It's the VICE Royal Baby Live Blog!

AND DID THOSE FEET / IN ANCIENT TIMES / WALK UPON ENGLAND'S MOUNTAINS GREEN!

That's right: on Great and Glorious St George's Day, beloved people's princess Kate Middleton has been admitted to London's St Mary's Hospital in the early stages of labour, with her third child by England's premiere baldLAD™, Prince William, expected some time today at the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

(EDITORIAL NOTE: I swear to god if anyone emails in and starts telling me we have to call her "The Duchess of Cambridge" or, like, "you did not use their rightful title! He's an Earl or some shit, technically!" then I am calling the police on you. This is the greatest day in our country's history. I do not have time to be fucking about with royal titles. I refuse! To Wikipedia! A fucking goddamned thing!)

Anyway, as every news outlet in the UK and many from abroad has done, we've started a live blog about it.

17:57: He's leaving! Prince William, Kate Middleton and The Kid all left the Lindo Wing, looking a little frail and shaken about it but otherwise like a normal human family, with tender pink flesh and bones and blood. "PAY PENITENCE TO YOUR LORD," William is quoted as saying, while Kate clenched all her teeth together until they shattered, one by one by one, out of the jaws of her mouth, emitting a slowly higher and higher pitched shrieking sound as she did it. "SLICE YOUR THROATS AND BRING MY BOY YOUR HOLY BLOOD." The crowd, broadly, did as he asked him, and those reluctant to die for their king were beaten by royal police, wearing their crimson red uniform and carrying with them a royal kosh. Bodies litter the cobbles outside the Lindo Wing, and the boy – still nameless! – leapt from the soft white blanket he was swaddled in, grinding to the floor and suckling at the blood that feeds him. You would swear you could hear him hissing, "chaos… awaits you…" but then he got in a royal Ford Galaxy and drove off back to Kensington Palace. Congratulations to the happy couple! Congratulations to us all!

17:27: George just ran out steepling his little fingers together and yelling "the face of a pig, the face of a pig! The curse is lifted, the face of a pig!" like lol ok little dude go off

17:18: The children arrive to the sound of crowds screaming. The screams are relentless, piercing. The screams sound like a hundred thousand voices crying out in pain. If you look at the mouths of the 250-or-so fans and photographers around you, you will see them all are closed. They are stunned into silence. But the screaming just grows louder, and louder. When the doors close behind them there is pure silence, then an unmistakeable sound: flumpf, flupff, like three sets of leather wings all unfurling as one. The children are here, the children, the children!

16:18: The Queen's Monk just came out? Didn't know that was a thing. "I am the Queen's Monk," he said. "I am here to unhook the boy." Apparently there is this thing where, in royal births, the child and mother fuse together – not umbilically, exactly, but not unumbilically either – and a monk has to separate them from each other or the mother will absorb the baby and, in turn, his evil wicked powers. "And unbreakable bond," The Queen's Monk said. "An unspeakable bond." When he spoke, his face glowed with scars, but when he shuffled away it was clear and smooth again. Snipers picked off a couple more jolly mums, their bodies thudding against parked police cars. The sky is red now. Vibe starting to turn a little bit, ngl

15:31: Screeching sounds, high in the bullet-grey skies. If you look up and squint you can see something – distant, black, circling – something tiny with wings. I can’t remember my mother’s name, or where I was born. I have keys in my pocket but I don’t know what doors they open. We gaze up at the circling dot. My arms feel alien, like someone else bolted to me their limbs. The blood fizzes in my fingertips. My lips feel numb. My face feels numb. I can’t remember my name.

15:20:

The biggest congratulations of the day have to go to the Independent, for shamelessly copying the exact same joke Private Eye famously put on their front cover after the birth of Prince George in 2013:

As has already been pointed out on Twitter, the copied joke would have worked better if the totally soooooo-over-it Indy wasn’t also rinsing the birth for as much wall-to-wall coverage as they can manage:

15:10: the royal baby is one thicc bih

14:43: Small commotion here as a sound I can only describe as ‘a Fanta can being popped’ just exploded in everyone’s ears and the top floor of the Lindo Wing just filled with a terrible acrid smoke but, weird one, none of the remaining audio equipment that survived the wave picked up any sound spike and none of the HD footage we try and capture from above seems to show any sort of smoke at all. Everyone down here in the gallery just got a deep, dark nosebleed. The thumping sound from the sewers – buh–dum, buh–dum, buh–dum – seems to have got more urgent. Desperately Googling but this sort of thing doesn't seem to have heralded any sort of royal birth before—

14:20: TREASON WATCH

Lord, grant me the strength not to march over to whatever squalid little hovel HLS resides in and bop him over the head with a rolled up copy of the Daily Express. Have! Some! Respect!

13:48: That "town crier" bloke you might have seen in photos is not an official messenger of the Palace or anything, as pointed out by various people on Twitter. Ned Donovan was one of them, helpfully directing his warning towards American news networks – those most likely to believe that the Palace sends a man in a 17th century costume shop outfit to the hospital to read an announcement from a sheet of A4 duct-taped to a scroll.

Unfortunately, one of those American news networks did not heed the warning.

13:36: A few shots fired by the royal snipers, here. The crowd grows more and more agitated as they wrestle their way to the front of the pack, desperate for a glimpse of the holy royal son. "HE CRAVES OUR BLOOD," one man, in a Union Flag hoodie and hat said, before bursting through the barriers and being shot to death, dun–dun, two perfect rounds shattering his chest. "THE BABY MUST FEED," another woman – who had been camping here since Thursday – screamed, before pulling her clothes to shreds and sprinting into a crowd of police officers, who held her splayed to the blue sky for snipers to eradicate her with heavy ammunition. A National Trust volunteer was shot in the head for vomiting a sickly black, tarmac-like substance onto the steps outside the Lindo. The vibe here otherwise is cheerful.

13:33:

wow equality is real

13:32: TREASON WATCH

Veteran troublemaker Ian Bone has re-upped a pretty spicey treasonous graphic from anarcho-shock-jockeys Class War:

Bone was one of the people behind Movement Against the Monarchy (MA’M) which held anti-Monarchy protests around the turn of the century. Here’s a video in which he calls the Royals “sponging bastards”:

41 people were arrested in 2000 at a MA’M organised “Execute the Queen” piss-up in a pub to march the monarch’s Golden Jubilee. Apparently that didn’t teach Bone any respect smdh.

13:20: A small flurry of excitement briefly as the door to the Lindo Wing opens and closes, but it’s just a member of the building’s administrative staff moving a laminated sign from inside to outside the Wing. The world’s press are waiting with baited breath, now, and it’s going to be a long day until the Duke and Duchess make their reveal. A quiet drumming sound – barely perceptible, but everyone can hear it – is coming up from the sewers, just an inch louder with each passing minute. Buh–dum, buh­–dum, buh–dum, it goes. It sounds like a heartbeat. It sounds like a heart trying to tear itself in half. Buh–dum, buh–dum, buh–dum. Nobody is acknowledging that they can hear it but they can.

13:10: BREAKING: They named him Palace

13:05: MOST FIRE COLLAB OF 2K18 JUST DROPPED

12:22: Well, not surprisingly, betting companies are getting involved with the baby fever gripping the country – and new odds are emerging on the baby’s potential name! As oddschecker revealed today, the name ‘Thomas’ – often shorted in a more fun way to ‘Tom’ – has been slashed from odds of 100/1 to 5/1 in less than six days, with 37% of all bets being placed on that name. And bookies are crying foul, theorising that the recent flurry of Tom-bets could be sparked by a member of the royal inner circle tipping off potential punters.

“It's natural for any parents to discuss possible baby names with friends or family, so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that a few people would be in the know if 'Thomas' was on the table,” a spokesperson said. I know that, if I were privy to the potential name of a royal baby, I would tell all my mates to chuck a tenner on to make a quick grand, absolutely definitely, first thing on my mind.

Those odds in full, by the way:

Arthur 2/1
Alice 4/1
Thomas 5/1
James 6/1
Catherine/Kate 20/1
Isabella 20/1
Typhon, Lord of Chaos 25/1
Florence 40/1

12:20:

Anti-Monarchy campaign Republic have emerged from whatever disrespectful sewer they live in to comment on the Royal baby.

While this may feels like they’ve work-shopped the least offensive tweet possible so that they don't become the target of some hysterical discussion on Question Time, politicised points about “equality” from a rabble of peasants/Lib Dems have no place whatsoever as we wait on bended knee to welcome a new heir to the throne who is by birth superior to us all.

Shouldn’t every child be #bornEqual? You’re not fit to wipe the Royal do-do from this kid’s noble heiny, bucko!

11:37: Twitter is a solid 50/50 split of people who are Extremely Excited about the royal baby (RB) and people who really, really want you to know that they don't care one bit about the RB, so are tweeting quite a lot about it to let you know how little they care.

11:31: We just had a word with royal super-fan Garry Hutt – who has been camping outside the Lindo Wing since the 9th of April, a sane amount of time – and he's thrilled to bits by the impending arrival of the little prince or princess. "I missed the reveal of Prince George in 2013," he told us, dressed in his customary and extremely Brexit Union Flag-patterned suit. "I went to the toilet and had to run back half-dressed!" Garry thinks the Duchess will deliver another daughter, and thinks they should call her Diana. "It’s just a mark of respect," he tells us. "I've been camping out since the 9th of April. It's a mark of respect." His speech slows a little, slurs. "It’s— because Diana was a. A princess." Garry swallows, hard, then lowers his voice to a whisper. "It’s a mark of respect," he says. It's a day of celebration, here, outside the Lindo Wing in Paddington. "As a— I feel they should. As a mark of. I was half-dressed, when I came out! But no as a— as a— as a mark. Of respect. They should name her. That." We ask him to same the name again but he closes his mouth and shakes his head. "I can’t," he says. "I cannot utter the cursed name." We ask Garry if he’s alright, but he shakes his head again, long and hard. "All I can taste is bitter, bitter ash," he croaks.

It’s a day of celebration! Here! At the Lindo Wing in Paddington!

11:25: This lot are going to be besides themselves today. Click through to see why they care so much about the Royal Family.

11:18AM: In keeping with time-honoured British tradition, various companies are using the news of imminent childbirth to flog or promote various bits of tat.