redundant from her IT job at the local college and he was struggling to find work. Madness. We are a self-selected minority here I think. Almost none of my friends and colleagues seem to be interested in political reform or monetary reform, or care particularly deeply about foreign injustices committed in our name. When I speak of these things, it is very evidently unfamiliar territory to them. Extrapolating from this, I think most people in the country don't care enough about the monarchy to feel strongly in favour or against. If there were a referendum on abolishing it, the majority would vote against abolishing -- because people are naturally conservative when they do not feel sufficiently well informed. . An interesting title, hard to come by. I tried finding it on Amazon, they won't even list it: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstoneswe\\... Clark . 'KingofWelshNoir, superb rant!' . Hey, thanks! I wrote it while drunk and woke up this morning worrying I might been a bit too bellicose! Sorry if I was. . Anyway, it seems it wasn't just me, Yahoo is reporting a backlash against what Stephen Fry described as the most . 'mind-numbingly tedious programme in its history'. . But of course, it was worse than that "If most of these countries are 'republics' why are they 'members' of the 'commonwealth' and listed as possessions of the British Monarchy on this website?" . It's called having your cake, selling it down the river and eating it, Mary. Evgueni, we are self selected