On Sunday at 3pm, Queen Elizabeth II delivered her 60th Christmas Message. In this faddish age of rolling news and viral videos, the Queen's speech remains a changeless monument to a bygone era and this year's message was every bit as insipid, patronising and tedious as the previous 59.
Every year, Her Madge manages to be so unmemorable that it's practically a superpower. She broadcasts to a captive audience of the entire nation, yet nobody remembers a word she says.
Go on, what was last year's speech about?
Answer: she said that it had been almost 400 years since the King James Bible came out, then she said that sport is good and brings people together. Gripping, finger on the pulse stuff.
Of course, this may be a deliberate strategy. Perhaps she hopes to use her blandness as a kind of cloaking device, making us see her as a dull old lady and not a corpulent parasite sinking its yellowed fangs into the exposed neck of our increasingly anaemic nation. Perhaps she just can't be arsed to do a decent job. Either way, she's failing to capitalise on a golden opportunity.
These are uncertain times. Britain needs swaddling in the snug eiderdown of tradition, lest we begin to question the wisdom of giving bone idle toffs free money for life. Here are three suggestions of ways the Queen could squeeze the most out of her festive chunter:
1. Last year's message broke with tradition by coming from Hampton Court Palace instead of Buckingham Palace. Why not build on this by shooting the whole thing inside a terrarium? Her Majesty could deliver the message while basking on a heated rock, pausing to gulp a clutch of crane eggs while explaining that Britain is "too cold" and announcing plans to install giant panes of glass over the country. Occasionally a second, darker set of eyes would emerge from behind the first, like tadpoles swimming to the surface of a murky pool. The deal with this is, we all have to pretend not to have noticed anything different, just to wind up David Icke.
2. Begin with: "My loyal subjects, I know that the introduction of re-education camps, compulsory tracking implants and the slaughter of firstborn sons has required a degree of adjustment, but..." Squint at the paper, then grin sheepishly: "I do beg your pardon. This is next year's speech."
3. In nature, when a queen bee heads out of the hive on her mating flight, around a dozen male drones follow her. One by one, each worker has sex with her in midair, his genitals snap off inside of her, then he drops out of the sky, dead.
Why can't this happen with our Queen? What if, every Christmas Day, instead of doing a speech, she thumped out of Buckingham Palace on colossal ermine wings? Cameras would capture her having sex with 12 or so plumbers, electricians and lorry drivers high above the city of London.
Once the aerial sex spectacle was over, she'd fly home, heavy with snapped penises, to lay next year's supply of manual labours. Just picture it. It'd be enough to make us all royalists.