Reader's questions answered

In a thread below, Mr Trellis of North Epsom questions whether I am Professor David Starkey.

I did a cursory search to find the answer to this question, and found the following sample of the prof’s work.

'The problem is you can only have a "Diana monarchy" if you have a monarch who is a celebrity or at least a bit sensational', says constitutional historian professor David Starkey. 'But do we really want a head of state or a consort like Diana who was reported as having her head stuck down the lavatory one minute and having an upper colonic lavage the next? Is that really an appropriate image? I don't think we are going to get the Queen talking openly about her battle with thrush, although it's hard to know; news is breaking all the time.'

This in turn caused me to pursue the question of Liz’s battles with feathered vertebrates, and I asked her what her position was with regard to being candid in this area. “I am quite ambivalent about it, sweetie,” she confided, “it is well known to students of the monarchy that I have not always enjoyed cordial relations with the airborne visitors to my gardens ever since one of the corgis was lifted from the Pyotr Kropotkin garden at Windsor by an overfed starling, but I really don’t think that these tales are of great interest to the general public, even the most fawning of them”. What might be of passing interest is the fact that since his television career declined, Noel Edmonds has been employed as the royal bird-scarer at Sandringham. He can be seen of a morning running round the lawns waving his arms and making strange noises. “Philip finds it most amusing”, she says, “he can watch for hours, which is a great relief to all of us who try to limit his capacity for mischief. I don’t have the heart to tell him that as soon as we have Edward trained, he will replace Mr Edmonds. I suppose that when that happens Philip will get bored again, as he can’t stand looking at Eddie for more than five minutes, and will take to aggravating Charley again by trying to exterminate endangered species.”

So that answers the question about the queen and the quails. As for the professor, I think I will let you draw your own conclusions. I am rather taken by his style, but am disappointed by his lack of imagination. If he thinks that the most inappropriate image of Di is that of her poncing about St James palace with a rubber tube protruding from her arse, then he is no match for me.