New York - Well oiled after attending a West 46th St club bash involving loads of booze UK travel writer and elephant obsessive Mark Shand has been reported dead this evening after a mishap involving some treacherous New York pavement slabs.
Friends of the deceased, a brother of Brit royal benefits scrounger Camilla Parker Bowles, say he was 69.
Witness reports have placed him outside the Diamond Horseshoe Club in the early hours of Wednesday morning when the drunken fall took place.
The club's senior mixologist Robbie Kahlua has described how he'd been serving Shand all evening - mainly tequila slammers, Dom Perignon chasers, Jack Daniels side-tots, half a dozen large Manhattans and 'literally gallons' of the house piña colada.
"The guy was still upright when he left the club," Kahlua said, "kinda hammered but still in shape."
News of the tragedy reached London's Clarence House this evening where sister Camilla was said to be more smashed than ever, knocking back buckets of taxpayer-funded champagne highballs.
An inquest will open later tomorrow.
