Shockwaves have reverberated across the UK media with the confirmation of the news that, despite nearly a year of marriage, Prince William and Kate Middleton are still yet to expect a child.
"To say this is shocking is, quite simply, an understatement" confirmed one newspaper editor. "After milking the wedding for all it was worth, we'd all expected Wills and Kate to announce the pregnancy within one to two weeks. But here we are, a year later and we haven't even had any shots of Kate looking a little chubby."
The editor of OK! magazine, Lisa Byrne, recently release a statement in which she spoke of her own anger at the lack of news. "You'd think that the couple would have a bit more consideration and have a baby ready before the wedding. Instead, we've had absolutely nothing in the way of news. We've got a huge backlog of articles about Kate's pregnancy that are waiting to be published. 'How Wills and Kate will adapt to being parents', 'Growing up in a Royal household', 'If it's a girl, they'll name her Diana'... all these have been written to expose them as much as much as possible but they're just warming up our hard drives. I've even got a team of paparazzi impatiently waiting to be dispatched to wherever Kate gives birth."
It's not only the media that are suffering from the lack of a royal child, but also retailers. A representative from Mothercare stated "We've got a whole range of 'Royal Baby' merchandise waiting to be released. Rattles with the royal insignia, cuddly beefeaters, even guides on how to teach a baby to do the royal wave to commoners when travelling. All we're waiting for now is the inevitable announcement.
This news comes hot on the heels of recent events, in which Wills and Kate infuriated news agencies the world over by hinting at 'a new arrival' in the family only for it to emerge that they were talking about a dog.