RSVP

My obsession with the Queen. My admiration for her outfits, almost always exactly the same, but in different colours, as though she had been dipped in a different tub of paint each time. My stories of having met her hatmaker, and of spending an afternoon with a lady in waiting.

She's a very down to earth woman, I've told him. She eats her breakfast from tupperware boxes, her corgis round her ankles, I've told him.

But I feel some leftist unease with respect to the Queen, he knows that. I know I shouldn't approve of the monarchy, or follow its activities in Hello!

My favourite quandary, which I mull over in airport check-in queues, or on platforms waiting for delayed trains: Would I accept an invitation to a royal garden party? Would I RSVP positively to an invitation signed in the Queen's hand? Of course I would, I murmur on some occasions. Of course I wouldn't, on others.