The Lost Diaries | edited by Craig Brown

He’s been taking aim for two decades. Now Craig Brown presents his greatest hits. The best of his fortnightly spoofs in Private Eye, supplemented by new entries from historical characters, have been loosely sorted into an imaginary calendar.

Everyone has their favourite Brown character. Mine is Heather Mills McCartney, whose self-righteous truculence he captures perfectly, while encouraging her to indulge her gift for fantasy. She reacts to a documentary about Florence Nightingale and blames the press for peddling lies:

They try and make out she’s only in it for the publicity. I was a nurse in the Crimea and believe me it’s no easy job walking around with your lamp, tending to all those brave soldiers with blood spurting out of them, hearing their last words, wrapping them up in bandages and that.

Softer targets like Katie Price and Madonna are attacked sparingly. Brown seems to prefer his own caste — literary types, royal courtiers and over-educated toffs. Gyles Brandreth ticks all three boxes. He conducts the Queen on a tour of the Obesity Unit at a local hospital. ‘Good morning Ma’am,’ he says, pronouncing Ma’am to rhyme with Clapham, ‘as is correct.’

‘It’s nice and warm in here,’ she observes. I lead the laughter. ‘Boom, boom!’ I say. Within minutes, there are tears literally rolling down my cheeks.

Beneath the comedy lies a gruesome reality. Senior royals exist in a bubble of nervous embarrassment and misplaced awe, and wherever they go they trigger ecstasies of competitive grovelling. Brown is less successful at capturing the Queen’s private diaries. The joke is that she’s a passionless robot, bereft of original thought, trapped by etiquette and unable to recognise even her own children. She takes Prince Edward for a local councillor at a garden party. ‘Have you come far?’ It’s interesting that this rings false. Too little is known about the Queen’s inner life for satirists to ‘get’ her accurately and Brown’s inability to reproduce her voice vindicates her refusal to open herself up to the press.