Jubil-what?

JUBILEE season is upon us and from the coverage you'd be forgiven for thinking that Elizabeth II is just like Elizabeth I.

Our little white-haired granny is like that bewigged armour-plated termagant in the same way that My Little Pony is like a frothing Arabian stallion with crazy eyes who'd smash you to death in a heartbeat.

Neither was expected to become queen, but both did. Aside from the name that's about all they share.

Elizabeth I's birth led to schism in the church. Her mother was murdered, her stepmothers all died or were rejected, and she was repeatedly disowned and reinstated. She spoke six languages by the age of 11, she spent most of her life under threat of execution or assassination by her own family and she was seen as nothing more than a tool for men to marry off for political gain.

She was told, in every way, that being a girl was a disaster and she turned her femininity into triumph. She traded any chance of personal happiness for power, she started an empire, and she did it all from the age of 25 after inheriting a country which was broke. She was horrible, vicious, a despot, the world's worst dinner party guest; a far cry in every way from the modern monarch who has barely a sniff of the same DNA.

Our queen has ridden lots of horses. Um. That's about it.

She's travelled a lot, she's dealt with politicians and not put a foot wrong that we know of, but she's never worked more than three days a week if you can call it work at all and hasn't had quite the same asked of her as her namesake. I wonder if the two queens were switched in time how either would cope? I'd hope Good Queen Bess would discover condoms and have the chance to let her hair down, but I bet Brenda would struggle with balancing the Exchequer.

But still. They share a name, they both came to the throne young, and both have presided over an era of massive change. To mark the event the BBC and a panel of rather self-important people have compiled a list of 'New Elizabethans', those subjects who've done the most to change the world in the course of her reign.

And nowhere could the differences be more apparent. Liz One had Shakespeare, Drake, Cecil, Inigo Jones and Bess of Hardwick. Liz Two has got Simon Cowell and a lady who wrote a cookery book.

A glance down the Beeb's list produces a couple of 'fair enough's - McCartney and Lennon are on there, Tim Berners-Lee, Princess Di - but then anyone with a brain would splutter: "BILLY CONNOLLY? ARE YOU PULLING MY CHAIN? Germaine Greer? GOLDIE? What in the name of..."

So to save myself an embolism here is my alternative list of modern Elizabethans - the people who've really changed the world since 1952.

* Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi - for proving cancer isn't that bad.

* Prince Andrew - who's shown a little really can go a long way. About 250 times around the world, by my last count.

* Ridley Scott - for Thelma & Louise alone, never mind the rest of it.

* Cliff Richard - just for not going away. Man's like a persistent, elderly spaniel.

* Richard Dawkins - for spearheading the humanist movement in the face of frothing opposition and despite the fact blasphemy was against the law until 2008.

* Prince Philip - for making racism endearing.

* Liz Jones - for making the slow-motion car crash of her life public property and turning a massive profit out of it. Bess of Hardwick would be WELL JEL (I know I am).

* Jimmy Savile - come on, he raised £40million for charity! Forget the tracksuit, no-one else has managed that.

* Richard Branson - for being the most offensively annoying prat the nation ever produced. He's like a deluded court jester who thinks he's in charge.

* Beatrice Shilling - Men designed the Spitfire but it took a woman to tell them where they'd gone wrong. The Rolls Royce engines would stall in a dive but engineer Beatrice found the flaw and fixed it. That move won us the Battle of Britain but she's virtually unknown. She also raced motorbikes and wouldn't marry her husband until he'd lapped the circuit at 100mph. What a dame!

* Barbara Cartland - sorry, she sold twice as many books as JK Rowling.

* Herchel Smith - a researcher at the University of Manchester who found a cheap way of producing hormones, leading to the contraceptive pill and, oh yes, female emancipation from their own ovaries.

* Michael Buerk - it was his reports from the famine in Ethiopia which inspired Bob Geldof and led to Live Aid, and thus the modern global definition of overseas development aid.

* Andy Coulson - for being one of the few journalists who's probably going to bring down a government, even if it is by accident.

* Spike Milligan - for everything.

And you know what makes them New Elizabethans?

They're all going to be talked about a lot flippin' longer than Barbara Bloody Windsor.

 

Not an Elizabethan.

What's not to like?

TODAY, in ancient tradition, Queen Elizabeth II is handing out alms to 170 senior citizens.

For Maundy Thursday these lucky few - a man and a woman for each year of the monarch's age - will be given a purse containing the currency equivalent in pennies of the Queen's years on Earth.

That's 85 pence. I wouldn't go to York Minster for just 85p, even if she offered to wash my feet when I got there. It might have been a lot of money in days of yore but it won't buy you even half a pasty these days.

So she's giving £144.50 to the elderly, in a ceremony that probably costs thousands to organise and police. While the Royal Household officially costs each citizen around 69p each, the security costs add an extra £120million or so to our bill. In total the Royals cost us up to £184m a year, which might sound like a tourism investment until you learn the Spanish get a lot more tourist cash and their Royals charge only £7.4m a year.

But let's not niggle. The Queen's a nice old bird, and her husband's always game for a laugh even if he does get £400,000 a year from Parliament as pocket money. Who knew membership of UKIP was so expensive?

And now we have Wills and Kate, the new golden couple who seem to be doing a good job of making Britain and our Royal Family not look like quite as much of a mess as they normally do.

Yesterday Madam Tussauds unveiled new waxworks of the pair in London.

 Just as I was marvelling at how eerily-accurate they were, another pair appeared in Amsterdam.

Then lo! Two more triffids popped up in New York.

While some might worry about the ramifications of a clone army, it cannot be argued that it might be a much more cost-effective way of running the Royal Family.

Consider the benefits. No policing costs, no heating, food, or polo ponies. Wills will never get balder, Kate will never get fat, and seeing as she's already seen as an advertising hoarding for British fashion this would remove the moral concerns of using a real human being as a coat hanger. Her hair will always be glossy, the Royals will never have to worry about losing the Wills-&-Kate magic, and it would give the Chinese mug makers a chance to practice their painting.

After the initial sculpting costs the clones would pay for themselves very quickly and over a 30 or 40 year period would generate many times the annual cost of their maintenance. We could send two to Australia to keep the republicans quiet.

And of course, they will never open their mouths to reveal strangulated, plummy accents, questionable political views or offensive opinions about the state of the nation. The real Kate and Wills, meanwhile, could live happily in their Anglesey farmhouse without being plagued by protection officers, the public or their Royal duty, wearing wellies and wax jackets and having glossy-haired children, all of which they'd probably prefer.

We, meanwhile, would get to look at them, ooh and ah over her dresses, and because they wouldn't cost us nearly as much as they do now we'd still have money in our pockets for a pasty and a pint afterwards. It's a win-win situation. What's not to like?

The fact that waxwork models find it hard to sit on a horse and shout "VIEW HALLOO!" is neither here nor there.

Just call me a genius.

And what do you do?

RELAX, Britain!

There is no need to worry about the stuttering economy, the impending collapse of the Eurozone, empty pension pots, the lack of midwives, striking teachers, a buggered banking system, drought, the widening gap between rich and poor or increased taxes on the one holiday a decade you might be able to afford if you stop eating anything but cardboard you find in a skip and save up and don't get mugged, knifed or come down with rickets before you get on the plane.

All that stuff is nothing. Meaningless. Not worth the effort of bothering your little selves with. Everything is FINE.

Because we have a benign overlord who addresses us once a year by means of reading out words a number of people have written for her, including the bit at the end which says [SMILE!] and which you can spot by her confused expression as she thinks about it then lifts her upper lip in the difficult grimace of someone not quite sure if they're doing it properly.

And she knows EXACTLY what's going on. She reads lots of Government papers and assents to laws and gets to sit down with PM Dishface once a week, while he tells her that out beyond the ha-ha everything's dandy, the peasants are learning how to wash themselves at last and he'll be introducing cutlery very gradually, so as not to alarm them.

As a result Brenda has a solid and firm grasp of the crisis and scandals which rock her country, and that she views from the lofty position of living in five houses, owning dozens of racehorses, having vaults packed with jewels and a morning routine of reading The Racing Post from cover-to-cover while Philip harrumphs behind the Wellygraph.

So yesterday when confronted with a former politician at Buckingham Palace who wanted to discuss Britain's rather-naffed up economy with her, Brenda gave him the full benefit of her views and experience of 85 years spent, well, quite nicely thank you.

"Yessss," she said thoughtfully. "They do face great difficulties, don't they?"

After which she toddled off to feed fresh hand-made scones to her pack of tiny demonic dogs and watch The One Show.

I don't know about you, but I feel MUCH better.

Is that a fox? Release the hounds.

You have one new voicemail.

"Hi, Beks, Andy here. Can you give us a bell when you've got a mo? Cheers."

You have one new voicemail.

"Rebekah, hi, it's Dave. Think we've got a spot of bother. Could we have a chat? This one can't wait til Sunday lunch. Sam says love to Charlie."

You have one new voicemail.

"It's mum. Do you know you're on the news? You need a haircut. I'm posting you a nice hat I found."

You have one new voicemail.

"Beks, Andy here. I know you're busy but things are going a bit tits-up here. Call me mate, yeah?"

You have one new voicemail.

"This is a message for Rebekah. Mr Murdoch would like a word. Can you call him on his personal line? Thank you."

You have one new voicemail.

"Rupert! Hi, Rebekah. Looks like we're playing telephone tennis. Everything here completely under control, we're going to throw Coulson under the bus and sack 500 people. That should get the Press off our backs. Journalists, eh? Ha ha! Byeeeee."

You have one new voicemail.

"It's mum. You're on the news again, can't you stop wearing black? Makes you look old. I've got to go to the hairdressers' but I wondered if you'd got the hat yet. Lots of love."

You have one new voicemail.

"Hello Rebekah, this is Martin. It was a pleasure to meet you earlier and I hope my advice was of some use to you. Like I said, if you want to go ahead my fees are £600 an hour but I am fairly sure that we can settle these matters with your employers out of court. If they do terminate employment we can make a strong unfair dismissal suit especially as you've not been convicted of anything. It's called the Sharon Shoesmith defence. Speak soon."

You have one new voicemail.

"One has to leave a message? Now? Oh. Hellehhh? ONE WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO REBEKAH. One understands she has my number. Which button now? Ehhh."

You have one new voicemail.

"It's Andy. This is getting serious. I've just had the Old Bill round. What the fuck is this about emails being handed over? I thought they'd been lost in Delhi! Christ Rebekah, this is getting hairy. CALL ME."

You have one new voicemail.

"Philip here. Just wanted to say don't let the buggers get yer down, yer still a very fine filly in my book even though Her Maj says I shouldn't tell people I've got a book. There's a whole section on redheads, but I've had to bump Fergie down the "mad and dirty" list this week. You're at the top! Heh, heh. Now, any time you fancy a gin and tonic, or an old codger to whip those Titian tresses at, yer know where I am. Oh, and er, anything you've got off Fergie's phones... well, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement! Tally ho."

You have one new voicemail.

"It's Rupert. I'm coming over, angelface. Dinner? We'll make a show of it."

You have one new voicemail.

"Look, we've been mates for years. I thought you had my back. I thought this had gone away. I've resigned twice, for fuck's sake! I can't believe you've dumped me. Call me, let's sort it out!"

You have one new voicemail.

"It's Rupert. Great to see you, don't forget you're my number one girl! This will all blow over. If any of those 500 journalists we sacked start mouthing off we'll refuse to pay them redundancy. And Dave's an idiot, I'll handle him. Keep your pretty chin up!"

You have one new voicemail.

"Dave, it's Barack. What the hell's going on over there? Your dinner party pals ringing up private tecs to pull mobile phone records of people crushed and burned to death in the Twin Towers? Seriously? That's not what the special relationship's all about. I am so pissed at you. Oh, and thanks for the tip about buying NewsInt stock - that was the retirement fund, Michelle's furious! She says you're not invited to The Hamptons this year. Sort your shit out."

You have one new voicemail.

"Hi! It's Dave! Great to hear from you! Listen, I am as SHOCKED and APPALLED as you are. I hardly know what to think. Andy told me he was a good guy! Obviously we're going to have to stamp all over this story. I've ordered some inquiries which will take months but make me look good. We're going to find a way to blame the previous administration, that's worked with everything else up til now. Anyway, great chatting and really hope to see you soon! Sam says love to Michelle! We ought to chat about Afghanistan too, but, you know, when you're not so busy. Byeeeee!"

You have one new voicemail.

"Rupert, it's Joe Ratzinger. What the fuck? Call me."

You have one new voicemail.

"Well, long time no talk! It's Tony. How are you doing? Dreadful times, of course. I just wanted to let you know you've my full support, and Cherie's too of course. She says do you need a lawyer? Ha ha, only joking. Well, a bit. Look, it's clear. Mistakes. Have been. Made. Thefactremains. You. Were the. PEOPLE'S. Editor. And therefore not responsible for whatever may have happened at the News of the World! Ha ha, Alistair told me to say that. He thought it was funny. Did you like it? Ought to look like I'm doing something in the Middle East this week, but tea soon, yeah? Ciao."

You have one new voicemail.

"This is Andy's lawyer. We'd like to take a statement from you. Please ring us back."

You have one new voicemail.

"Hi Rebekah. You're going to need to come down the Yard and answer some questions. Can we arrange some time this week? Obviously you'll need a lawyer. Oh, and by the way, don't worry too much - I paid it all into my wife's account."

You have one new voicemail.

"It's mum. You never ring me. I saw you on the news having dinner with someone. Is he your new boyfriend? He looks a bit old for you. Seeing as you obviously don't like the hat I've posted you something I found in Oxfam the other day. I don't know if it's a cape or a burqa, but it's got a big hood, looks very chic I thought. Do you know what you're doing for Christmas yet? Love mum."

You have one new voicemail.

"Beks, it's Dave. Look, sorry about this but I don't think we can do Sunday lunch. Sam's got one of her migraines coming on and Steve keeps talking about you being 'toxic'. I think he's singing a Britney Spears song but it doesn't sound good. Let's put it in the diary for another time, yeah? Maybe, I don't know, after the Olympics. I'm kind of busy til then. Er. Bye."

You have one new voicemail.

"Zis vill serve you reich! I mean right! You naughty, naughty girly. I sink you need ze spanking, yes? I sink all zat hair needs checking for ze lice. Dirty birdy. You do not deserve ze job! You vill come to vork for Uncle Max in his dungeon! Zere are lovely stripy uniforms and all is gut. Sehr gut. Ve vill correct you! You need ze punishment! Whoops, wife's home, bye..."

You have one new voicemail.

"Rupert, it's Alan. Magna cadunt, inflata crepant, tumefacta premuntur. Or pride comes before a fall, if you're Aussie. I'd just like to point out that we brought down the most popular English-language paper in the world, despite being one of the least popular. But don't worry, there's always bar work."

You have one new voicemail.

"Hey, gorgeous, Hugh here. I wish you'd been on Question Time with me. You're much prettier than that Harriet sort! Look, why don't we have a little dinner, talk about things, you can wear a nurse's uniform, maybe bring along a friend. Be fun. Talk soon. PS love you in that skirt."

You have one new voicemail.

"I was only the deputy editor, you cow."

You have one new voicemail.

"I am the Metatron, the voice of God. Yes, I know I sound like Alan Rickman, very funny. This is to let you know your service has been disconnected. It will take about six months. Not because it needs to, but because the Almighty enjoys dragging the pain out for as long as possible. In the meantime a variety of people will be charged, probably with corruption and perjury. Oh, and the Almighty can't come to this year's Christmas party, as She's going to be painting her nails. I would say 'see you around', but I don't think you'll be coming up here..."

You have one new voicemail.

"Eesh, I invented these things and I still can't get to grips with them... this is Beelzebub. I'll catch you later."

You have no more voicemails.

(With apologies to any semblance of reality.)

A festival of fools.

MARC Bolan, David Bowie, Primal Scream, Led Zep, Blur, Oasis, Pulp - over the years Glastonbury has had some amazing moments.

When Disco 2000 blasted out from the Pyramid stage in 1995 and was screamed right back by 100,000 people who didn't feel like grown-ups yet, when Rolf did Stairway to Heaven, when Screamadelica had just come out and Bobby Gillespie was achingly ugly and cool; all things which even people watching at home on telly still remember.

Those kids grew up but they still want to turn back time and shout his own lyrics at Jarvis Cocker. And because they're now mums and dads, bankers and lawyers and mortgage brokers, the whole thing is safer and less edgy and more expensive, and therefore also attracts what can only be described as the Twatterati.

This year they included Nancy Dell'olio, who calls herself a lawyer but earns her money doing deals with the paparazzi for pictures of her and her latest bloke. Kate Moss is a scraggy-haired fixture, like the Portaloos. Wayne Rooney and his missus appeared in matching Hunter wellies, and the biggest band to play were subject of a demonstration about their tax status. Coldplay's rider for their gig consisted of mineral water, crudités and gluten-free dips, the Sunday headliner stopped proceedings five minutes in to sing Happy Birthday to a man called Steve, and when someone was found dead in the VIP toilets it was the Chairman of West Oxfordshire Conservative Association.

How much more Establishment can you get? What's next, the Queen in the mosh pit?

Most of these people go not because it's fun or edgy but just because they want to be seen. Kool & The Gang were on at the same time as Beyonce and were a million times better but hardly anyone saw them, and last year a friend of mine wandered into a side tent and found The Specials still as angry as ever in front of a crowd of about 20.

Today most teenagers simply can't afford the £200-a-head tickets and the rebellious youth which every generation ought to be doesn't get a look-in, because this is a middle-class music festival which has taken rock'n'roll and strangled the life out of it.

Glastonbury is just not cool. It's not even room temperature. It's that uncomfortably sweaty, buttock-clenching, horridly hot feeling you get with either impending diarrhoea or an unanswerable question from your boss.

And unless it's cool, it's just twats in a field.

"Yes, Dave, this is much better than a week in Spain."