When I was walking my dog last night, a BBC newsflash came up on my phone saying, ‘Prince Found Dead.’ I am sure I wasn’t the only one to think that this was going to go down in history as the spectacular event that ruined the Queen’s 90th birthday, an event that you may have heard about, unless you were on Mars wearing earplugs and a blindfold.

Of course the Queen needn’t have worried as it was Prince, the rock star, not Charlie, the meddling Prince. I quite liked Prince (the rock star, not Charles) but I never had any of his records and as the ‘songbook for my life’ tributes poured in, I once again, so soon after the death of David Bowie, found myself metaphorically stood alone in the garden, jealously looking down the hill to see fans miserably wallowing in the purple waters of Lake Prince.

Even Radio 5 got in on the act of remembering Prince by playing ‘the greatest songs that were written by Prince’ including ‘Manic Monday’ by The Bangles, sung by Susannah Hoffs, who just about heterosexual man on the planet wanted to marry, including Prince.

“Just another manic Monday,

Wish it was a Sunday,

That’s my Funday.”

It is alleged that Prince gave The Bangles that song as a gift but I reckon he just wanted to shift it because it was, at least by his standards, not very good. I’m no Prince expert but even I could think of ten songs he has written that are better than that, so how Radio 5 came up with Manic Monday I just don’t know? They should stick to doing interviews with people from Leicester about the productivity of their market stall since the local football team went top of the Premiership table.

The Bangles featuring Susannah Hoffs and some spare parts

So the Queen’s birthday went according to plan and we were treated to a day of irrational fawning and brown nosing that confirmed our status as the world’s most subservient country. If we could only have a World Cup of subservience every four years, we would be a constant on the podium as the flags waved and the bunting decorated our streets; it never fails to amaze me how British people can be so easily awestruck.

I think it was Nicholas Witchell, a man who has surpassed even Jenny Bond in the fine art of Monarchy grovelling, who marvelled at how the Queen was such a wonderful host. What?!?!? How on earth can you fail to be a wonderful host when you are the Queen with best servants and chef’s mankind could muster? Even if she threw a bowl of Fox & Onion soup in the face of President Obama and called him a wanker, it would have been written off as an accident.

Let her come around my house and prepare a chilli con carne for my friends in a kitchen where you couldn’t swing a mouse, then we will see what a good host she is. Let’s get real here, if you are a monarch and a poor host, you have failed miserably at even existing.

Amongst all the adulation, there has also been cries from the Republican movement to end the monarchy, strip them of all their wealth, and force them to live in ditches whilst we prod them with pitchforks and force them the concoct a chilli con carne in a kitchen that you could barely swing a mouse in.

That’s not going to happen is it?

I’m kind of with George Orwell on this one and an interview he gave in the 40’s still remains relevant today, at least in my opinion anyway. It was Orwell’s view that whilst he was no fan of the Monarchy, they provided an opportunity for the masses to satisfy their addiction of flag waving without it being to feverishly support a potentially fascist republican movement, the 1930’s Nazi’s being a good example.

Better to adore a Monarch with no political power than a military dictator who has the potential to end the world.

If I was asked as a subject of the Queen ( I won’t be of course) what would convince me to be a Monarchist in 21st Century Britain, I would ask for three simple things.

• Make the Curtsy voluntary (to some it is demeaning).
• Allow the national anthem to change lyrics to suit the individual
• Balance the books and pay corporation tax

By doing this, society would be so much more equal and the republicans would have their argument diluted.

You could of curtsy if you felt the desire (some people love it)  but you could also nod, wink or give a thumbs up but maybe stop short of a high five. The National Anthem remains but you could change the name of the person you wish to save on that particular day. It could be the Queen if you like, but it could also be the AA man who rescued you in the dark of the early hours, or a fellow cricketer who caught a batsman in the slips the ball after you dropped him.

As yet, I have never had any desire to save the Queen or any of her family but I am patriotic, it’s just that I don’t know her and there is no evidence to suggest a history of Royal family bravely saving their subjects, quite the opposite in fact.

With regards to finance, the battle rages on as to whether the monarchy help drive the economy or drain it, so how about one of these super computers balance the books properly and run the Monarchy as a business? The government want to run every other service as a profit making business, why not the Monarchy?

Yesterday for example, would have been a good day for business, but what about the first Monday of a wet January? If the Monarchy makes their targets they get a bonus (a new moat and some M&S vouchers perhaps) but if they don’t, they lose say for example, a section of Oxfordshire.

If you run a business well, you reap the rewards, if you don’t or you fall on bad luck, you lose your house and no-one saves you, especially the person who demands that you sing a song to save her just to show you are patriotic.

That is the truth of it, and I can’t even console myself by knowing that one day I will be swimming in Lake Strummer; he died when social media was a still fantasy in the young mind’s eye of Mark Zuckerberg.