OH, another royal wedding. Nice for them, but how the heart sinks an inch or two. Just think of all the bejewelled tosh and trivia we will have to put up with between now and April.

All the endless stories about Camilla being either a middle-aged seductress/sound good friend to Prince Charles (delete according to preference). All the faintly despicable stuff pointing out that Camilla isn't fit to step into Diana's ghostly shoes, as if anyone should care any more.

All the starchy points of matters constitutional and ecclesiastical that will be dredged up and argued over by those who haven't bored themselves to death in the process.

The fiftysomething prince has, after endlessly dithering, finally popped the question to his long-standing girlfriend.

First time round, Charles married a young and, as it transpired, none too stable member of the wealthy upper classes. Second time round, he is going for an older member of the wealthy upper classes. Apparently, wife number two likes hunting, walking the dogs and has never done a day's paid work in her life. So they should chime together nicely.

Mind you, I don't entirely hold with Camilla-knocking, especially when it concerns her appearance - much in the way that all those hostile stories about Cherie Blair strike me as unfair.

One paper said of Camilla that she is "twice Diana's age and half as beautiful". It is one of life's spiky little ironies that such observations are made by journalists who must have glanced at themselves in the mirror at some time during the day.

Perhaps the originators of such acid droplets really do gaze at their own reflection with undimmed admiration. But as a middle-aged baldie who stands at five foot eight with a following wind, I hesitate to go around criticising how other people look. Hesitation sometimes gives way to temptation, however, as that's human nature. And being a harsh judge of other people is something of a national sport, if a mildly disreputable one.

One commentator, writing in one of the Sunday papers, coined a sentence that resonated with me. The columnist wrote: "Already, republicans and the easily bored are in despair." How true - and, more importantly, how is the easily-bored republican supposed to manage under such trying circumstances?

There are those among us who have never had much time for the royals, and who would rather be considered as citizens than subjects. That was once my passionate view - now it's a view that I twiddle through my fingers for want of anything else to grasp.

The problem with saying that you don't support the Royal Family is that royalists always blow the dust off the same old riposte. This is the one about "what would you replace them with - and do you really want a retired/failed politician appointed as president?"

The difficulty for those with republican leanings is that it is easier to get worked up about why we don't need the Royal Family than it is to enthuse about what would replace the Queen and co. And that remains one of the greatest strengths of the royal cause.

This leaves a situation where the country is divided into the pro-royals, the anti-royals and - to borrow that favourite political clich - the silent majority, made up in this case of the couldn't-care-less classes.

The clever trick that the Royal Family continues to pull off is to constantly re-invent itself in small ways. Throughout all this, it stays much the same, and remains at heart a feudal institution based on privilege, birth right and a long history of bloody squabbles. Yet thanks to the application of the thinnest of modern glosses, no one bothers to notice.

The biggest threat to the Royal Family remains apathy, because if we arrived at a point when no one could care less, then it would lose its point. Royal weddings, even second ones, help to keep the wily old institution afloat.

Updated: 08:55 Thursday, February 17, 2005