The other day I was walking up Wilton Road, near Victoria station in London. It's not the nicest part of town. Wicked is on at a theatre facing the station; sometimes there are happy schoolchildren milling about, but for the most part it is puddles, abandoned rubbish, paving stones in need of repair. And lines of taxis, their drivers waiting hours for a fare, praying that when they reach the head of the queue they'll be going to Heathrow rather than half a mile down the road.
Along this dreary thoroughfare I spotted Prince Edward, accompanied by a burly man I assumed was his minder. Maybe we are nearer a bicycling monarchy than we thought: even the Queen's son is now just a minor royal, marching through the drizzle and over the potholes, no longer riding past the subjects in a Daimler.
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