Denial isn’t just a long river in Egypt. As the tumultuous tale of the last twenty-four hours has told, it’s also the chief psychological complex of Hosni Mubarak, that guy who looks a bit like a well-fed Professor Snape and is about as popular an idea as making Nick Clegg chair of the NUS. If your JCR has Sky News, switch on. Above a massive red ‘breaking news’ banner, there’s a live shot of a square full of fed up people. Some are shouting, some are crying. Others are jumping on a car and beeping the horn: Tootin’car-men, you could say. “If it looks and sounds like a revolution, it probably is one”, a voice comments. It’s clear that the old Giza’s gotta go. The people Sphinx it’s all over. It will be soon. 

But as ever-screaming mother democracy endures the painful birth of her latest daughter, the finer details of the Egypt situation might have just eluded you. And there’s one fact in particular that I feel should be related, not merely in the name of serious and comprehensive journalism, but since it has an especial relevance to British readers. This column can reveal - for the first time in student media - the state secret that directly underpins current Foreign Office involvement in North Africa, the one diplomatic relationship upon which our entire dialogue with the fragile Middle East depends. 

Hosni Mubarak’s wife’s cousin works as a plasterer in Basingstoke.  

No, really. He does. 

Okay, so it’s not a state secret, and he’s probably not our chief channel of communication with the Arab world (although when you consider that person is actually William Hague, some might prefer the plasterer). But it’s true, as reported in The Sun, that married father of three Huw Jenkins is distantly related to old Hosni, which, if you’ve ever made a plasterer a cup of tea, would sure make for an interesting anecdote as you fetched the biscuits. And yes, he lives in Basingstoke. The one in Hampshire. Hum drum. Quite leafy in places. Suburban. No pyramids. 

"I've told my mates about my link but they don't believe me”, says Huw, managing to cast a surreal note of suspicion over a story that already has dictionary compliers leaping up and down to republish the definition of ‘surreal’ itself. Well, it certainly shows that it’s a small world. Think on: the next time you have to get a plumber round he might well be King Abdullah of Jordan’s nephew from Watford, and that electrician calling next week could well be President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen’s best mate in Staines. We could get all tradesmen to reveal their authoritarian connections by law, although that would be about as popular as sending around a petition entitled ‘Let’s Rename Cairo as Hosni Mubarak City’.

Somewhere in all this, though, there’s an important reality. And I’m not talking about Jordan’s divorce, although in a weird moment of prolepsis Jordan may well be divorcing from its leaders. The truth is, unlike his wife’s normal cousin from Basingstoke, soon-to-be-ex-President Mubarak can’t plaster over anything: the tough undercoat of real hunger for political change is showing right through. The worst possible outcome will be if the dictator is replaced by a kind of ­Nu-barak, another selfish madman hiding behind a western business suit, or worse, an unashamed in-your-face extremist. And even though there are some crazy funnies hidden deep in the story, like that of Huw the Basingstoke plasterer, at the end of the day, if this is an Arab spring, we can only hope it blooms into beautiful flowers. We can’t pretend that democracy -whatever that means - is perfect, but this much we know: the last Pharaoh’s just got to go.