The British Monarchy is more popular than ever, according to an ICM poll published in today’s left-wing newspaper The Guardian.

69% of Britons think the country would be “worse off” without the monarchy compared to 22% who would like to see it abolished, according to an ICM poll.

The 47% point margin is the widest since the same questions were first put to Britons by the research company in 1997.

Despite the support, the poll suggested people are more divided over who should succeed the Queen.

Among a number of other well-known and oft recycled Regal factoids in today's Daily Mail, this gem:

"When travelling abroad the Queen's luggage weighs more than four tons, including 60 vials of homeopathic medicines, carried in a special leather case, without which she won’t travel anywhere.

"She has even been known to treat one of her corgis homeopathically after the animal  cut its foot.

"When she was asked why she used the treatment, she replied: ‘If it’s good enough for me, it should be good enough for my dogs.’"

The Queen has launched a website publishing the (largely) unexpuragted diaries of Queen Victoria  - but revealed she had no plans to publish her own.

More than 40,000 pages of the journals kept by Victoria from the age of 13 until just before her death have been made available online.

Queen Victoria is the only other British monarch to have celebrated a Diamond Jubilee.

The Queen was handed a remote control, which she pointed at a screen to officially launch the website - www.queenvictoriasjournals.org - in Buckingham Palace's throne room.

The deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg, has insisted in parliament that if ‘the birds and the bees’ bless William and Kate with a firstborn daughter, she will be Queen, even if proposed legislation to formalise the new succession rules have not been passed.

Mr Clegg’s comments came in response to a question from a Conservative MP Helen Grant, who asked: "If the birds and the bees of the very romantic Isle of Anglesey were to conspire and bless our future King of England and his wife with the patter of tiny feet before this law was enacted, and if that royal baby turned out to be a little girl, would she succeed to the throne?" 

Her questions followed a line of questioning suggested by a recent guest post on the Royalist blog by writer Robert Lacey.

A Tube train that broke down in a London tunnel stranding 733 passengers was a special Diamond Jubilee train, Transport for London (TfL) has said.

Passengers were led down the track after the train broke down - on the Jubilee line, of course -  near St John's Wood, in north-west London.

The train is one of two bearing bunting decorations to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Model Lily Cole stole the limelight from the Queen and hundreds of other British celebrities at the most glamorous Jubilee event yet last night, when she attended a Diamond Jubilee celebration of the arts wearing a diamond tiara.

Bono, Joan Collins, David Hockney and Sir Paul McCartney were among the revellers gathered at the Royal Academy.

Addressing the Queen, Bono said: "I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary magic that you made on your trip to Ireland last year."

Charles takes aim at journalists with a bow and arrow on tour while in Canada. Ah, for the good old days, eh?

The Royalist's sources have been telling him for some time that the Harry and Chelsy saga still has some way to run, and the 'couple' - imagine when we can really call them that again! - spent this weekend at a music festival in Berkshire.

Kate Winslett was also at the festival, according to performer @djblakey.

The Palace declined to comment on Harry's "personal life".

Some top-tips for organising Jubilee Street Parties from the online party magazine, the Party Times, which is edited by none other than young Pippa Middleton.

P-Middy’s top tips include:

“Delegate dishes and responsibilities to different people or households. Everyone can bring a dish of something, whether it’s a platter of sandwiches, a ready-made quiche, Victoria sponge or a Sherry trifle.”

“Ask the local chip shop to drop off a fish and chip feast for everyone or your local pub to organise a pile of scotch eggs or sausage rolls.  Everyone can bring their own bottles which you can keep cool in a big bucket.”

Zara Phillips, the Queen's granddaughter, will tomorrow carry the Olympic torch on horseback down the finishing straight of Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire.

The 31-year-old will be riding her horse, Toytown, and will use the torch to light a cauldron at the racecourse. Zara held the torch briefly today when she met teenage torchbearers today in the town of Hungerford, as the flame was carried in the west of the country.

The Olympic torch arrived in the UK on 18 May, to a welcoming party which included David Beckham. The torch  is making good preogress around the country - despite having already gone out once.

As arrangements gather momentum for the long Jubilee weekend, royal preparations of another sort are underway – the Guinness world record attempt for the ‘most people wearing paper crowns across multiple locations’.

Organised by the Camping and Caravanning Club, the crown-wearing contest wil be taking place at every one of the club’s campsites on Monday 4th June.

For those who have forgotten their crowns, paper crowns will be provided at each site.

I know, what a relief, right?

Prince Harry could be back serving in Afghanistan soon, after the country’s top soldier, Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, said at a Jubilee event, "Prince Harry's operational tour in Afghanistan in the Army was a huge credit to him and his success in flying training means it is likely he will serve operationally again."

The comments were made during a military tribute to the Queen at Windsor castle, in which more than 2,500 serving soldiers paraded for the monarch, and a flypast of 78 aircraft, which first spelt out the number 60 followed by the initials E R (for Elizabeth Regina) (aviation buffs, see video).

The General’s remarks - which could be regarded as needlessly giving a hostage-to-fortune - are the clearest indication yet that Harry will indeed be returning to operational duties in the front line. Harry’s last deployment was brought to a rapid end after six weeks, when his presence in Afghanistan was noticed by an Australian magazine and then repeated by Matt Drudge, who claimed to be unaware of a media blackout.

The Royal Family are going media mad at the moment. For an organisation that prides itself on preserving the mystique of majesty, they are giving interviews at an unprecedented rate to mark the Jubilee.

The latest spokesperson is Prince William, who has given an extensive interview to the British patron saint of daytime TV and biscuits, Alan Titchmarsh, for an ITV doc entitled “Elizabeth: Queen, Wife, Mother”, to be screened on 1 June.

It seems unlikely she wil upstage her sister this time, but news has emerged that Pippa Middleton will be joining the Royal Family on the river Thames for the Diamond Jubilee pageant, sailing, along with her parents and brother James, on the Elizabethan, an 1890s paddle steamer.

Kate and William will be accompanying the Queen on the Spirit of Chartwell, the Royal barge, along with senior members of the Royal family including Prince Charles and Camilla.

Charles has arranged for his former valet Michael Fawcett - the man once charged with loading toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush - to  personally attend to the Middletons to ensure their day runs smoothly, the Daily Mail reports.

“Michael and Carole’s inclusion on the Elizabethan has only just emerged and has taken a lot of people by surprise, but the Queen is incredibly supportive of the Duchess and her family," a source told the paper. “Boats travelling in the Royal Squadron are solely reserved for special guests of the Queen, which demonstrates just how far the Middletons have come.”

"Horse sweat, men perspire, and ladies gently simmer," went the old expression, and now, one of the Queen's dress designers, Stewart Parvin, has indeed confirmed that Her Majesty does not perspire.

"We always choose fabrics that don’t crease, we go to extra lengths to line them so they don’t. I am somebody who creases all their clothes. I’m always hot, the Queen is very lucky, she doesn’t crease her clothes (because) she doesn’t glow. If you are a cold person your clothes don’t crease,” Mr Parvin, who has worked for the Queen for 11 years, said in an interview published in the (paywalled) Sunday Times yesterday.

Parvin also revealed the Queen has an assistant to wear in her new shoes and prevent chafing during public duties.

"(The shoes) have to be immediately comfortable . . . she does get someone to wear them. The Queen can never say 'I'm uncomfortable, I can't walk any more.' She has the right to have someone wear them in."

Graham Smith, the most successful British republican since Oliver Cromwell, has had a good war so far.

For while you might have thought that those advocating republicanism in the UK would be ploughing a lonely furrow in summer 2012, the year of the Jubilee, you’d be wrong, at least according to Mr Smith, 38, the full-time chief executive of Republic, the UK’s biggest anti-monarchy pressure group.

For whilst the Royal Wedding and the Diamond Jubilee may have stirred up patriotic fervour and the desire to stitch giant Union Jacks in some British hearts, the very public displays of the vast inherited wealth and privilege of the royals are also proving to be potent recruitment tools for his campaign to abolish the “costly and anachronistic” British monarchy.

They are in our gallery, but the shoes of the Queen of Swaziland, Inkhosikati LaMbikiza at the Sovereign's Lunch at Windsor Castle deserve their own post too.

A Royal Navy Pilot sits inside a Lynx helicopter at RAF Odiham air base today ahead of a rehearsal for a Diamond Jubilee flypast.

The RAF, Royal Navy and Army will take part in a flypast of 73 aircraft including a World War II Lancaster bomber and four Spitfires.

When Prince Harry was in Jamaica, he was much admired for his musical moves, getting down to Bob Marley and dancing in his blue suede shoes.

British pop musician Gary Barlow was also traveling around the Commonwealth, recording 210 separate artist contributions for his Jubilee single, and, when he was in Jamaica he managed to get Harry on the tambourine, as shown in this clip (scroll to 1:35).

The track was broadcast this morning on a BBC radio breakfast show.