If you want to marry Prince Harry, you'll need a head for heights Being hoisted up an alarmingly tall tree to admire the rainforest canopy in Borneo must surely be an infinitely worse ordeal that having some intrusive photographs published in a rubbishy French magazine. When I saw those pictures at the weekend of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge dangling graciously, inching their way up the tree trunk, smiling for the cameras and heroically looking interested, my heart went out to them. I thought of the harness biting into the groin, the sticky, heavy heat, the tree-top insects buzzing round their heads and the ominous creak of rope on pulley, and I experienced a sympathetic wave of dizziness. It seems we expect the Royal family to have a head for heights. Prince Andrew abseils down the Shard, William and Kate beam from the tree-top, Prince Harry climbs into helicopters without blanching and even Princess Beatrice, we read yesterday, sobbed with joy when she reached the top of Mont Blanc, Western Europe's tallest peak. I would recommend any young woman wishing to become Prince Harry's bride to try bungee jumping while holding a bouquet and smiling serenely, just to be sure she is up to the job. I feel a special sympathy for the Duchess, as I, too, once had to make that sweaty ascent. It was in the rainforest in Panama, about 30 years ago when I was reporting on Operation Raleigh. I was in a small group, including the British Ambassador and his wife, and escorted by an armed guard, trekking for hours before we reached the tree. "I think The Daily Telegraph should go up first," the Ambassador announced. The reputation of the newspaper was resting on my aching shoulders. It was a far, far better thing that I did, and all that. As I was hauled, trembling, up that trunk, I muttered a mantra of the names of great Telegraph men - Bill Deedes, Colin Welch, T E Utley, Peter Simple... At the top I was faced by a swaying rope walkway, and, I confess, I could only crawl along it, whimpering. Abroad isn't really abroad any more. When I first went to France you could tell you were there straight away by the smells - of decent coffee, of the smoke from Gitanes and Gauloises, of the drains, of the French cooking, plus a subtle whiff of Pernod. Nowadays we can manage a decent coffee aroma ourselves, cigarette smoke has become uniform and multi-national (like the shops), there's not much to choose between the drains, most people drink lager and, if you smell cooking, it's probably pizzas. I was in Nantes last week and I was reassured to notice one immediate remaining difference between our two countries: the sound of the sirens of the police cars and ambulances. In London we hear that high-pitched scream, gradually dying away. In France the police cars give out an officious hee-haw. I'm probably romanticising, but I'm sure I detected a touch of hoarseness about that hee-haw - the sort of feeling in the throat you get after smoking two fierce Gauloises. I was sorry to read of the death of Tarbu at the age of 55. An African grey, he was officially the world's oldest pet parrot. His owner, Mrs Nina Morgan, put his longevity down to a digestive biscuit for breakfast and a regular supply of Kit Kats. The charming thing about Tarbu is that his last word to Mrs Morgan, on the night before his death, was "Cheerio." That is such a nice old-fashioned word and so suitable to his age. It suggests some debonair chap climbing into his sports car and driving away. It's the sort of slightly out-dated vocabulary you would expect of a parrot. He wouldn't say "Ciao, baby," any more than a budgie would say: "Who's a fit bloke then?" A parrot at the top of that rainforest tree in Borneo would squawk: "Jolly good show, Your Royal Highness."