But, even more significantly, the Queen is to attend Wimbledon for the first time since 1977 this Thursday.  How exciting…and intriguing. Why has she suddenly decided to go after 23 years?  Why?  Is it that she feels Andy needs a boost?  Is it that she is increasingly aware of the lack of refinement and manners in public life and has decided she must get herself out and about to set an example?  Or, is it simply that she is curious to see if the price of strawberries and cream has gone up as much as they say it has in all these years?

What will she wear on Thursday, I wonder?  She is always appropriately dressed for the occasion; however it’s been a long time since she did the tennis, so to speak.  Will we see a hat?  Will we see a dress?  A suit?  What colour, or indeed could it be a sort of floral pattern? 

I hope she wears a hat.  This will be reassuring in terms of manners and standards. And that, I think, is why I have my current fascination with the Queen. 

We see evidence everywhere we look of money and instant gratification being the things that people are obsessed by.  Never more depressingly viewed than at Royal Ascot on Saturday and the England vs Algeria World Cup match on Friday.  In both instances money had a big hand to play in the atmosphere and resulting behaviour.

The easy access to money and importance attached to it, combined with the desire to be permanently instantly gratified, has resulted in a lack of soul, a decimation of good manners and more dispiritingly still, the sort of melancholy that comes with the realisation that the end result isn’t always what you thought it would be.

 I think it’s time we all took a good look at the Queen, not to decide how we feel about bowing to her, but to seek to be inspired by good manners and a sense of respect which not only should we show to others – but to ourselves as well.