Prince Harry in Verbier with 'new love' Cressida Bonas

In Verbier this week the gossip is as rich as the glitterati enjoying the magnificent, sun-drenched slopes.

This is the resort famed for après ski that can come at breathtaking prices. The barman in our chalet hotel regaled me with tales of one nightclub cocktail that has to be ordered six days in advance, which is served in an ice igloo and costs 22,000 Swiss francs.

So it takes a special visitor to set tongues wagging. Dominic Strauss-Kahn, late of the IMF and the Bronx Supreme Court, is here with his wife. Really? Prince Andrew, Sarah Ferguson and their daughters are back. What again?

But now we've got Prince Harry and his "new love" Cressida Bonas. Hold the phone.

I am here with my daughter, Holly, strictly on holiday. And TV news would not cover a private royal trip like this anyway. But the old news bug still gets nibbling.

It wasn't difficult to find where Harry was. Within minutes of his arrival at the Pot Luck restaurant and Martini bar two of Holly's teenage friends, eating there separately, had put up Facebook pictures of him: "OMG I'm sitting next to Prince Harry." A third friend, in yet another group, walked over and shook his hand.

Everyone's a paparazzi these days. We watched the royals leave from our balcony, but I didn't get my smart phone camera out. St James's Palace take note: I'm a good boy.

The next day we cancelled a lunch reservation at La Vache, the trendy mountain top restaurant owned by James Blunt. We should have gone. A French photographer snapped Harry and Cressida cuddling outside. As Holly said: "Poor old Hazza".