Gordon in the morning: Geri shows off her ring

What a wonderful time for the tabloids: Geri Halliwell is pregnantengaged. Ah, the joys to come: an OK! Wedding, rumours and speculation, estrangement, divorce. This one could keep Gordon in lead columns for years - why, like the Winehouse-Fielder Civil union, which today offers up a sixteenth rapprochement tale.

But Gordon's not entirely happy. What's wrong, Gordon?

the Italian stallion has wasted no time in making an honest woman of Geri.

Just as well on the honesty front, as Geri wasn’t very truthful when Bizarre asked about the good news after Christmas.

She denied it then, and has been wearing gloves a lot recently — something to hide perhaps? — but in a statement yesterday Geri’s management firm 19, said: “We are delighted to announce the engagement of Geri Halliwell and Fabrizio Politi.

“As a token of their commitment to each other Fabrizio presented Geri with an engagement ring over the festive season."

Aw, did Halliwell decide to announce her own engagement in her own time rather than through your column? What a beastly thing to do. How shockingly dishonest.

If not bending to Smart's whims and desires was a fault, then Halliwell's paying for it now, as Gordon unleashes his hurt at not having been told the truth, like an annoyed fairy in Grimm Tale:

GERI HALLIWELL’s Italian fella must have overcooked it on the grappa.

Oh, that's right - he must have been drunk off his tits to have even considered asking her to marry him. But Gordon's only just warming up with his sub-Perez Hilton snark-gobbets:

“There are no immediate plans for marriage as the couple are enjoying their engagement.”

No immediate plans?

That sounds like a get-out-clause to me — which is probably a wise move for the shipping tycoon, given Geri’s pretty dire history with blokes.

Yes, it can't be that the couple are just enjoying being engaged and haven't started to plan anything yet. It must be that - having got engaged when Fabrizio Politi was drunk - they've decided to have an engagement they don't believe in. And you can prove it because Geri has had boyfriends in the past, can't you, Gordon?

The surprising thing is that Rebekah Wade, who has let this appear in the newspaper, was delivering last night's Hugh Cudlipp lecture (you can pretty much get the flavour of it here, in Wordle form). Cudlipp, I'm sure, would have run pretty much this sort of thing himself.