WELCOME to an almost baby-free column.

The past few days have made me realise that the royals lead not a double, but a triple life.

There’s the one we all lead, dominated by getting up, going to sleep and performing the functions that every human being, whether as royal as Baby George or common as you or me, have to do.

Then there’s the official life of parades, photo-calls and ceremonies which might be fine for a day or two but in the long-term is the nearest to hell on earth that I can imagine.

Then there is the fantasy world, weaved from imagination, speculation, wish fulfilment and plain falsehood that with the help of the media we weave around them.

It’s a toss-up whether a footballer gets more media coverage than a royal baby but both must expect to have their every move and motive scrutinised, as Newcastle striker Papiss Cisse found out this week.

Cisse attracted a lot of attention and a fair bit of support when he refused to wear a shirt bearing the logo of the club’s sponsor Wonga, a pay-day loan company. Cisse, as a Muslim, has religious and personal objections to the firm. He certainly has a serious side to his character, sponsoring a health information centre, ambulance, football academy and mosque in his native Senegal.

So it was with surprise and a disappointment when our heroic Number 9 was supposedly shown to have feet of clay when a tabloid pictured him apparently gambling in a Tyneside casino.

Hypocrisy? Many would say so, but I am not sure. For one thing I am more interested in how the photos became public right on cue to cause Cisse maximum discomfort. I imagine he has made some pretty powerful and ruthless enemies in the past few weeks. Dirty campaigning isn’t confined to politics.

So before we dismiss Cisse, maybe we should find a sense of perspective.

Cisse’s visit to a casino does not prevent him from having a view, based on social or religious conviction, about pay day loan companies and their eye-watering interest rates.

Nor does it invalidate the exceptional work he has done for disadvantaged people in his home country.

It simply shows that he is human like the rest of us, flawed and fallible, but basically decent.

Because we all live double lives. There’s the person we want to be: selfless, hard working, charismatic. Then there’s the real us, struggling to get by, getting out of the wrong side of bed and staring out of the window when the emails are stacking up.

It’s probably better that way, because what a world it would be if we achieved perfection.

A while back, I was discussing the plans for a casino in Middlesbrough with some religious groups who were against the idea.

I told them that in an ideal world I would not have a casino as I don’t like gambling. But after that I would have to ban pubs because of the damage drink does and prohibit fatty foods. Then we could start on the 20 minutes compulsory exercise a day.

We would all live to be a hundred, but existence would have become so boring that death would have lost its sting.

Well, it gave us all a laugh at a pretty fraught meeting, but it carries a grain of truth. Life isn’t about absolutes and certainties, or indeed fairy-tale princes. It is hopefully about being remembered for the good things rather than the failures – something we should remember when in future we rush to judge this young prince.