If The TV Flash of Kate's Bikini Photos Was a Genuine Mistake Then I'm a Monkey's Uncle!

Just the teensiest point of order about the Duchess of Cambridge pictures being "mistakenly" flashed to millions of viewers on ITV's This Morning: would it be too daring, too risky, to suggest that, just perhaps, there was no mistake whatsoever about it?

Just the teensiest point of order about the Duchess of Cambridge pictures being "mistakenly" flashed to millions of viewers on ITV's This Morning: would it be too daring, too risky, to suggest that, just perhaps, there was no mistake whatsoever about it?

I know. Maybe I'm just a raddled old cynic. Maybe I've worked on newspapers too long. But as soon as I'd heard that Chi Magazine had run these pictures of Kate's baby-belly, I thought that it would not be long before some TV presenter accidentally contrived to flash them on live TV.

Maybe I've suddenly developed clairvoyant powers...

Maybe I really can see into the future.

But lo and behold, not a day later and an uncensored shot of the offending front page is just flashed up on our TV screens.

Spooky, eh?

And then, of course, we have go through the whole farrago of ITV apologising and saying that the incident was "deeply regrettable"... as they doubtless lick their lips at all the huge amount of coverage that they're garnering.

The problem is that, rather like the boy who'd cried wolf, we've heard it all before.

Over and over again, a TV presenter will be dissecting the latest outrageous photos of the day - only then to "blunder" by flashing the offending picture at the camera. And the row rumbles on, only the TV show itself is now right bang centre in the middle or the row.

I remember when that scamp Matthew Wright happened to inadvertently blurt out on live TV that the person who was suspected of raping Ulrika Jonsson was John Leslie. Oooops! Hell of a mistake, terribly, terribly sorry, now just sit back please while I revel in my spot on the centre-stage.

Perhaps it's not even a conscious decision though...

Perhaps it's like when you tell a young kid, "Don't drop the milk!" and the poor tyke then spends so long thinking about "not dropping the milk" that the next moment it's all over the floor.

What's probably happening is this: in the pre-production meetings, the producer is saying to his hapless team, "You know what, it would be really, really bad - bad beyond awful - if you happened to flash up those pictures of Kate on the front of Chi magazine... because it's live TV and a lot of people see it, and a few might get pretty offended... so please, please, please, whatever you do... DON'T FLASH UP THE PICTURES OF CHI MAGAZINE!"

And then, well you know how it goes... The guys are just trying to do their jobs, but all the while they're thinking, over and over again, "Don't flash up the pictures from Chi" and then... Dohhh! They've gone and flashed up the pictures from Chi, and the milk is all over the floor, and daddy is sooo NOT HAPPY!

That's how it all happened, I'm sure of it. Obvious, really, when you think about it.

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