Tina Brown adds fuel to Wills engagement rumour

Officials at St James's Palace, the London home of Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry, are continuing to block journalists' questions about an impending announcement that William and his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, are to be married. The fact that spokesmen are "declining to comment" rather than denying it, means the rumours will persist.

Latest to step forward with engagement gossip is Tina Brown, the New York-based British journalist who after editing Vanity Fair and the New Yorker wrote the 2007 bestseller, The Diana Chronicles.

In a blog entry for the Daily Beast website, Brown claims that June 3 and 4 have been "mysteriously blocked out on the palace diaries", suggesting this is a likely date for an engagement announcement, with the wedding to follow in November.

But sources at Buckingham Palace said Brown's supposition was "wide of the mark". They did not bother to address the issue of why it would take two days to make an engagement announcement, nor why such an announcement would be the responsibility of Buck House rather than St James's Palace. (How many young men get their grandmother to announce their engagement?)

But Brown is adamant that "a high placed source in royal circles" has suggested that the two days are blocked for the engagement announcement. "If so, a wedding itself would probably follow in November," she writes, "like the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, who married at Westminster Abbey that cold, damp November day in 1947."

Brown's blog comes on the back of a wave of royal engagement gossip. It was reported at the weekend that 300 bottles of vintage champagne had been ordered from Dom Perignon by the royal household, suggesting a special occasion was in the offing.

However, the report - based apparently on visitors to the Dom Perignon cellars in northern France being shown a pallet laden with bottles destined for Buckingham Palace - also claimed that the order was "worth at least £3,000".

That would mean vintage Dom Perignon now costs just £10 a bottle. If you believe that, you'll believe anything. ·