If you are in the London area today and can’t find anything to do Blighty would suggest that you chuck a bottle of arsenic down the old neck and end it all. Life just isn’t your thing. The capital is hosting the women’s Wimbledon final, England v Australia cricket at Lords, Live 8 concert at Hyde Park and if none of those events grabs you you could join the Gay Pride March and hope the wife isn’t watching.

The Gay Pride march is this year sponsored by The Daily Mail. And to show solidarity the newspaper’s staff have been ordered to cross-dress for the day. Peter Hitchens is wearing a floral chiffon number with strappy high-heeled shoes and matching bag by Gucci. Marchers have been banned from wearing police uniforms by the boys in blue so it’s the usual Village People and Judy Garland outfits abound, although one or two insist that they will go as under-cover cops and stand the consequences.

200 000 fans are expected to turn up at the Live 8 concert. The mainly white groups will be playing for free in front of a global audience of five billion viewers. Bob Geldof considered inviting African musicians but decided that it would do their image no good to see them jumping around the stage having fun and playing electrical instruments. There will be a backfilm of starving Africans instead, looking helpless and grateful to all those altruistic white pop stars astride the stage. As everyone knows, what a starving African child needs most of all is a good Western pop riff.