Notwithstanding the wedge-shaped weapon McDonald's has been gifted to throw back in the prince's face, the burger giant is not best pleased with Charles's comments, apparently. I'd say the heir to the British throne is absolutely cacking himself. Personally, I hope McDonald's sue him for every penny he has, and he's forced to go on the rented-accommodation market.

All told, it was a bad week to be a spokesperson for good causes. There's Al Gore, basking in his post-Oscars glory, merrily taking advantage of all that extra attention to ram home his anti-globalwarming message, when news emerges that he lives in a 20-room house that uses up 20 times more electricity per year than the average US household.

What an idiot.

You'd think that, before he set himself up as a champion of green issues, he might have thought:

'This could look bad if somebody finds out about my 20-room house. And somebody will find out about my 20-room house, because it's a 20-room house.'

Now Al Gore's double standards have the potential to generate the perception that Democrat dogooders are opportunists and chancers. Millions who voted Republican in 2004 and were beginning to warm to the Democrats will quickly go cold on them again. As acts of hypocrisy go, it's the equivalent of Gore's wife Tipper - who, in the early '90s, waged a one-woman crusade against the evils of rap music - being caught B-girling with her posse. The only way Gore can crawl out of this one would be if he down-sized his property. But even that might be too little too late.

Now close your eyes, allow the darkness to envelop you and picture the worst-case scenario.

It's two years hence, the Republican candidate has been returned to the White House, and the term 'carbon footprint' means two things. A smouldering Iran-shaped scar on the earth's surface. And Al Gore's socks smoking on a three-bar fire. Wouldn't that be a turn-up for the books? Al Gore's socks burning in his bedsit, and himself and Prince Charles sitting there, shoulders slumped, at the end of his bed, with a McDonald's extra-value Happy Meal spread out between them?