I know I should probably write something about the queen today, about her sixty years on the throne, and about how innately undemocratic it all is. We could go over arguments about how the very concept of monarchy has no real place in the modern world, and about the stupidity of throwing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into supporting a family which did no earn their power or position, yet lords over us all, thinking that they were born to rule. I could, and perhaps should, rail against the innate innequality of it all, and about how the queen in many ways symbolises everything I usually loathe. Yet I can’t: The truth is I have a soft spot for the old cow, even a grudging admiration. She has been doing a job she didn’t ask for for sixty years, day in, day out. You might reply that she could abdicate, true, but in my book that deserves at least some respect. In a way she has been a constant in most of our lives; I must admit she has been a benign, reassuring figure to me (mind you, thinking that way is probably how dictators stay in power). She has also been in my good books since her olympic entrance. Thus whileI know I should do the good leftie thing and denounce everything the queen stands for, I’ll pare you that rant, and just say that I hope the queen and everyone else has had a good day, now that the sun is finally out.