Hello! front page is first with news of royal birth – for a second week running

The eagerly-awaited news that the Duchess of Cambridge had gone into labour came as no surprise to Axegrinder this morning.

Hello! magazine was, as ever, first with the news not just of the start of the royal contractions but also the long-awaited appearance of the baby itself. The prescient celebrity mag splashed the news across its front page… for the second week running.

Last week, the Hello! front page promised readers the A-Z of the Royal baby birth details and plugged the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge’s family was celebrating with the Queen – all long before Kate had even gone in to labour.

And, having clearly set aside a huge space for the royal baby again this week, it has gone even further.

Granted, the magazine is dated 29 July and, and at time of going to press it must have seemed highly likely that the third in line to the throne would have put in an appearance by then. But the magazine's choice of tense suggests to Axegrinder that some sort of time machine has been invented to mark this auspicious day.

The headline, “BABY LOVE! THE NATION CELEBRATES WITH WILLIAM AND KATE”, strongly implies the baby has already been born.

And as for the quote, “let us toast this wonderful news” – Axegrinder suspects it may have been taken out of context. Or plucked from a different point on the space-time continuum.