Royal baby: Stephen Fry salutes Britain's 'bonkers' birth traditions

Stephen Fry has paid tribute to Britain's quirky birth traditions following the arrival of the Prince of Cambridge

TV star Stephen Fry paid tribute to Britain's "bonkers" birth traditions today as the world celebrated the new royal arrival.

As Clarence House announced the birth of a baby boy, Fry took to twitter in his own inimitable way.

The actor, author, playwright, poet and film producer is a Twitter phenomenon with almost six million followers.

As a firm friend of new grandfather the Prince of Wales he is also no stranger to the anachronisms of royalty.

His tweets today highlighted the quaint language and time-honoured traditions and rituals which still surround royal occasions.

The official Clarence House Twitter site announced: "Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm."

The announcement was followed by a slightly less modern approach to global news dissemination when it was posted outside Buckingham Palace on an easel.

"Excellent! They still use that form of words - 'was delivered of'," Fry later tweeted.

"Today we say 'gave birth to' - used to be 'was delivered of ...'."

He added: "In the Norfolk countryside they used to say 'the baby hit the straw at 4pm' and 'the wife's in pig' ... so many charming ways of putting it."

When the announcement was posted on the easel, he added: "The official easel. We really are a marvellously bonkers country..."

He also observed: "8lb 6oz. Interesting that babies are always in imperial units not metric..."

PA