"Well, it's been another ... what would you call it? Not quite another annus horribilis, but perhaps just another annus dreary-as. It all makes me feel my age - bereft and abandoned.
"I suppose a few more of those ungrateful little tinpot republics have jumped ship from the Commonwealth, deserted us after all the loving care and colonialism we showered on them without so much as a word of thanks.
"Speaking of which, what's become of Philip ... anybody seen him lately? I don't know about that man - first of all he wanted his own bedroom, then his own wing and, for all I know, now he's got his own bloody palace.
"Funny thing, he always seems to be hosting dinners for people like the Society of Ladies Gardenias For a Greater Britain, and the Little Flockton Progressive Quilting Circle. I would have thought he was into more manly pursuits, but as long as it keeps him off the streets, I suppose ...
"And Charles, Charles well, what more can I say? Him and that woman. And the one before who caused all the trouble.
"Don't get me wrong - my firstborn, love him dearly and all that but I was ready to jack it in years ago, but somehow the thought of the silly old duffer puffing and preening playing at King brings on a heavy migraine.
"Clearly my duty is to save the nation for as long as possible from having to put up with Charles poncing around in that phony self-deprecating manner of his.
"That manner attempts to reassure the peasants that he's really just a man of the people, but not really really. 'I may seem quite chummy,' his body language says, 'but don't touch the royal personage with your grubby little hands, if you please.'
"Still, the bottom line is that the nation depends on us. Not for any silly constitutional reasons or such nonsense as that - but simply because we're all just now part of a pantomime act involving a lot of fancy-dress costumes and regular re-enactments of quaint old rituals.
"I suppose you have to count your blessings ... William and Harry seem to have turned out a couple of good eggs.
"Speaking of eggs, Wills and Kate have already got me into the great-grandma stakes, thanks very much. But they at least seem to know a ham bone from a trombone - which is more than you could say for Andy and Fergie.
"And the security now - you can't move an inch without a flock of heavies floundering along. What happened to the good old days when people felt free to just stop by? Or even pop into my boudoir of an evening and have a good heart-to-heart, like that nice man Mr Fagan did a few years ago.
"Now it's just that dreary parade of parvenus PMs like the Tonys and Gordons and posh-boy Davids that I have to put up with. Still, at least they're a notch up from that hideous jumped-up grocer's daughter with delusions of grandeur, the toxic pink lipstick and the fly-sprayed bouffant.
"I'm not even allowed to deliver my own Christmas message any more. No, these days everything is computer generated. Even the most gullible don't believe that when it's Christmas message time again, and the flock requires the annual dose of homely verities, that it's the real flesh-and-blood me garbling out the platitudes. No, it's all just a sham. Speaking of sham, I really must shampoo this morning. Now where's that dreadful little skivvy got to?"
