"Osama bin Laden is virtually impotent"...

...As a headline it has, you must admit, more or less everything.

The universal monster - and he is that - now suddenly revealed as merely a man who simply - in the coined phrase - can't get it up no more.

You wonder who spilled those beans? A Mrs bin Laden - if there be such a one - would be a strong contender as a sound reliable source, though you would have to question how readily she might let the news slip given the likely come back on herself.

"Hey you, missus, what you been doing telling the world I ain't no good in the piston department no more? You want instant death you shall have it."

You can see the point.

So a girlfriend blags all? We get that here of course. "I bedded five-a-night sex-monkey football god Kevin - but I wish I'd stayed in to finish the decorating 'cos it was an utter washout if you know what I mean." No doubt the archives could raise a dozen or so such revelations.

But yet again over here the totty in question generally is penalised for such smears with just the withdrawal of all season ticket privileges, rather than summary execution.

So if there is someone in the foothills of the Afghan-Pakistan border feeling a trifle let down, shall we say, by big boy my guess would have to be that she too wouldn't want it mooted about thus for fear of ritual stoning or somesuch.

You can tell, mind you, that he is on the wane in that way. How else would you account for the newly-minted black beard that five years ago was shadowy grey throughout? That, I tell you, is a mighty, mighty clue. Show me a man whose beard has miraculously transformed from old-man silver to caveman black and I'll show you a man whose wand lacks that certain sparkle.

There is though, just one other angle to consider that may resolve all puzzles here. And the clue is in the word 'virtually'.

Now two things we all know. The Internet is everywhere, including the Afghan caves. And second 90% plus of men on this planet have used the Internet, plus trusty webcam, to do a bit of virtual wand-waving at some unmet female - mostly - from the other side of the planet.

Some opine this is the very end of all civilisation as we know it, whilst others prefer to see it as the ultimate in safe sex. (Methinks they both be right.)

A 'good friend' once told me - it must have been the fifth malt that brought the matter to our conversational attention, though I acknowledge that to be no excuse - that in such circs. a gentleman - allowing him still to be one - must first, of uttermost importance, confirm that his correspondent is indeed the busty, lusty female she claims to be and not some teenage male nerd pissing himself with laughter at some other's hapless expense. That way You Tube lies.

So there you have it I believe. The universal monster has been at it on the airwaves, or rather more to the point failing to be at it, found himself the patsy for some aforementioned teen male loon and is now thus the subject of global lampooning.

'Al Qaida: my part in its downfall' - Spike Milligan would have been so proud.