy bag is chock-a-block once again.
