My goodness, we meteorologists get in a state about hurricanes and tidal waves, but when you think about what that couple's been through, it certainly puts those little quibbles into perspective."

Everyone important had to make their statement, including Tony Blair, and in the next couple of days, the United Nations will probably announce: "We deeply regret the tragic news concerning the couple, and wish that if only the people of Darfur showed the courage of these young heroes, the region's problems would soon be put behind them."

Every agony aunt in the world has written something along the lines of: "My advice Katie, sweetie, is to be strong, darling, and while the burning pain rages inside your charming, precious heart, remember greatness comes from rejection, pet, as it did for Joan of Arc and Boudicca, pudding, as it did for Nelson Mandela, it shall for you, sausage, it shall, it shall."

All last week, I expected to see: "The shooting in the US is especially tragic for poor William and Kate.

A spokesman for the prince said: 'What a shame that this should happen this week, of all weeks, when this heartbroken pair has already been through so much'."

But buried away in this cack was one point of interest . . . the debate about whether the split was a result of William's girlfriend not being posh enough.

Because her mum was an air stewardess and chewed gum, and Kate said "toilet" instead of "lavatory". Or, as Kishanda Fulford, whose family has lived in a stately home for 800 years, wrote: "I am a firm believer in people marrying into the same class. It is in a princess's breeding to know which knife and fork to use to peel a banana, to disguise boredom for hours on end and not to cry as the pins keeping the tiara on draw blood. I fear that in the end, that's where Kate would have been found wanting."

Ah, so many issues here. First of all, what sort of tosspot peels a banana with a knife and fork? I think whoever teaches etiquette to the aristocracy is having a laugh.

But also, it exposes the constant dilemma of modern royalty. They owe their existence as royals to the idea that their breeding makes them superior, yet they have to try and be popular with the wider population they see as beneath them. So they're desperately refuting these charges of snobbery towards Kate Middleton, as part of this attempt to create an image of themselves as experiencing the traumas of a normal family. As if William and Kate would anxiously gaze into estate agent windows and say: "It's crazy, this boom has priced couples like us out of the palace market, and gives us NO chance of getting on the castle ladder."

Yet the modern royalist insists the royals perform heroic levels of duty under enormous stress. So the most popular theory for the cause of William and Kate parting is the pressure placed on their relationship by his military and royal schedule.

Somehow though, this schedule included a recent skiing holiday, quickly followed by a day at Cheltenham races.

Such is their degree of normal pressure, they even have spokesmen to convey their every thought.

Imagine if every woman who was dumped could get a PR consultant to make an announcement. So it would be on the news that "a spokesman said that, while feeling hurt by Dave's decision, she nonetheless is of the opinion that he can, like, go swivel on that, loser, and added that while she hopes they remain friends, d'you think she can't do better? Yeah? Yeah? Whatever."

The main pressure, it seems, of being royal, is that you have to abandon all emotions and humanity in the name of duty. Which is why if royalists really cared about the royals, they'd become republicans.

Then William could happily marry a girl who worked on the till at Homebase.