Silliness reigns online as Britain waits for royal baby

Bored web users can while away hours creating ghastly photomontages of what the little heir will look like -- taking Kate's hair, for example, adding William's nose and the ears of grandfather Prince Charles.

Elsewhere, a slew of royal baby name generators offer the chance to create an unlikely monicker for the newborn.

"Avoid pointless, time-wasting speculation over the name of the new royal baby, by using this handy name generator!" suggests satirical website The Poke, inviting users to create "aristocratic" monickers by adding their birthplace to the name of their pet.

With the world's media camped outside Kate's London hospital in preparation for the birth, several broadcasters are now offering riveting dawn-til-dusk online coverage of the "Great Kate Wait".

Occasionally there is a ripple of excitement when a pedestrian walks past the cameras trained on the doors of the Lindo Wing at St Mary's hospital.

Dozens of royal-themed smartphone apps are also available -- including ones that allow you to transform photographs of your own children into little princes and princesses.

There are also plenty of smartphone games inspired by the future monarch, including "Royal Baby Slot Machine" and "Royal Baby Run".

"Select your royal and run as far as you can!" says the latter. Players must prevent a tiny figure of Prince William, with his baby in his arms, from falling in a ditch.

Skilled players can win credits that "unlock" other royals -- Charles being the cheapest character, followed by Kate, William's brother Prince Harry and even Queen Elizabeth II herself.

Savvy advertisers, meanwhile, have also jumped on the royal baby bandwagon.

One bookmaker -- taking bets on everything from the future monarch's name to its possible hair colour -- dressed four men as grotesque "adult babies" and sent them onto London's underground train network, where they drew shudders from commuters.

Meanwhile The Sun, Britain's top-selling newspaper, decided on Friday to play a trick on the bored photographers camped outside the hospital.

It sent two passable royal lookalikes to the Lindo Wing, where they were frantically snapped as they walked up the steps -- only to turn around and reveal that they were actors wearing Sun t-shirts.

The burst of creativity was perhaps inspired by antics on the previous day, when a feminist activist briefly took the Sun's hospital livecam "hostage" to protest against the tabloid's use of topless models.

As the first royal baby born into the social media era, there is of course a daily avalanche of tweets on its impending arrival -- including several accounts dedicated to royal baby news, or indeed the lack of it.

"Do we have a #RoyalBaby yet? Follow for frequent updates!" says the @RoyalBabyYet account. Scintillating posts include: "Not just yet, no."

Rumours that Kate may have gone into labour cause regular flurries of excitement on Twitter, but all have proved to be false alarms so far.

Other Twitter users have expressed sympathy for the royal mother-to-be, remarking that the huge bank of cameras outside the hospital must make her feel like a panda giving birth at a zoo.

Naturally, the royal foetus has several spoof Twitter accounts of its own offering "live updates" from the womb, while other fake royal accounts have also been giving their views on the subject.