And what have kings, that privates have not too, save ceremony

So, the Queen is 80 today, and she looks pretty good on it I think. She's been Queen for longer than I've lived, and I've seen her only once, as she drove past in a car in her Silver Jubilee year. I remember she wore lilac. She came to York last year, for Royal Ascot, but I didn't go. She has been a number of other times, but I've never again felt the need to go and stand in a crowd for hours on end, to catch a glimpse (though I have to say there are other people I've done that for, much more recently). And yet, I would describe myself as a royalist.

It may seem a bizarre, and even an anachronistic thing at the start of the 21st Century to have a monarchy, and yet I do feel it sets us apart, and gives us a sense of history and heritage - and I'm a big one for both of those things. I read an article in the Guardian today about how Elizabeth II should be the last Queen, and that when she goes, we should be a republic. I'm not a political person, well, certainly not politics with a big 'P', but I like the fact that alongside the goverment of the day, whatever party happens to be in, that we have someone else who we can look to as a figurehead. I think she's done a pretty good job. I'm not sure what I think about the future, however, given the behaviour of some of the next generation of royals and beyond, but I still know I'd rather have a monarch than an elected President. And I'm all for a bit of pomp and circumstance and some posh frocks.