h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We're in the middle of a royal visit. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Queen of Australia, has come to see us for, apparently, the 16th time and is spending a few days in her capital city. Although she chooses to live permanently on an island off the coast of Europe, she is our Head of State.

I've seen her before. I was six years old and was loaded onto a bus with my classmates and driven to Port Adelaide to stand along a narrow street near the Royal Yacht, waving small Australian flags, which I recall were made in Taiwan, waiting for a chance to see this mythical lady. In the event, all I saw was a gleaming flash of a speeding Daimler and a gently waving white-gloved hand. Now I'm 40. I have known no other Head of State. In fact, very few people younger than my mother can remember that there ever was anyone else notionally in charge.

The royals arrived last night and were greeted at the airport by the usual throng of schoolchildren and various dignitaries including the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory. It has been noted that all of these positions are now filled by women, and some commentators are saying the papacy should follow suit though they note that this is unlikely. The Queen was presented with flowers by a retired woman who had given her flowers as a six-year-old when the Queen first visited in 1954; I do think this was a nice touch.

Today the Queen and the Duke travelled by boat along Lake Burley Griffin from the Governor-General's residence at Yarralumla to Floriade, Canberra's annual spring flower show. The boat in question (The Admiral's Barge) is a motor launch that had to be brought up from Sydney by road and then reconditioned and checked for soundness before being put onto the water. I can't help thinking Elizabeth Tudor would have cruised the lake with more panache – there would have been trumpeters and oarsmen and carollers and rose petals and a throne with a mass of brocade and lace containing a red-headed political genius. This Elizabeth, by contrast, is a sensibly-dressed mild-mannered lady in a lilac suit and hat. Pageantry is dead.

I had occasion to cross the lake just before the royal boat was due to go past and I had a good look at the set-up. The shores of the lake were lined with spectators, but not as many as might have been there in past years when we were all less cynical about monarchy. My offsider was somewhere in the crowd with his five-year-old daughter. I expect I'll get a report from him tomorrow. He's a monarchist. I'm a republican.

Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against the Queen as a person. She is a very dignified, gracious lady and she's very good at what she does and I don't doubt that she's sincere about it all. It's just that she is a foreigner, her home is in Britain, she is a figurehead for the Commonwealth of Australia though she doesn't even sign our Acts of Parliament and there’s no real need for her to perform any role at all for Australia.

I'm not talking about her role as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, either. That's an entirely separate matter. The fact is, having a Head of State who lives elsewhere and mostly spends her time promoting the interests of the country in which she resides rather than the interests of Australia does not seem particularly sensible.

Norway and Sweden shared a monarch up until 1905. Whatever the shortcomings of that arrangement – and the Norwegians certainly thought there were problems – the two countries are at least next to each other. By contrast, for Australia to share a monarch with Britain and (I think) 14 other countries scattered across the globe is bizarre.

The fact of the matter is that the Commonwealth of Australia is, these days, essentially a crowned republic. We're democratic and egalitarian and awfully disrespectful of authority and rather cynical. All of our institutions and modes of government are republican in nature, but we still have this anachronistic Crown as the notional source of all authority. We just get on with things without all this ceremonial frippery, for the most part, but sometimes the royal cavalcade comes to town and all common sense goes and hides under a rock for a few days.

It would be an easy matter to consign the Crown of Australia to history. It has no physical existence after all. Nobody would come to any harm, and most people would notice no change except that we'd have to redesign the coinage and the $5 note, and rename the office of Governor-General. Monarchists say that there would be fire and brimstone and doom and misery and mass murder and gulags and rampant communism and sharia law and people kicking corgis in the streets if we were to become a republic. I think this just proves that we need to spend more on logic and critical thinking classes in schools, and possibly make more resources available in the mental health field.

The general consensus is that we're unlikely to become a republic while the Queen lives. I wonder if I'll see an Australian republic in my lifetime. I do hope so. But I also note that the Queen might outlast me if she takes after her mother.

Ivan.

I've often wondered why the Queen doesn't simply up and leave for one of the nicer Commonwealth Realms and get away from the dreadful weather and intrusive media over here. She's got every right to, the Realms are co-equal after all.

She's the head of the Court of St James, but no monarch has lived in St James' Palace for over 200 years so the titles purely symbolic. Like you, I've got no personal animus against her and I'm apathetic about the monarchy/republic but I do wonder why she'd want to be here: yes she's got some lovely digs, but she's also got the money to build new palaces wherever she wants. There'd probably be a bidding war for her.

She could easily go and live in Queensland, of course - and with any luck Queensland would then secede from Australia. This would solve two problems, as fas as I'm concerned.

On intrusive media - the radio had a piece from a local journalist who said that the British press pack kept pushing people (including non-British journalists) out of the way today and generally behaving in an uncouth manner. There was a dirty great lake handy; wouldn't it have been good if they'd fallen in?

She could easily go and live in Queensland, of course - and with any luck Queensland would then secede from Australia. This would solve two problems, as far as I'm concerned.

On intrusive media - the radio had a piece from a local journalist who said that the British press pack kept pushing people (including non-British journalists) out of the way today and generally behaving in an uncouth manner. There was a dirty great lake handy; wouldn't it have been good if they'd fallen in?

That double posting wasn't because of a technical problem, it was pure user error while trying to fix a typo.

In spite of being a Queen myself I never got the hang of monarchy. The mere thought that jobs shall be inherited is utterly ridiculous.

We suffer from monarchy in the Far North as well. Mr B, the present king is notorious for more or less catastrophic behaviour and statements. Recently he presented a medal to his Saudi counterpart; he commended the Sultan of Brunei for being democratic; there has been allegations about connections to organised crime and hookers. His father in law made dubious business deals during the time of the Third Reich. In spite of a royal wedding with subsequent bun in the oven the support for monarchy is declining.

Unfortunately not even the political parties with republic on their agenda dares to take the matter through parliament.

I don't have any opinion on monarchy, but I do like your journal entries, Ivan.

Wonderful journaleven though I am a Royal fan through and through I can understand the POV of the Aussies and the Canadians... I was wondering when I saw that pointy-nosed Welsh woman refuse to bow, whether she fancied a crown herself

Help the British are invading.....we have Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Steven Fry, Alan Davies, and now the Queen...

Between Steven Fry and 'The Queen' I wonder which is the bigger queen

She's been a queen longer than he has, but he takes up more space. I think they both win.

Two more observations: MH and HRH are travelling about in a black LandRover, which must be a lot easier to enter and exit than the old Daimler. This in itself is the most obvious visual signal that these are old people. The other thing: HM is now walking with a bit of a stoop. Goodness, she really is 85.