That crazy dysfunctional family the Windsors are the latest wannabes to be subjected to reality TV. Yes, the cameras have been allowed into Windsor Castle.

We’re not sure if this is meant as a kind of charm offensive in the face of growing public dislike or disinterest. If it is it doesn’t work. It just serves to remind the viewer that some people in this country are born into a totally different reality to the rest of us. And the intention can’t have been to show the Queen at work, earning her millions, dispelling the myth that she ain’t worth it. Because she wasn’t shown doing a lot. During the preparations for a mammoth dinner celebrating Anglo-French relations (we’re not massacring each other anymore), with President Chirac as guest of honour, she merely turned up after all the work was done and surveyed the results. She kept the staff hanging on for a few excruciating minutes before acknowledging her satisfaction by moving an eyebrow or something. Exhausting, that.

Perhaps the programme was meant as a tribute to the hoards of people working at Windsor. Indeed, we at Blighty had great sympathy for the kitchen staff. The dining room was as big as most people’s towns. If a waiter set off from one end of the table to see to a guest at the other he would need a rucksack full of chocolate and a strong pair of walking boots. He might see his destination on a clear day, before the guests lit up their cigars, then it could become very hazardous. You know the scene in Citizen Kane where, to illustrate the gulf growing between Kane and his wife, they are shown sitting down to breakfast further away from each other until they are at opposite ends of the table? Well, Liz and Philip would need a megaphone to ask to pass the marmalade. And then they’d need a throw like Steve Backley to get it there.

Of course the ultimate disappointment, as this was a reality show, was that we didn’t get to vote off the residents. But that’s the way with the monarchy I’m afraid. You’re stuck with the buggers!