One must try to grin and bear it Camilla ... Prince Charles and his wife in Washington. Photograph: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty
"Broadcast yourself" invites YouTube's slogan, and Prince Charles has belatedly taken it to heart. Not that he's posted his own guerilla video of one of his corgis imitating the motion of a blender, or Camilla getting her skirt torn off after trapping it in a taxi, but for the first time his official website features video of a day in his life.
Divided into four chapters, first you see Chas sitting at his desk (Testino portrait of Diana prominent - perhaps he throws darts at it in moments of stress) mysteriously saying to someone down the phone "I hope the actual valuation will show that it is really worth doing it." Another Duchy Originals line perhaps?
Then we cut to Birmingham, where Charles and Camilla are visiting a youth centre. Charles shows a flair for small talk by asking two small boys "I hear these are new school uniforms - do they fit all right? Not too uncomfortable?"
It's pretty bland fare, and its absence of anything vaguely newsworthy (or even that interesting) stands diametrically opposed to YouTube users' magpie eyes for all things hilarious, sensational and bizarre. Camilla, meanwhile, keeps her mouth shut throughout.
It will be interesting to see how the royals adapt to the internet, since the net's democratic (and nosy) nature is a much stronger and more multi-faceted challenge to royal mystique and privilege than TV was - and look what a Horlicks they made of that.
The net's attitude to the Royals seems exemplified by the fact that when you search for Charles on YouTube you immediately come to a parody about his greatest gaffes and a video of the infamous "these bloody people" clanger. Can the Royals ever use the net to their own ends, or should Republicans get sharpening that virtual guillotine?
