John Gibson: Let's not be vulgar about Zara's cash

I mean, the lass has seven horses to feed in her yard. No wonder she's not averse to a touch of commercial sponsorship. And she's a trained equine psychotherapist, don't forget. So if the mounted polis are upset in the crowds on Saturday she could apply her know-how (dungarees over the wedding dress). Besides, she might well have to placate the locals who could lose business due to the palaver.

Zara and Mike (groom Mike Tindall) are stressing they want this to be a private affair. Sure. That's why they've told Hello to get lost.

Their 300 guests should know that. Once they've been body-scanned, birth certificates and passports checked and get beyond the kirk's locked gates, they can sit back and enjoy.

Any aggro and Mike, stalwart rugby heavy, will sort it out.You don't tangle with him. A commoner, he used to sell fish suppers from a van. Will Zara shock and stun by wearing the Lady Gaga-style wig she wore at a henathon?

Canongate parishioners, the rank and file, will be advised to make themselves scarce on the day. They can, though, count on this column for any scandal. I'll have the best nosey of all, clinging to the back of Robert Fergusson, the poet statued this side of the kirk gates. A superb eye-catching memorial, not made in China.

Robert died at 24, having succumbed to the drink, seeing his last days out in Edinburgh's Bedlam, the asylum. Burns, who thought the world of him, paid for his burial in the kirkyard, a tenement worthy from across the road tells me.

The dreaded drink. Let that be a lesson to you. Pimms, dry sherry and Buckfast at the shindig on Saturday.

Afterwords . .

. . . Too good to hurry, this chuckle from Chic Murray: "The boat was so old, it must have been launched when Long John Silver had two legs and an egg on his shoulder."