Everyone knows I don't think a lot of the Royal Family - understatement, there, folks - and since this is a family newspaper with many loyal Royalist readers I won't dwell on things like snobbery, class-prejudice, breathtaking arrogance, value-for-money,
what-about-the-state-of-BRI-the-money-we-shell-out-on-those-inbred-aristos-could-get-us-a-state-of-the-art-hospital, no, I won't go on about any of that.

Instead I do wonder why, given the amount of folk, including my father who is Scottish and should know better, always lecturing me at length (is this a theme in my life, I wonder? Why do people feel the need to tick me off all the time? How can I still be a Bad Girl at age 52?) about the wonderfulness and tourist-economy importance of the Royal Family, did so few of her subjects turn out to gawp when she actually set foot in our fair city?

I know it was the afternoon and a weekday, but given the amount of people usually milling aimlessly round (don't even think about posting one of those sad racist comments about Asylum Seekers, I'm in Town a lot and
those people are all sorts from everywhere) the shops anytime, any day, you'd think more would have flocked to see an actual Royal Person.

In fact, many walked straight past with only the most casual of glances. Did they know it was their Glorious Britannic Maj up there on the platform in front
of the (grimly and firmly shut) City Hall gates?

I watched from the veranda of that Chinese restaurant in Centenary Square, along with many others, because I'm totally addicted to people-watching and it was a fascinating event, but not for the reasons you might think.

I think the celeb status of the Royals has faded so much in recent years that in comparison to the furore that would be caused should Posh N' Becks, or Katie N' Peter, or some other sad media person appear on the Park In
The Heart podium, the Queen is rather old hat. She came, she spoke in that Queen voice we all know so well and which bears no resemblance to normal speech, even that of the average aristocrat, she let a few chosen ones touch her hand, she went.

The whole thing will have cost the taxpayers - you and
me - a fortune. I have to ask the question - was it really worth it? Really?

Spin and marketing-speak aside? I know everyone will say I'm naïve and worse - eek - an Old Fashioned Socialist, which I am - but be fair, that money could have paid for BRI to be cleaned properly at least once and for both
staff and patients there, that alone would be a blessing.

The council needs to stop showing off and trying to aggrandise themselves and get down to the nitty-gritty; build us a proper hospital. See to the drains. Bring back the rat-catchers. Care properly and thoroughly for our Elders and our Young. Boring, unglamorous, non-headline-grabbing stuff like that.

I've said it for over twenty years and I'll go on saying it. I said it many years ago in St. George's Hall on the Red Wedge Tour when the Lord Mayor was sitting in the front row and everyone said I was a troublemaker.

So be it, then I am one and proud of it, if saying we need a new hospital is making trouble. Come on, I like arty things and fun projects as well as the next person, maybe more so since I'm an artist myself and have benefited from participating in them since that's my living, but without the decent facilities and proper solid attitudes towards our citizens - not our subjects - we will never get the city we all deserve.

Bradford's had hard times and it's at a low ebb. We all need to support it and get it back to its true brilliance. We should build from the ground up, not waste money on redundant figureheads who don't give a tupenny damn about us and fairy castles built on clouds of ego and misguided blather.

Now, tick me off if you like, I wouldn't want to spoil your fun.