The author Julia Stephenson reported on Twitter that she was filling in the form to renew her membership of Putney Lawn Tennis Club and was taken aback to discover that she could no longer tick the correct box in the Sex section.

“Female (no longer valid),” it said. Instead, Julia was given a choice of “Female (including trans woman), Male (including trans man), Non-binary or Other.” Oh, dear, looks like chaps are “no longer valid” in South West London either. “No new balls, please!”

The club claimed it was a “glitch” it knew nothing about. Julia believes managers were fully aware and fobbed her off in a patronising manner. PLTC did admit they had made “some minor recent amendments to our membership wording to align with NHS guidelines”.

Why on earth would a tennis club want to incorporate NHS guidelines which have given us Annex B? That dubious policy allows hospital patients to be placed on single-sex wards according to the gender with which they identify. Baroness Nicholson recently told the Lords that after one poor woman was raped by a patient, who identified as female, nurses solemnly informed police that the woman could not have been raped because “there was no male there”.

George Orwell anticipated that sinister dissociation in 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Ideological idiocy from the Socialist Republic of the NHS comes as no surprise, but why are once sedate, conservative-with-a-small-c organisations like Putney Lawn Tennis Club colluding with this modish erasure of women? Is it because HR tick-boxers, councils and the like are only satisfied if you sign up to the new, approved language of diversity? I think we should be told.

Until now, upon hearing such stories, I suspect women will have confined themselves to a major eye-roll. Sorry, ladies; it looks like we are going to have to, ahem, man the barricades before ladies find themselves in the remainder bin with the mismatched pop socks.

The righteous Left appear to be arguing that, to be “fair” towards considerably less than 1 per cent of the population, the 52 per cent of the population who are biologically female must be described as “no longer valid”. No trans woman I know would agree with that.

This week in Afghanistan, girls were distraught to discover that they would not be allowed to return to school. The Taliban have no difficulty identifying a “female” in order to declare her invalid. Nice company you’re keeping, Putney Lawn Tennis Club.

Graceful William and Kate

Those poor Cambridges. What with Ukraine and the cost-of-living apocalypse, the timing of their tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas could have been better. Even Kate’s 300-watt incandescent smile dimmed to a 5-watt energy-saving LED when Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness basically told the Royal couple in front of the cameras that the monarch would no longer be required as head of state. How incredibly rude of him. Don’t extend the invitation if you intend to force-feed your guests humble pie.

Imagine the Duke and Duchess getting back to their hotel suite and hitting the mini-bar:

Kate: “HONESTLY! I even wore a dress the colour of their flag. I HATE yellow!”

William: “Don’t stress, babe, they’ll be cool with us in the Bahamas. Granny owns half of it. G&T?”

Kate: “Please. Make it a triple. Can’t believe we went scuba diving with sharks for a photo op.”

William: “At least the sharks were friendlier than that ghastly MP you sat next to.”

Kate: “I thought this was supposed to be a charm offensive. Well, we’re charming and they’re offensive. And the humidity, darling! I’m using hair-straighteners on the hour every hour just to control the frizz.”

William: “It’ll be over soon, babe. Only another 27 changes of clothes. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be back.”

The Cambridges have done the Queen proud in her Platinum Jubilee year. No one could have done a better job. It’s just that times move on. Old colonial masters give way to new. In the past 25 years, the UK has provided £66 million in debt relief to Jamaica. Since 2005, China has spent $2.7 billion in Jamaica and $450 million in the Bahamas.

It’s pretty clear Jamaica is preparing to sever its final official ties with the UK. We should wish her well. Only, if I were them, I’d worry that Xi Jinping will be a lot less gracious than our royals. Scuba diving with sharks is not for the faint-hearted.