they were as close to utopian as you get for those 'kings and queens and duchesses and the like', when people knew their place and centuries of 'choosing' this arrangement had (conveniently) given it a patina of cosmic order.

the new monarchy is celebrity. this started in the '60's when tv was in all middle class homes in the you-k and print media was at its glamour peak still. suddenly talent trumped breeding, and the rise of fashion elevated style over the merely genteel.

as the pendulum swung, it became an ironic advantage to be from a matrix well-known for centuries as being the bottom of the socio-economic barrel.

toffs began refining their yob accents in order to take two thirds off their mechanic's bill, and mary-quantisation had taken hold.

the heralds and tribe-adours for this sea change were the luvverble moptops from luvverpule, who took the piss out of the queen and jesus and got crowned, lionised and over-rewarded anyway.

so we got demo-monarchy, complete with paid 'royalties' and we never looked back!

the new taxes in utopia all come from the lottery, and the elections are run by simon cowell.

political commentary is by style.com and the new chic is how good you look against a malawi background.

we crave hierarchy like oxygen, shameless sluts the lot of us. we revere then revile our iconz without a blink as the ripples of what's cool spread across the mass-mind, fevered with curiosity about who's with whom, wearing what.

bradgelina has taken over from spiced beckham!

great diary poemless, you're on better form than ever, from where i hover.

if mother russia wanted to send a plant onto our blog to boost the l-e-r-v, she couldn't have done better than choosing you. you make it seem fun to be a russophile!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty