20th November:

The Queen's 60th wedding anniversary has occupied many a column inch over the last couple of days, with the tone of the coverage hovering somewhere between nauseating and sycophantic.

One expression that keeps cropping up time and time again is "quiet dignity", the suggestion being that Liz and Pip (or should that be Pipos?) have held together as couple and taken life's ups and downs with a kind of stoic, stiff-upper-lip acceptance that should somehow serve as an inspiration to us all. Presumably, being one of the wealthiest women in the world and the largest private landowner in the UK also helps to see Her Maj through the hard times. At least you have a choice of flunkies to call on when you need a Kleenex to wipe away the tears of despair.

Personally, I resent any suggestion that the Royals have a hard time of it. OK, they may have a long list of public duties and engagements to carry out, but what else would they do with their time (and the taxpayers money) otherwise? Even taking these weighty responsibilities into account, they are still living lives of enormous privilege and to somehow suggest that we should be thankful for the fact that they are just getting on with it rather than publicly larching each other on the balcony of Buck House just makes me laugh.

It's also quite laughable to suggest that Pipos has been some kind of marital bedrock standing quietly in the shadows, always 3-paces behind our dear old Queen. The European press have openly reported tales of extra-marital shenanigans over the years in a way that the UK media have not, so he's hardly a choirboy, is he?

So there you have it - hats off to everyone's favourite Saxe-Coburg-Gothas. 60 years of behaving like relics from another generation: aloof, out of touch and apparently about as cuddly and affectionate as frostbite. A testament to the values of 21st Century Britain and truly an example to us all.