Her father said last night: “Everything that comes out of the A30 is the gospel truth. What’s important is how the protesters are working there, their magic and how they are being treated by the under sheriff of Devon and Cornwall.”Her father, who like her mother cycles everywhere as part of his green approach to life, makes his living doing Punch and Judy shows. It is, he said, a job which: “amuses me immensely”.He gave up his full-time job as deputy stage manager at a provincial theatre after six years to fulfil his dream to set himself up as a children’s entertainer. Known as Professor, he takes his puppet-show around schools in the area telling stories, some of which he writes himself.. Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic airline has agreed to help the exiled Ethiopian royal family return to Addis Ababa for the funeral service of the uncrowned emperor, who died in Washington last week. In London, the court of the new emperor, His Royal Highness, Zera-Yakob, is urgently planning the funeral service.

Zera-Yakob, who has modest houses in east-London and Manchester, is the heir to a throne that is claimed to go back to King Solomon, and which was once occupied by Emperor Haile Selassie.
Virgin Atlantic confirmed yesterday that it had been approached by members of the exiled imperial family who are mourning Amaha Selassie – son of Haile Selassie. The ancient Solomid dynasty fled to exile after a military coup led to the formation of a socialist state. Haile Selassie, regarded by many as running an opulent autocracy for more than 40 years, is believed to have been suffocated in his bed by Marxist army officers in 1975. Ethiopia has been a republic since 1995.The return of the exiled royal family – including 25 to 30 members who live in Washington and others from London – will prove a costly operation. Zera-Yakob’s spokesman said : “Contrary to popular belief, when the court fled from Ethiopia in 1974 they did not leave with vast wealth stored in international banks.”Virgin confirmed to The Independent that it had been approached and had agreed to help. A spokeswoman said: “We want to know exactly what their requirements are.” Virgin does not fly to Addis Ababa, but, she said: “We could pick up from Washington to Heathrow.” The airline was considering acting as intermediaries to involve others who may wish to help. Lij Mulugeta Aserate, the new emperor’s cousin and official spokesman, said: “The international network of dedicated monarchists, the Conquering Lions, are assisting in this.”Zera-Yakob, 43, was educated at Eton, Oxford and Sandhurst.

Answering questions through his spokesman, he said it was the dream of the 227th King of Kings (Zera-Yakob) that he will regain his throne, though he sees the constitutional monarchies of the UK and Japan as examples where “both monarchy and democracy can thrive”.. For fans of Bill Cosby, the American entertainer, the bombshells keep dropping On 16 January, there was the murder of his only son, Ennis. Two days later Mr Cosby was revealed as the apparent victim of a paternity extortion racket. Now, about that, Mr Cosby is revealing a more complicated truth.

As Mr Cosby returned to work on the set of his Cosby sitcom in New York on Monday, first snippets were being aired of an interview with Dan Rather of CBS. In it, Mr Cosby admits that he indeed had an affair with the mother of the child who is claiming to be his illegitimate daughter.
The young woman, Autumn Jackson, 22, and one other woman, were arrested by Manhattan police on 18 January on charges that they had tried to shake down Mr Cosby for $24m. Ms Jackson, police said, had threatened to go public with her story that the star was in fact her father.When news of the arrest broke, sympathy was already gushing for Mr Cosby, who had just hurried to Los Angeles to grieve his son’s violent death. Ennis, 27, was apparently gunned down on a Los Angeles highway while changing a wheel on his Mercedes.So powerful is Mr Cosby’s image, nurtured by his sitcom roles on television as well as his best-selling book, Fatherhood, as the perfect American father and family man, to believe the woman seemed impossible, even in bad taste. There was no truth in the story, he said through his publicists.The Rather interview, which has still to be aired in full, is beginning to suggest otherwise, however. Mr Cosby, who has been married for 33 years and had five children with his wife, admits plainly that he did have liaisons with the mother of Autumn, Shawn Jackson He denies that he is the father of Autumn. Even that denial, however, is framed by uncertainty.Asked if he could be the father, Mr Cosby said: “There is a possibility …