Queen causes rumpus at London School of Economics

I hear that the Queen has caused quite a bust up among academics at the London School of Economics.

Her Majesty was visiting the school a few months ago when she asked one of its faculty a pointed question about the financial crisis of 2008. "Why didn't you see it coming?" she said.

"We thought the macro guys had it covered," said the academic, somewhat meekly.

The criticism didn't end there. When one of the LSE staff subsequently visited Buckingham Palace he had to suffer a jibe from the Duke of Edinburgh that he was a member of the "institution that knows nothing about anything."

The LSE was so concerned that it convened a meeting of its six most senior economists in February. They concluded that the coming recession would be the "weakest since 1945."

Social sciences staff have now turned on their economist colleagues, questioning their ability to make accurate predictions and siding with the Queen and Prince Philip. What next? Fisticuffs in the street?

Laughing baby

I had to see for myself what amused the Queen and 63m others. I see from the geekProject website (very much what it says on the tin) that the baby boy's name is William. I see also that the funny noises are an attempt to impersonate a microwave oven.

As someone commented on the Youtube web site, it's a pity he didn't have a rusk-company sponsored bib with pay-per-click advertising.

Poor lad. All this attention means that Fleet Street's finest are about to descend on his doorstep.

The common prince

The footage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan last week gave us an insight in to the Royal dilemma. On the one hand, he said, he appreciated the opportunities that came the way of he and his brother William because of their Royal birth. At the same time other doors - those to a normal existence - were closed.

Extraordinarily this means that fighting in Afghanistan's Helmand province has probably been one of the most authentic experiences of his life. He didn't miss anything back home, he said, and we nodded because we knew he meant it. Here he was doing the job of his choice with people who had made the same choices.

This was not champagne Harry tripping between nightclubs with wealthy friends, but a young man who had found a sense of purpose, who was respected for his skills rather than for his background.

Last night I read Alan Bennett's short book, The Uncommon Reader, a fanciful story that imagines the Queen gripped by a reading fetish so strong that it begins to impinge on her Royal duties.

At one stage a young kitchen worker, who has become her reading adviser, is levered out of his job by those around her. So protected is the Queen that he is unable to contact her and she him, not knowing his whereabouts or, indeed anything about the circumstance in which he was removed.

Bennett's fictional scenario and the reality of Prince Harry's situation reminds us just how stifling and restricting it is to be Royal. You can't stop being Royal just like that. Edward VIII achieved it, but at what a price? Neither can you step off the plate and get back on when it seems convenient. You are, for better or worse, an instrument of the state.

The problem is, as Bennett illustrates, that the state has no great imagination in the way it utilises this instrument. Why should our Queen spend interminable hours opening shopping centres and science parks? That sort of thing has become an anachronism.

Funnily enough Prince Charles has avoided much of this meaningless stuff by immersing himself in issues that have real significance in all our lives.

The price of Harry's service will be security fears that the so-called "bullet-magnet" will become more of a bomb-magnet once back in London. Was it sensible to allow footage of the prince firing a machine gun at the Taliban when their sympathisers include some in our own country who might be described as the enemy within?

The Army and that amorphous body of flunkies we call "the palace," however, will be delighted at the impact of "the story" on Royal approval ratings and armed forces recruitment. An unpopular war has just become sexy.

Mr Smith's Christmas trees and a question for royalty

The newspapers keep telling me that people are not spending this Christmas. Someone should tell our local garden centre. They had a thousand trees just over a week ago and now they've almost all gone. We found ourselves picking over the scraps this morning.

I couldn't believe the prices: £30 for anything of any size. Last year they were half that price. I like going to this garden centre because the man who founded it, Mr Smith, always asks me the same question in a voice that is slow but quite high pitched. In fact the conversation is always the same brief exchange.

"How's your garden?" he asks.

"It's doing fine," I say.

"Oh, I am pleased," says he.

I've been going to his garden centre for nearly 20 years and the wording of the conversation has never changed. In fact it's such a reassuring exchange of pleasantries that I'm thinking of sending it to the Queen who might like to have it up her sleeve as an alternative to "Have you come far?" and "What do you do?"

On the other hand, unlike Mr Smith, she could not assume that whoever she was addressing would have a garden. But I suppose it would be a safe subject to raise with the Queen without seeming impertinent.

"How is one's garden?"

"One's garden is doing fine."

"Oh I am pleased."

I'm wondering if there could be a market for a small "book of pleasantries for use in encounters with royalty."

"How's your garden?" could be a tricky one for Prince Charles since there is a risk that it could lead to a full-blooded conversation and that might not be welcome, particularly if it strays in to awkward topics such as the wisdom or otherwise of talking to one's plants. Then there is the GM crops debate. Before you know it you could have unwittingly caused a diplomatic incident.

Taboo subjects: dogs, Annie Leibovitz, the BBC, Nicholas Witchell, League Against Cruel Sports.

Safe subjects: the weather, geography, gardens (not Prince Charles), occupation (as long is it is fairly sedentary and not pole dancing or journalism - see Nicholas Witchell).

Mr Smith has now passed the business on to his son who has never once asked me about my garden or anything else for that matter. But I still see his father. In reality my garden is a mess but I would never tell Mr Smith. That would spoil everything.