Letter from the editor: Runaway bride Charlene

It may not be world-beating, but Londoner Michael Dean’s claim to have told 63,000 lost tourists the correct way to Regent’s Park and MadameTussaud’s is the most esoteric of all i readers’ “World’s Top” talents.

He was counting? We all need a little help in finding our way sometimes. None more sothan tragic Princess Charlene of Monaco, who it now turns out — allegedly — tried to run away three times before last weekend’s royal wedding.

Now, I know that she is open to ridicule along thelines of the “so, Charlene, whatever first attracted you to the ageing multi-millionaire Prince Albert?” kind, and didn’t really have to marry him. Or did she? All we know here at i Towers is that we have pored over many more pictures of her during her three-day wedding than those we have published, and there is not one where Charlene displays any of the joy of those other recent brides: the Kates Middleton and Moss, and Abbey Clancey — despite what she knew before her wedding to Peter Crouch. The idea Charlene now has to stay captive in her palace to provide Monaco an heir after Albert’s first two (three?) were born out of wedlock and are thus ineligible is a plotline straight out of The Tudors, my current midnight re-run treat when I get home from work.

As an office cynic noted, footage of Prince William landing a rescue helicopter on a Canadian lake yesterday was also like something out of the same series: a 2011 version of Henry proving his kingly chops through jousting. Well, the saddest-looking bride most of us have ever seen needs rescuing. Maybe William can put that helicopter to good use. Free the Monaco One! ’Til tomorrow.