Vengence Is Mine, Sayeth the Segway

How the mighty self-righteous have fallen:

If he didn't believe in karma before, Piers Morgan must surely do now.

The ex-newspaper editor, now a columnist for The Mail on Sunday's Live magazine, took great delight in making fun of President Bush for falling off a Segway - the two-wheeled, motorised, gyroscopically balanced scooter that, its makers promise, will never fall over.

His paper, the Daily Mirror, ran the headline in 2003: "You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you Mr President." It added: "If anyone can make a pig's ear of riding a sophisticated, self-balancing machine like this, Dubya can." So, it seems, can Mr Morgan.

He broke three ribs after falling off the Segway at 12mph in California - just three days before he was due to make his biggest TV appearance to date, as a judge on the grand final of reality show America's Got Talent.

Quite what he was doing on a Segway - labelled 'the geek machine' by critics - Morgan has yet to explain, but these pictures reveal the moment of the undignified crash.

He can be seen cruising comfortably along the promenade at Santa Monica beach. Inexplicably, his delicate sense of balance fails him. The Segway swerves to the right, mounting the kerb. Morgan's 'toned muscular, tanned, superfit torso' (as he describes it) continues straight along the road but sadly his feet remain planted to the rogue Segway.

Inevitably he falls victim to gravity and crunches on to the baking concrete, where he lies, agonised, until a companion can come to his rescue.

He had to be taken to hospital to be patched up, but despite his misfortune, Morgan made it to the TV studio. His celebrity friends have been chortling at his expense. Simon Cowell has urged people to make Morgan laugh because 'it causes Piers absolute agony'.

Keep him laughing, boys.