Nickie Muir: Royals are a symbol of bygone era

Charles and Camilla are a symbol from a bygone era.

I love Charles and Camilla. I love the fact that the love story that caused such a sensation all those years ago with a recorded phone call of Charles's fervent wish to be a sanitary device so he could be so much closer to his loved one, inspires us as a nation. Which leaves one wondering at the state of Britain's education system for one thing.

If the beneficiary of such power and privilege and the inheritor of such cultural capital can only come up with that in terms of imagery - one might have hope in public school systems after all. I mean they can't do any worse.

I'm happy to pay for their little royal walkabout round the far isles of their fair kingdom. It's good to know what the natives are up to. I love that John Key loves the royals and has brought back all those knighthoods and Great Dames or whatever they're called after Helen Clark got rid of them.

I think it's important that we acknowledge just like Tony Abbott did so beautifully, when he also brought back the knights that we're not able to acknowledge our own leaders in excellence without having the sovereign seal of approval.

Although, come to think of it, that particular decision didn't end well for Abbott. He gave that elderly demented aristocrat; Prince Philip the first new knighthood on Australia Day. A man who managed to show just how in touch he is with the Australian indigenous people by asking one aboriginal elder in 2002 if they "still throw spears at each other". To be honest - I'm surprised that wasn't enough to make every other person who actually deserved a knighthood give them back.

I love the fact that we are slowly growing into a nation that Charles's great, great-grandmother would have recognised. A wealthy privileged elite and the masses. Comforting that cycle of history.

I love the fact that our news media goes gaga over any royal random that perpetually sounds as if they are speaking to us from the bottom of a bathtub - and even then once you've worked out what they've said - realise it was some inanity best left unreported. I love the fact that newsrooms often send their best journalists to cover the bumble bee that nearly ended up in the Prince's crotch or the baby that didn't get dropped.

I went gaga once over Princess Diana - it's true. I was 14 and waved to her as she drove past our school in a flash of blonde flicks and blue eye-makeup. Deciding it wasn't enough I got a press card by helping a young photographer by carrying her gear into the press conference inside. Once there, it was unfortunate that the principal of the school I attended, a particularly unmerciful Sister of Mercy, who actually had a real invite, wanted to know why I was walking around the press conference in class time with a fake press card on. I was 14 and both feckless and fey. Mr Key has no such excuse.