I read the other week that "only the astrological auspices were favourable" when W.B. Yeats at last took the matrimonial plunge. "At last", in this review by Terence Brown of Brenda Maddox's new life of Yeats, referred to Yeats's age of 52 when he married Georgina Hyde-Lees (25) in 1917. But it is a pity that space did not allow the reviewer to tell us about the planetary auspices in question. Years ago, most of us who got married usually did so under a fairly commonplace astrological conjunction - when virgo was in the house of alcohol - and it would be good to know what galactic permutations influenced the great poet. We'll just have to buy the book.

"This book, with its portrait of a marriage and its intimate perspectives is assured of a wide readership", Prof Brown has written. That's putting it mildly, I would suggest. George's Ghosts: a new life of W.B. Yeats, is almost certainly going to be a best-seller. Brenda Maddox is one of the most accessible of writers, and has already hit the spot with her brilliant biographies of D.H. Lawrence and of James Joyce's wife Nora Barnacle, a woman so neglected up to then that Maddox, setting out to tell Nora's story, was advised there was nothing worth writing about.

Prof Brown mentions how age made Yeats "a man determined to make up for the missed opportunities of a chaste youth. " Yes indeed. There are lessons for us all here (though too late for many of us). Roy Foster, in the first volume of his own life of Yeats, made it pretty clear just how many missed opportunities there were - despite the London liaisons, and a single unsuccessful session with Maud Gonne. Few images are more poignant than the one Foster summons up of the poet at Coole Park, having miserable sex with himself after straining to produce a few lines of poetry in a day: Yeats was then in his mid-30s.

The "intimate perspectives" referred to have also been spelt out a little more clearly in other reviews of this new book on Yeats. They include Yeats's delightful pastime in later years of dandling young women, naked to the waist, on his knee.

All right. Now to more shocking stuff, though still, you will be disgusted to learn, on the same subject, more or less.

After last week's publication by the Sun of a fuzzy 11-year-old picture of approximately one third of the naked bosom of British Royal bride-to-be Sophie Rhys-Jones, the world will probably never be the same again. The international outpouring of grief, disbelief, horror and outrage continues unabated, to the extent that even Kosovan refugees have been moved to contribute to the counselling fund set up. This column has selected some of the most agonised questions from grievously upset members of the public and now attempts to answer them.

Any chance of getting a look at the photograph?

My local newsagent was sold out of the Sun by the time I heard about it.

I'm afraid not. Naturally The Irish Times, like every other newspaper, has acquired a copy of the photograph in question, but has been unable to find a way of publishing it without seeming to add to the offence.

But your lawyers are trying to find a way around this?

Damned sure they are.

How is Prince Edward bearing up under the strain?

Prince Edward is a sensitive young man, but restrained and thoughtful with it. He has reacted to the event with customary Royal dignity and aplomb.

He's hysterical, then?

Yes.

Is it true that the editor of the Sun has apologised for his actions?

Yes, he feels that he has let many readers, or viewers, down by not printing a sufficiently large number of the edition in question, and he is adamant he will never be so foolish again.

Is it fair, in the week that Manchester United has proven itself as the greatest football club the world has ever seen, that it should be pushed off the front pages by so insignificant an event?

Oh, I think so. Newcastle fan, are you?

I think we should return to the subject.

Is there any possibility that the whole thing was engineered in an attempt to stir up even a spark of interest in such an unbelievably boring couple as Sophie and Edward?

There is, but what is even more remarkable is that it worked.