Tales of the City: Paying lip service to protocol

Here's a conundrum to tax the brains of the super-formal: should the Queen break with tradition at Buckingham Palace this weekend, and kiss Prince Charles on the cheek? It's a tricky one, I know. Vast quicksands of royal protocol can apparently be found shifting under this small maternal gesture. A serious national newspaper recently devoted a page to debating the pros and cons of puckerage, the inclining of cheek and lifting of chin, the logistics of precisely where on the frozen majestic cheek one is allowed to imprint one's tiny dole of saliva.

It's just not done for a monarch to kiss anyone. Close relatives from the noble thrones of Europe may kiss the Queen, provided they take no liberties; but Her Maj don't kiss nobody. But since Queen Victoria went off-message at her own golden jubilee in 1887 and kissed her errant son Bertie on the whiskers, a precedent of sorts has been set. So the Queen may go for it – as "a public demonstration of the bond between them", you understand, rather than because she's just fond of her kid.

You might think this is a ridiculous fuss. As Samuel Beckett enquired, when considering the Catholic liturgy in Molloy, "Does it really matter which hand is employed to absterge the podex?" But to cavil would be to misunderstand the niceties of court procedure; a single gesture out of place could provoke a diplomatic incident. You must know which areas of royal contention are best avoided. Here are the other major ethical cruxes of the jubilee:

* Should Queen Heidi of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha be allowed to wear green watered silk, thus potentially clashing with Princess Floriana of Ulm in her moiré turquoise chiffon when they meet in St George's Chapel, or should they just be kept apart by bouncers?

* If King Harald of Norway gets to carry the Silver Overhead Gasket in the procession, will King Olaf of Lapland be enraged to find he's been fobbed off with the Emergency Fan Belt?

* Can Prince Bhouniputra of Celebes (15) and Prince Siddiringhi of Sumatra (14) be dissuaded from greeting Prince Philip with "high fives" in the main nave before the playing of the Trumpet Voluntary?

* Crown Prince Hardrada of Walloonia is allowed to bum cigarettes off the lesser royals of equivalent principalities (Monrovia, Herzigova and Alleyoopia) but not off any British royal higher than a Marquess.

* If bored during the procession, it is traditional for the royal party to flick through Burke's Peerage, The Daily Telegraph or Country Life. Where do we stand on Asian Babes, Heat and the Times Literary Supplement?

* Because Queen Bunty of Eustachea is seven foot three, she does not fit in a standard gold carriage. Her status does not permit her to ride in a special carriage by herself. Should a hole be cut in the roof of the imperial coach for her head? Or should she be laid sideways?

Come back, Narinder and Bubble – all is forgiven

I think it was the Maltesers-vs-logs conversation that alerted us to the fact that Big Brother had changed. The subject of this ribald colloquy was neither chocolate nor wood products, but something more lavatorial, as Jade, a 20-year-old dental nurse with the face of a lobotomised piglet, enquired about her housemate's bowels. It seemed a little early to be familiarising each other with their bathroom secrets. (In last's year's Big Brother 2, I seem to remember, it took someone called Narinder a whole four days to conquer her shyness and go for a Number Two.) And when the girls started writhing on the floor and discussing "positions", the sound went dead. A notice on screen explained that "the housemates are being foul-mouthed, offensive and generally too rude for daytime viewing".

Can you feel nostalgic about this ridiculous programme, as if it once had a Golden Age? Wasn't there a time when it was a more nuanced thing, when the house-dwellers started off uncertain about themselves and their chances of survival, when they spent a couple of days sizing each other up, getting to know the silent ones, letting the extroverts blow off steam. Familiarity has now bred contempt. From the first, all the contestants, even the most wretchedly dull, seemed to think they were fully fledged TV superstars. Hardly had the half-witted male model from Essex begun supper than everyone in the house started acting up: topless tits, drunkenness, simulated sex, naked frolics in the pool, panty raids, the lot. Every time the girls retired to bed, one of the idiot males with unresolved "issues" dropped in to their dormitory to ask about their sex lives.

In previous years, by day three, you could expect some relaxed, unbuttoned confessions and a little hesitant flirting. By day three this year, everyone had snogged everyone else and conducted a spoof Jerry Springer Show featuring cucumbers and, er, equiphilia, if that's the right word for having sex with a horse. At this rate, by next weekend the modest living space will resemble The 120 Days of Sodom. By week four, we'll be on to cannibalism and necrophilia. How peculiar to find oneself pining for the days when the papers went crazy over corkscrew-haired Mel batting her eyelashes (gasp!) at two of the boys in the same week...

Expensive taste

Meanwhile, over at Savile Row, the bespoke-tailoring world is pre-empting the Queen's celebrations by a couple of days. Ozwald Boateng, the impossibly cool Ghana-born designer with a flair for purple suits and acid-green linings, is linking up with Ken Livingstone to throw a street party for his neighbours. Mr Boateng put his past financial difficulties behind him in January this year, when he moved into "the Row" (as he tends to call it with proprietorial fondness) at No 12a. And tonight an army of "celebridees", from Chelsea Clinton and Joan Collins to Will Young and that evergreen fashion icon, Chris Eubank, will mill about under a street-long marquee, sipping Cristal and celebrating the survival of British tailoring's top address.

Despite its long and glorious history (Gieves & Hawkes arrived first in 1785, setting up shop at No 1 Savile Row; and the street's key names – Henry Poole, Dege, Huntsman – have made suits for Nelson, Wellington, Napoleon, Dickens, Churchill, De Gaulle and the Beatles, whose Apple shop was at No 3), things have been tough in bespoke-land for many years, as nobody except mature rock stars, Japanese tourists and the sons of the aristocracy could afford made-to-measure starting at £1,500. But since Ozwald Boateng flapped into town (at nearby Vigo Street) like a great exotic heron, a slew of younger, classical-but-groovy designers have swanned in after him: Richard James, William Hunt (who dresses Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross and, er, moi) and Duffer of St George. Between them, they've made the Row a place you no longer regard with nostalgia and indulgence (like a whiskery old brigadier left over from the Crimea), but a shopping destination you visit once a year to buy one garment, after which you feel extraordinarily pleased with life. The only curious note this evening will be struck by Ken Livingstone, who will be urging the outside world to support Savile Row in its slightly tattered glory. How on earth can London's mayor square his flat-dwelling, Tube-riding, man-of-the-people routine with endorsing the most triumphantly elitist clothing region in the UK? Or has he secretly been a Huntsman customer ("I'd like a bit more roll in the shoulder and a properly squared gorge this time, Harold") for years?

Chicken feed

Hats (and more) off to the enterprising Monica Isa, who has been arrested by Italian police and charged with illegal price cutting and unfair competition. Ms Isa is a Turin prostitute, and what she's dropping is more than just her service fee. The cost of spending an hour or so with Ms Isa (what an appropriate name for a small investor) has crashed from €35 to €5 (£22 to £3.20). This seems a recklessly low unit cost, given the price of overheads and maintenance, but then she's trying to queer the pitch, as it were, for the other Turin poules de luxe. Now she's in custody awaiting trial. My problem is that every legal phrase I can think of regarding illicit financial dealings has now taken on a Miss Whiplash sheen: sharp practice, restraint of trade, hanky panky, jiggery pokery...