A right royal party time for the Queen’s jubilee

THIS may not come as much of a newsflash, but it’s the Queen’s 60th anniversary of being the Queen of England. Sixty years of matching hats, gloves, and asking ‘and what do you do?’

While the Queen is undoubtedly a nice lady — she went down as smoothly as a cream tea on her visit to Ireland, a visit which made everyone feel like proper grown up friends and neighbours — it’s the basic concept of ‘royal’ which requires such massive suspension of disbelief. You know, like ‘werewolf’ or ‘transubstantiation’.

Having an Irish passport and an Irish accent in England absolves you entirely from any royal debate — you are forever a citizen, never a subject. You can have great fun winding up your English friends with this fact, simply by chanting “Subject, subject, subject” at them, which is childish, I know, yet drives people satisfyingly mad.