I rather liked what David Mitchell wrote about this in today's Observer. The Queen's jubilee should be a time of rejoicing for our spoilsports

'...making our weird cartoonish monarchy the focus for a national knees-up is so cleverly inclusive: it gives the curmudgeons a role. Peter Wilby moaned that: "At times like this, republicans risk being portrayed as killjoys and spoilsports." But he's wrong. It's the other way round: at times like this killjoys and spoilsports get to be portrayed as republicans. The Queen's existence means that a flabby "Bah humbug!" emotion is given a rational constitutional backbone and transformed into a credible opinion.'