Is it all right if I don’t have opinion about Harry and William?

I could probably find a few down the back of the sofa or pull something dusty from the pocket of a pair of jeans I don’t wear so much anymore.

But there are far too many thoughts and opinions out there already.

They tumble from the mouths of royal correspondents; they summersault across the pages of newspapers with nothing better or more important to discuss; they crowd the airwaves like so many angry bees; they colonise computer screens and phone screens; and you can bet that tonight more worthless words will slip from the lizard lips of Nicholas Witchell, the BBC’s veteran pontificator on matters royal.

Unlike Nicholas, who is 69 and should surely retire, I am not saying anything. Apart from saying that I am not going to say anything: does that count as saying something? I am trying to not let an opinion escape.

I don’t wish to take sides, to pour scorn on one brother and his much-abused wife, or to stick up for the apparently more acceptable brother and his far saintlier wife, or so they say, those pushers of idle words about princes.

What I know could fill the back of a stamp featuring their late grandmother; and soon to feature their father, known in Private Eye as King Brian, a pleasing detail that is as close to a fact as you are getting.

Princely brothers have fought throughout history, only nowadays they do so on the front pages of our newspapers and on the television rather than on the battlefield. Or others do so on their behalf, filling the gaps in their knowledge with the thumb-printed putty of rumour and speculation

What I don’t really understand, and apologies if this counts as an opinion, is why anyone could care less. Is there nothing else we can discuss; nothing else we can obsess about, instead of bothering to favour one or other of two extremely privileged brothers and their wives? Is one prince to blame more than the other?

Oh, God, who knows or cares.

I just looked down the back of the sofa and there was nothing at all. But there was a whole book down there about the collapse of the NHS.