I am not amused!

The only difference that I can see is that we are MEANT to laugh at the antics of the Royle Family. I can't believe Prince Charles and the rest of the Windsors deliberately go out of their way to amuse -- but amuse they do.

Lets start first with the amazing coincidence of a television crew stumbling across Prince William as he threw himself wholeheartedly into a character-building expedition in Chile of all places.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it his dad who asked the gutter press to allow Diana's son to grow up without a posse of paparazzi following him everywhere like a pack of dogs, as they had his mum?

And before we go any further, I feel I ought to say, just to be totally honest, that I believe Diana deliberately became not just THE most photographed woman in the history of the planet, but also one supremely adept at manipulating the snappers, just as much as they coveted her image.

If they want to keep under wraps the young man whom the majority of Royal observers see as the heir to the throne, why the Chilean PR exercise?

There was no sign of General Pinochet and his death squads, about to introduce the 18-year-old English Royal to some real character building with the aid of electrodes attached to his genitals or having his finger nails and toe nails yanked out.

We saw William chopping wood; William smiling a lot; William carrying a hefty pole on his strong young shoulders; William playing clap hands with a mini-Chilean; William stirring what looked remarkably like a saucepan full of llama dung and indicating that he was about to eat the filthy stuff with the same amount of relish he scoffs the grub from the Royal kitchens.

And all this rounded off with Trevor McDonald's totally uncharacteristically cloying voice-over, telling us what a thoroughly, splendid, pleasant, decent and 'normal' chap young Wills really is.

Strange that. I never had Trev filed away under 'Royal sycophant'. We live and learn. Still, he might be doing it for the money.

As for William being 'normal', excuse me while I go and lie down in a darkened room for an hour or two while I assimilate the seriousness of what the ITV news anchorman said.

Wills CAN'T be normal. That's the whole point of being born into privilege, especially Royalty. We don't want normal. We want someone, or a family of someones, who are anything BUT normal; someone we can respect, admire even, not a bunch of squabbling, philandering, lotus-eaters. We mix with THEM every day.

I suppose, but I can't say for certain, that someone connected to The Palace has decided that to make the Family Windsor acceptable to, and reasonably popular with, the tabloid-reading, takeaway-eating, beer-swilling hoi polloi, they should be more of a Royle Family than a Royal Family.

Why else would Prince Charles have taken himself up to the fictional suburb of Weatherfield to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Coronation Street -- "The Nation's Favourite Soap".

God help us. We have now reached the nadir of nadirs. The heir to the throne (well, he is officially, but we all know The Matriarch will NEVER go willingly, not for Charles anyway) giving 'Corrie' the Royal seal of approval, spawning tabloid headlines such as 'Ay Up, Chuck.

Queen Victoria must be doing 10,000 revolutions a minute in her grave, so far have we come down the road of familiarity breeding contempt.

Anyone who knows me even half-well, knows I am anything but a Royalist. But I am a traditionalist, fiercely loyal to Great Britain; sickened by the wrecking of our industries; the appalling state of our infrastructure and in despair at our slide into almost total lawlessness. The Victor Meldrew of Bromley Cross.

I don't blame the Royal Family for Britain's catalogue of disasters. I don't hate them per se. I just feel they fill no useful role and have too many hangers on. They should go, not like the Romanovs I hasten to add, but if they persist in Carrying On Up The Corrie, the Bolsheviks won't be needed. Our Royals will have committed professional suicide.

The person who advised Charles to make that personal visit to Coronation Street should be smuggled quietly to the Tower of London, beheaded, and the body despatched to Manchester to be placed on a bar stool in the Rovers Return, as a warning to Beverley Callard -- Liz McDonald -- and everyone else, not to get too familiar with visiting Royals.

Ms Callard -- or Liz if you must -- is the Street vamp and Charles was on the receiving end of one of her "saucy quips". In Queen Victoria's rule, anything remotely resembling a "saucy quip" would have been met with a withering glare, a haughty "We Are Not Amused" and the immediate on-the-spot execution of the saucy quipper. Have times changed or what?

Now we have a deeply embarrassed Royal, trying his best to look amused, sticking one hand in his pocket (which he seems to do all the time) while sipping a glass of 'real' Scotch.

The poor bugger. How he must have wished the angel who miraculously cured paraplegic Jim McDonald would somehow appear and spirit him away, back to London and the comforting arms of his beloved Camilla.

But, nothing happened. He had to linger, posing for the photographers, exchanging pleasantries with the cast and doing his "Look. I'm normal. I'm just like you. I watch Corrie. I know who Ken Barlow is. He's the man who's been on television longer than the test card!"

Let me reveal the conversation which took place between Prince Charles and his "Image Maker" before the Weatherfield fiasco.

IM: "I say sir, don't you think a visit to Weatherfield to mark the 40th anniversary of Coronation Street might bring oodles of kudos in the PR stakes?"

HRH: "Weatherfield.? Coronation Street? That's the place mummy sometimes talks about at tiffin. Has it anything to do with her placing a crown on someone's bonce?"

IM: "No, sir. Weatherfield is a fictional place, supposedly a suburb of Manchester. And Coronation Street is a television series which appears twice a day, six days a week, watched by Her Majesty and zillions of her subjects, who revel in its homespun humour and philosophies, such as how to deal with wife beating, drug taking, drunkenness, teenage pregnancies, sex changes and adulterous relationships."

HRH: "Not unlike here, then?"

IM: Absolutely, sir."

HRH:"Oh, well. Maybe one should visit the place then. Mix with the local television rabble. Look interested. Try to give the impression that one is enjoying oneself for the benefit of those dreadful tabloid people."

IM: "Exactly, sir."

HRH: "I won't be expected to touch any of them will I? I don't want to get any chip pan fat or lager stains on my suit. And will one be harassed by that Ena Sharples woman, whom mummy says grandmama resembles and occasionally acts like?"

IM: "I don't think so sir. I do believe she was dropped from the series when it switched from black and white to colour. Something about her hairnet clashing with the decor in the Rovers."

HRH: The Rovers? Is there a canine in this programme and will one be expected to pat it?

IM: "No, sir. The Rovers is a public house. It features very heavily in the programme. In fact, no one works in Coronation Street. They're always in the pub."

HRH: "Hey ho. One has to think of one's duty. I'll go. But by car -- not those blasted trains. One doesn't much fancy a three-day journey to some God-forsaken part of the north of England, courtesy of Richard Branson. And tell whoever you have to tell, no touching. Lots of idiotic smiles, funny quips -- one will need some by the way -- but definitely no touching."

The rest, as they say, is history. Beverley Callard, aka Liz McDonald, hadn't read the script. Or maybe she had, and the one they handed out in Weatherfield wasn't quite the same as the one they distributed in London.

The Romanovs died quickly. Our Royals, or should that be Royles, are taking longer, but the end result will be the same.

They'll become so normal that William will take up employment as a lumberjack; the Queen a greeter for stately homes; Prince Philip a night porter in the casualty department of an NHS hospital (he's tailor-made for that job) and Prince Charles?

Look for him behind the bar at the Rovers. He passed the audition!