One event has hogged the headlines for the past week and a bit – HMQ’s Diamond Jubilee, which has culminated in a 4-day weekend of celebration both here in the UK and throughout the Commonwealth.

Much has been made of the Royalist v. Republican debate – the former arguing for the status quo and the latter for the abolition of the Monarchy. As far as I’m concerned – I’m sort of stuck in the middle. The Queen and the royal family are great for tourism, as ambassadors for the UK abroad and can, on the evidence of this weekend, seemingly unite the UK in a way that other institutions can’t – not the church, the government or any “celebrity”.

On the other side, there are those that question the unelected head of state, the cost of the family Firm, the legitimacy of a Monarchy in the 21st century, abolition of the civil list and so on.

I think we need the Royal Family for the sake of our economy, but what shape their involvement in day-to-day life in the future will take seems to be up for debate. Certainly, there seem to be two divisions of family now – HMQ, Phil the Greek, Chas, Camilla, Billy, Kate and Harry in the first division and then everyone else in the second. It may be that we are seeing how the Firm will look in the future and to be honest, I’ve no real opinion either way. But I do know that as a tourist destination and for the sake of tradition – which is something we in the UK do very well, we need their pulling power.

In other news, the results of my latest x-ray show that the visitor I’ve had in/on my left air-bag since January is still there, no bigger or smaller than the last time it had its picture taken. I’ll be going for another one in a few weeks. As far as I’m concerned – if it is not doing any harm it can stay there – yes it can be an impairment on rare occasions, but I’m generally back to where I was pre-hospitalisation in January so I’m happy to learn to live with it.

I’ve finally parted company with Vista on the laptop – it was fine as a clean install for web-use but as soon as I loaded it with software it slowed to a crawl and kept freezing. Instead I’ve installed Fedora, which is one of many flavours of Linux. It’s not a pig when it comes to resources and has enough software to enable me to write, use Skype and the interweb without putting the glazing at risk. It is currently refusing to communicate with the server, but that is because I’ve not amassed the skills required yet, rather than a flaw in the platform.

Until next week, when everything will be back to “normal” – thanks for reading.

On the other side, there are those that question the unelected head of state, the cost of the family Firm, the legitimacy of a Monarchy in the 21st century, abolition of the civil list and so on.