Congratulations and best wishes to all the happy couples who had a baby last week.

No doubt you were all immediately on the phone or texting the joyful news to your nearest and dearest. Except that one couple who waited four-and-a -half hours then communicated the glad tidings on a piece of paper stuck on a board in their front yard. Oh well, I suppose our society is big enough to accommodate eccentrics of all sorts.

And there’s no-one more eccentric than England’s Royal family.  (It must be England since all the media are telling us that Baby Cambridge will be the 43rd monarch of the land since 1066.) 

Apparently, the big worry for the future King will be to maintain his privacy in the instant news world of YouTube and mobile phone cameras. Maybe that’s why the family made the announcement on the bit of paper on that board. Hoped no-one would notice? If that’s the case, then the three hours of cannon fire and bell ringing the following day wasn’t a great idea.

Personally, I think the worries about the Prince’s privacy are overdone. The average Brit is more interested in the private lives of footballers, rock stars and television celebrities.

Much was made of the hundreds waiting for news outside Buckingham Palace (in a city of over ten millions, not counting the tourists.)  Half of those waiting were from Central Casting (Mediaeval Peasants’ Department). The other half were visitors on the last day of their holidays, at a loose end having ticked off Madame Tussauds and Big Ben. Still, I’ll never cease to wonder about people with apparently nothing better to do on a hot summer’s day than turn lobster-red waiting for a glimpse of a scrap of paper stuck on a board. (“I was there, son. I saw that A4 sheet. With my own eyes.”)

No doubt, some of the young among them will grow up to be wanna-be girlfriends of the Prince. (His Mum can tell him what to look out for.)  But he can avoid kiss-and-tell photos by making sure the lassies he cavorts with haven’t a camera hidden on their persons. If he heeds the advice of his Uncle Harry,  the ladies are all likely to be running about naked so that shouldn’t be very difficult to do, should it?

Anyway, invasion of privacy is just one side of the scales. What’s on the other? Fabulous wealth, a privileged education, the university of his choice and guaranteed easy employment for life – but, please, not the gap years in the armed forces: why do future monarchs have to be trained to go round the world killing folk? Plus, there’s all that scraping and bowing everywhere you go, if that sort of thing floats your boat. Balances up the wee bit loss of privacy?  I think so. Besides, I imagine that all those soldiers, security agents and police officers will be pretty good at ensuring you perfect privacy whenever you so desire it.

I must say, though, I am disappointed at the name. George. Couldn’t it have been something more original? There’s already been half a dozen King Georges. One of them couldn’t speak English, another okayed Culloden and one went mad and lost the American colonies. On the other hand, there was that one who starred in a Hollywood blockbuster.

I would have preferred James. There have only been two of them – Kings of England, that is.   A James might have been a more proletarian sort of monarch. “Hullorerr, Jim,” we’d have cried when he visited the Scottish colony. That would maybe have helped balance any disquiet up north about having a monarch called King Billy. But since the Windsors and their courtiers rarely ever speak to anyone outside the Home Counties, they are of course oblivious to sensitivities of this sort.

So it’s yet another George. George Alexander Louis. GAL? Isn’t that a gift to all those posh bullies at Eton? All those future prime ministers and chancellors.

Of course, Georgie-boy will have a long wait before he gets to be king. Probably fifty years or so. For the sake of us all, his best hope is, that by then, the English monarchy will have evolved to become like those in more civilised European countries. You know, when we won’t bat an eyelid to see the Royal Gus buying fat balls and bird seed in his local Poundland.

If he’s any sense though, he’ll pre-abdicate. That is, he’ll make best use of all those fantastic privileges then abdicate before he becomes king – say, in his twenties. Hopefully, his brothers and sisters and all the rest will be similarly minded by that time. We could have an upside down version of that moment in “Spartacus” where each of those in line of succession steps forward to cry, “I’m not the King” or “I’m not the Queen”.

Eventually the powers that be would have to organise a lottery. The winner would get to be king or queen for five years. It’s comin’ yet for a’ that, you’ll see. But, alas, it’ll be too late for me. A pity. King Jock has a certain ring to it, if you don’t mind me saying so.