Since QE2 passed away I’ve been watching the telecasts of the news with a kind of dread. One black suit, black tie, black dress after another seated at a desk where the conventions of royalty are pored over with the same concentration and enthusiasm as a panel of football experts discussing the relative severity of a crash tackle. Will the player be sent off? If he isn’t and he scores a try has the referee inexcusably skewed the game’s outcome? We love the minutiae of sport just as we love being the first person in the Twitter feed to expound on the origins of the name “Hansard” or to explain why the new House Speaker pretends to go resisting to the chair at the front of the room. QE2’s sudden demise has powered our love of rules into an obsession and we wonder at the Proclamation, gape like schoolchildren at the King gritting his teeth in frustration when a tray of pens gets in his way as he’s signing some arcane document – you mean you still don’t know? – and watch enraptured as...