Watch it Jan, he's Big and he's Clever

Poor Jan Ravens. The impossibly sexy actress dares to slag off the Royal Family on Question Time and gets hauled over the coals by Canada Tower's own lard mountain Bruce Anderson, a journalist so pompous and puffed up he has to break wind every five minutes to deflate part of his ego.

Bruce was right of course, (he is most of the time when writing in the Independent and he's the human form of that old Chinese saying, "when only one person is right, his opinion is the correct one,") the Royal Family aren't even a soft target these days, they're liquid form. Picking on them for satirical purposes is a bit like running up behind William Hague and shouting "Oi Baldy." Pointless and a waste of creative energy.

The Royal Family are different and no amount of silly voices or nose thumbing will change that. They are with us for good or bad, like death, taxes and Labour governments. They don't want to be like us and we don't want to be like them. They tried so hard during the Frightful Fergie and Dreadful Diana years to be like us, that when those two were moved on they pulled the wagons into a circle and left the tabloids and their readers to believe what they want. I used to know the niece of one of the Queen's lady in waiting(s?) and do you know what I could tell you about the Royal Family? Yep, bugger all. Only wankers like that ex butler spill the beans, did you see him on Harry Hill telling those deluded Aussie housewives how to make tea the correct way.

Politicians aren't much better than journalists, in fact if you try an experiment and don't listen to any radio station when the news is on and avoid news coverage on television I can guarantee you won't be any worse for it. Nothing changes, it's like all those millions of people who donate their intelligence to science four nights a week to watch soaps, the characters names change but the story lines don't. People get excited for about five minutes, post something on a messageboard, write off to their Daily Newspaper of choice and then give up - that's the end of their political involvement - it's depressing. Look at the situation on London with the mayoral election candidates, even the people who oppose Sir Ken can't be arsed to find a candidate.

Bruce Anderson is right that it's easy to believe what you read in the newspapers and that probably only one tenth of it is true, but then that's always been the way. There will always be a section of the public that believes all the world's wrongs are caused by 'darkies', that things were better before the war and that there's no respect. But then as somebody much better with words once sang, "Nostalgia is the opium of the age."