Nigel Hastilow: Will 2018 be the year of Meghan?

At the age of 36, Meghan Markle is old enough to know what she is letting herself in for when she marries charming Prince Harry on the day of the Cup Final in May.

What we have perhaps not considered is the widespread global impact of this new Royal romance on the state of Britain today and our place in the world.

Because, thanks to the intervention of our new heroine, everything in 2018 will go swimmingly for this country.

Take the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. Thanks to the Meghan effect, North Korean ‘rocket man’ Kim Jong Un will unilaterally scrap his nuclear weapons and introduce democracy in his country.

He will declare: ‘How could we possibly think of embarking on a nuclear war when the remarkable Ms Markle is in a neighbouring country?’

By then, of course, Zimbabwe will have not only held its first free and fair elections since independence but the new Government will be applying to rejoin the Commonwealth and appealing to Harry and Meghan to take over as joint Heads of State.

The Prince, whose love of Africa is well-known, will seriously consider the offer though the demands on his fiancée will be so great they will not make a decision very quickly.

After all, she will be busily representing Theresa May in negotiations with Donald Trump over whether he will really be visiting the United Kingdom any time soon.

Meghan will explain that, sadly, there really won’t be room in St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle for the President and his entire entourage.

Only Barak Obama will get an invitation but The Donald will be most understanding and say so in several late-night Tweets.

Instead, he will invite the couple to honeymoon at his Scottish golf course, an invitation Meghan will decline with her usual tact and charm.

And President Trump will continue to Tweet his love and admiration for a woman from over there who has made it big over here.

Ms Markle won’t have much time to enjoy his admiration, unfortunately, because she and Harry will have to attend the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

She will decline various kind invitations to become Head of State of several of the smaller islands and dismiss as absurd the idea that New Zealand is angling for the Royal couple.

Meanwhile a delegation from Zimbabwe declares that they saw her first.

And all this is before Meghan’s Big Day. After her morning wedding in Windsor she and Harry are whisked off to Wembley where she parachutes into the stadium and ceremonially kicks off the Cup Final between West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

By early May, it is clear Theresa May’s negotiations with the European Union aimed at striking a successful trade deal are going even more badly than some people feared.

Business leaders are warning things can’t go on like this for much longer.

Meghan is called back from her honeymoon to take charge of the negotiations and it takes next three weeks of intensive shuttle diplomacy between Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Dublin before she can sort out the chaos.

By the time she takes over the management of the England team in the summer’s World Cup competition in Russia, Meghan is able to announce ‘considerable progress’ has been made on a trade deal.

And she is able to announce Donald Trump has already signed a trade deal with Britain which only awaits our official Brexit departure before it comes into force.

After a shaky start to her managerial career with a 1-1 draw against Tunisia and an unconvincing 2-1 victory over Panama, Meghan turns things round with a 4-1 triumph against a fancied Belgium side.

Critics say this was largely thanks to the new Princess’s ability to persuade Belgium’s key midfielder Kevin De Bruyne to become a British citizen and secure a late selection for the England squad.

Either way, progress through to the final was made easier by the fact that Princess Meg managed to teach the players how to take penalties without panicking.

Her triumphant return to England was delayed, unfortunately, because Meghan was asked to sort out Saudi Arabia’s traffic chaos after the country decided to let women drive but banned them from taking lessons.

The Princess’s series of TV appearances, her Twitter advice, on-line videos and her specially-written book all helped to bring peace and women’s rights to the Middle East.

This led to her resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and the designation of Jerusalem as the world’s first city governed by the United Nations.

She and Harry were asked to become joint Governors of the city with only Zimbabwe objecting.

The Jerusalem Treaty naturally led to Princess Meg’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize, which sadly meant she was forced to give up accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature she was originally due to receive for her historic guide to driving in Saudi Arabia.

In November, Princess Meg and the Queen led the tributes to the fallen on the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

But she wasn’t able to stay long because she and Harry had to rush over to America to make it in time to become the world’s first two space tourists to travel round the moon and back.

Asked during her Christmas Day broadcast from outer space to describe her year, Princess Meg was able to tell her global audience: ‘I’m over the Moon.’