SARAH VINE: This foxy flying doc makes me pity Kate 

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Did the Fates really have to pair Prince William with a glamorous new colleague who not only looks exactly like Kate, but a more fun version of Kate?

What with her being married to a Prince, having two palatial homes, fabulous swishy hair and great legs, it’s not often I feel sorry for Kate Middleton.

Not to mention her ability to produce cherubic camera-ready infants — then snap back into her size 10 Issa dresses.

But yesterday, when I saw the pictures of Prince William’s first day back at work, I felt a sharp stab of sisterly sympathy.

Bad enough that William gets to go back out into the real world while she remains under house arrest, lactating like a prize Friesian.

Did the Fates really have to pair him up with a glamorous new colleague who not only looks exactly like Kate, but a more fun version of Kate? A version of Kate worryingly reminiscent of the adventurous, super-sexy girl he met and fell in love with at St Andrews?

Clever, smiley-eyed, free from the responsibilities of home, hearth and crown and unshackled by small, squawking children or domineering mothers-in-law. (The Prince’s new colleague is, it transpires, newly married, but as yet has no children).

If there’s one thing the Duchess does not need in her life right now, it’s William and his chopper anywhere near a woman who is basically a reminder of how much more exciting life was B.C. — before children.

Just look at her, this Dr Gemma Mullen of the East Anglian Air Service who, at 33, is the same age as William. It’s 7am and she’s rocking that orange jumpsuit like it was Prada.

Add in the fact that she’s an actual doctor who flies around saving the lives of heart-attack and road-crash victims, and suddenly shaking hands at charity events doesn’t seem quite such an achievement.

I’m sure none of this has crossed William’s mind. He is, after all, a gentleman (and, besides, I imagine that Bad Uncle Gary Goldsmith knows some fairly scary people).

But as a young father savouring his first taste of freedom since the birth of his second child, he needs to tread carefully.

Because it’s already quite clear that Captain Wales is keen as mustard to get back into the saddle.

For the good of the people of East Anglia, of course. But also — if I’m reading between the lines correctly here — for the sake of his own sanity. ‘It’s been fantastic, she’s been a little joy from Heaven,’ he told reporters when asked about new arrival, Princess Charlotte.

‘At the same time,’ he added, ‘there is a lot of responsibility, especially when George is around — he’s been a little monkey.’

A ‘little monkey’ is, of course, new-parent speak for a screaming, shouting, tantrum-throwing nightmare.

The truth is that, with or without the foxy lookalike, William is the lucky one here. Because while he gets a nine-and-a-half-hour break from the chaos four days a week, Kate is at it 24/7.

Even with the (considerable) amount of help she has, that’s no picnic.

For most ordinary women, meanwhile, motherhood is the hardest work they’ll ever do — paid or unpaid.

Think your work is repetitive? Just wait until you’ve sung The Wheels On The Bus seven million times in a single day.

Boss won’t listen to reason? Try spending half a day with a two-year-old, and then we’ll talk.

I’m sure this is why the male of the species fought so hard to oppose equality in the workplace.

It’s not that they were afraid we would clutter up the lavatories with doilies and scented toilet paper. It’s because they didn’t want us to discover the truth: that once you’ve got kids, going out to work is not some terrible, backbreaking chore, it’s a place of refuge from the hardest job of all — looking after the blighters.

When fragrant colleagues such as Dr Mullen are thrown in, that’s just a bonus.

Or, as Kate might put it, the final bloody insult.

A new low from banks

Barclays has come up with the most irritating idea of all: naming their ATMs Sally, Mike and Jake

Ever since the banks screwed up all our lives in 2008, they’ve been desperate to prove that — contrary to all evidence — they do care about the people at the bottom of the pile.

Thus, we are subjected to endless mawkish ad campaigns, the worst of which has to be the ‘Best Dad’ scarf one (pictured) for Nationwide.

Everything about it, from the plinky-plonky piano soundtrack to the mendacious tag line (‘on your side for generations’) makes me want to vomit. But now Barclays has come up with the most irritating idea of all: naming their ATMs Sally, Mike and Jake.

I suppose the idea is to somehow make the process of de-humanisation more . . . well, human.

This might work if their customers were three-year-olds, but asking a grown woman to address her cashpoint by its first name is beyond patronising. What next, a merit chart and gold stickers?

The Body's not such a big deal

I really don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss about how great Elle Macpherson looks at 51.

Number one, it’s her job — if I spent every day going to the gym and checking my abs in the mirror, I, too, would be as pin-thin as Elle.

And number two, she is, after all, only 51.

Elle Macpherson was pictured looking incredible on board a private yacht earlier this week

So sad to hear of the death of Omar Sharif, a true Hollywood great.

Along with Christopher Lee, who also died recently, magnetic talents like his are a vanishing breed. 

What I don’t get about Gwynfor Jones, the allegedly disabled man on £1,300 a month worth of benefits who nevertheless was pictured vigorously hoiking his mobility scooter up the steps to his council flat, is why anyone would go anywhere near such a device unless it was absolutely necessary.

Mr Jones may not be as disabled physically as he would like social services to believe — but he’s surely completely mad if he thinks living like that is preferable to getting a job. 

I'd strangle the parents

There’s just something creepy about letting your two-year-old play with a giant 15ft python, even if it is supposedly ‘one of the family’.

Even creepier is the fact that this child’s parents, Rob Cowan and his fiancee Stacey, have another 18 snakes in the house, including a 14ft anaconda.

No chance of little Alisha-Mae getting a rabbit or a guinea pig, I guess.

The snakes would have it for breakfast. 

Somehow I can’t imagine I’ll feel the same about, for example, Two And A Half Men star Ashton Kutcher when he shuffles off this mortal coil.

As the Labour leadership contest limps on, a point of order: Len McCluskey, leader of Unite, which has approximately 1.5 million members, has just removed a caveat from the union’s rule book requiring members to remain within the law when pursuing industrial action.

That means whoever wants the Labour crown will have to agree to illegal strike action — or face losing the support of the 50,000 or so Unite members who hold the key, and the purse strings, to the leadership. 

Dame Moneybags 

I’d like to know who negotiated the remuneration package for Dame Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge now heading up the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry.

She’s getting an annual salary of £360,000, an annual rent allowance of £110,000, £12,000 a year for utilities alone, plus a chauffeur and a car.

All so she can maintain ‘the same standard of living in London as she had in New Zealand’.

Surely for that kind of money we could have bought half of Wellington.

Air travel’s latest cost-cutting enterprise? Face-to-face seating, a concept already drawing howls of derision from travellers.

But would it really be worse than being kicked repeatedly in the back by an enraged child, as happened to me on a recent flight?

Besides, who knows, in the right company, one might even be able to make up a bridge four.