Princess Masako, wife of Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, is under considerable strain these days and faces only one intrusive and repeated question: why after four years of marriage, is she not pregnant? Japan's yearning for a male heir is reflected in the breathless hysteria amongst Japanese women's magazines.

There was, for example, the disclosure that the princess was wearing low heels instead of high heels when she visited the national bonsai exhibition in Tokyo. Then the imperial household admitted she couldn't admit a flower show because she was unwell.

Finally, she was absent from the official welcoming dinner for the President of Germany.This was enough to set off a wave of headlines. `Congratulations Princess Masako' said the Weekly Woman magazine, while another headline declared, `Finally!' The Josei Shimbun proclaimed: `A day when a stork flies down'. Though this is tame stuff when compared to the British press' royal fetish, it was enough to prompt an admonishment from the reticent royal household agency: `These pregnancy hypothesis have gone completely out of control'.

Selling the homeTony Blair is at least £240,000 richer after the speedy sale of his Islington home this week. The British Prime Minister's five-bedroom Victorian home in Richmond Crescent, north London, was snapped up within 24 hours of going on the market for more than the asking price of £615,000.

The property was put on the market for £240,000 more than the £375,000 it had cost the Blairs in 1993. The Blairs were sorry to have to leave their home, but it was decided that for security reasons, they could not stay.

Shocking tale

Irvine Welsh, the writer who whipped up a storm of controversy with his book Trainspotting about the lives of four Scottish drug addicts, has once again stirred the ire of the establishment with a new drama for Channel 4. The Granton Star Cause, which depicts God as a foul-mouthed drinker and includes scenes of sado-masochistic sex, has come in for stringent criticism from the Church of England.

The half-hour comedy drama portrays the trials of a young man who is dropped by his football team and girlfriend and loses his job. His parents tell him to leave home and the police beat him when he vandalises a phone box. To compound his misery, he meets a `god man' in a pub who turns him into a bluebottle.

As a fly on the wall literally he returns home to see his parents indulging in sado-masochistic sex.However Channel 4 has defended its decision to go ahead with the screening. As a spokesman said: ``Irving Welsh is one of Britain's leading modern day authors and reflects a specific element of our culture. It will be flagged up with suitable warnings so that people do not stumble on it unawares.''

Potent rage

Uday Hussein, the eldest son of Saddam Hussein, is in the news once again. Uday, who has been in a severe depression and subject to violent rages since his release from hospital after an assassination attempt that left him impotent and his left leg paralysed, is believed to have murdered a young woman, Asil Salman Mansour, he failed to seduce inside the presidential palace.

The victim's family was paid off to ensure their silence, but Iraqi opposition sources revealed his latest outrage.The 33-year-old Uday has been prone to violent outbursts since his teens. At 24, he beat to death his father's favourite servant, allegedly because he passed messages between Saddam and his mistress.

His propensity for violence seems to have increased now, and those around him have feared for their lives since he shot to death a young bodyguard at the Jadriya presidential complex last month. This came weeks after he ordered the Iraqi football team beaten on the soles of their feet for losing a world cup qualifier to Kazakhstan.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.