Quite a few years ago, Billy Connolly did one of the ‘An Audience with’ shows for ITV during which he suggested we replace the current, extremely turgid, national anthem for something rather livelier - Connolly’s suggestion was, as I recall, the theme music to the Archers, which is apparently a piece called ‘Barwick Green’ by a composer called Arthur Wood.

I could see what he was driving at at the time, if a national anthem is supposed to tell you something about the nation to which is belongs then our own little dirge says ‘ponderous apathy’ - ‘God Save the Queen/King/Whatever’ is the anthem of a nation that can’t be arsed to get out of bed in the morning.

I was watching the Wales v Italy Rugby Union international over the weekend and the contrast couldn’t be more marked. On the one side you had the Welsh anthem ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ - that’s ‘Land of My Fathers’ to us English and especially to John Redwood following his clasic performance of the song while Secretary of State for Wales - which has that big Methodist hymnal feel to it, especially when sung with gusto at a Rugby match. On the other there was the Italian national anthem which is about as lively and upbeat as national anthems get and rattles along at a fair old pace. Both are infintiely preferable to our own turgid little tune.

Over the week end I also watched a fascinating documentary on the history of the British Monarchy on one of the Discovery channels, which apart from highlighting the ragbag of Normans, French, Welsh, Scots and Germans who’ve all ruled this country since the Norman conquest of 1066. also shed some light on the origina of our present national anthem, which was, according the programme, originally written to cheer up Louis XIV of France after an operation on his backside before being ‘given’ to one of his mistresses to James II, the Stuart king who was deposed in favour of William of Orange so as not to put a Roman Catholic on the British throne, before eventually being adopted to show support for George II (German) while he was having a little trouble with a few rebellious Scots.

Kind of sums it all up really, doesn’t it - the thing that God was originally supposed to save the King (Louis XIV) from was a boil on his arse!

There are far better arguments for ditching the monarchy, certainly, but as a fringe benefit dumping ‘God Save the Queen…Yawn’ in favour of something a little more uplifting certainly has its attractions.

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