I have watched with disbelief the furore around the birth of this child.  Before he had drawn breath, the ire stirred by the bloated press attention over three weeks before his mother went into labour, the hysterical coverage on TV, and the inanity of the chat by said journalists while waiting for the birth, once Kate was actually in hospital.

All the anti-monarchists are of course perfectly entitled to vent their spleen on the privilege he will grow into, the huge distance between how his life will be and the life of a child born to parents, let's say in some  London borough but a few miles from one of his palatial quarters.

Personally my feeling is one of natural happiness for a young couple's obvious  joy at their new born being healthy and safe. It's a human need to have 'story' in our lives, and too often the narratives streamed into our ears 24/7 ( if we choose to listen)  are of tragedy, horror, cruelty and loss via the 'news' industry.

So for once the news is ordinary, happy and for many of us, evokes smiles for William and Kate.

For those who would have the monarchy dismantled and put away like old toys we have grown out of, I would ask what would we have in their place?

The banality of a presidential system, oh yes, 'democratically' chosen, from those wonderful politicians who would run for office, American style? We have a plethora of democratically chosen people, all dancing to their own party tunes, noses in various publicly funded troughs and  deaf to many of our protests.  I do not want another presidential privileged layer with its inherent small empires within.

A quick check of how much our monarchy pulls in from the world in tourism will reveal how much of an advantage they bring to us as a nation in economic terms alone. Who would come to see the changing of the presidential guard? Nobody I suspect.

Ok it's anachronistic.  Yes but it is stuff of the very  fabric of our country's history.   It is where Shakespeare found his material, which girds the world even now. 'This sceptred isle' still needs its sceptre, the one thing unique to us, our royal family, much slimmed down, but still there. 

People we need the fairy magic. It's part of our humanity, and life would be duller without Her Maj in her sparkly frocks and crown,  going into parliament to deliver the Queen's Speech, and Phillip saying inappropriate things at wrong moments. It adds to the gaiety of the nation and we need plenty of that in this 'grim'  world that the news channels deliver to us in daily doses.