The last Christmas at Royal Lodge - how bad could it be?

Having been strong-armed into surrendering the lease on the 30-room manor, he is expected to relocate - as soon as is “practicable” - to a more modest property on the Sandringham estate, where, historically, he would join the royal family for the season’s festivities.

- FLIC EVERETT

Past Christmases may have seen Andy at the heart of things, winking stagily at his adoring mother, patting passing bottoms and texting his pal Jeff in America. This year, when morning breaks over the grade II-listed lodge that he is soon vacating - having allowed it to get in a state of such “dilapidation” that, according to a public accounts committee report, he won’t now receive almost half a million in compensation for surrendering the lease early - Andrew will wake from happy dreams to the cold reality of an empty feather bed.

This year, there'll be no Fergie to jolly him up (“Rise and shine, Old Sausage - eggs and soldiers on parade!”). Instead, his disgraced ex-wife and onetime duchess will reputedly be in Princess Beatrice's granny annexe, hoping her eldest daughter and son-in-law Edoardo might invite her through for smoked salmon and a nice chat about the old days.