Kate royal photo: I'm a Republican, but have never been more interested in royal family - Alexander Brown

Their names, their titles and any combination of the two have been muted on my X feed since I first signed up, in a bid to ensure I do not hear about them.

It’s not that I’m ambivalent to them. I just strongly believe they shouldn’t exist, because I don’t believe being born into one family makes you better than someone else. I certainly don’t think it should earn you numerous estates, tax exemptions and golf courses we could and should build houses on.

For the longest time, I have felt out of touch on this issue, seeing people say “long may they reign over us” about celebrities they’ve seen on the television, or lining the streets to celebrate a man who should be retired getting to wear a crown.

What others view as patriotism, I see as obsessive fandom, no different to the fans of celebrities who wait outside venues for hours in the hopes of a glimpse of their favourite actor or pop star.

But in the past few years, something has changed. Instead of being irritated by them, following the royals has become fun again, helped no end by their disastrous decision making.

It began with Harry moving to America, a decision that caused – and I’m not exaggerating here – at least half of Britain’s media to have a total breakdown. There was his ill-considered foray into podcasts and the reaction to his departure was simply pathetic. And I loved it.

Now the royals, that taxpayer-funded content mill, have delivered yet again – this time with question marks over exactly what is happening with the Princess of Wales.

When she first disappeared from public life due to surgery, I thought nothing of it. It’s a logical thing to do when recovering, nothing to see here.

Then the doctored picture emerged and all hell broke loose. Why were the children’s hands transparent? Why was Kate’s head emerging through the middle of one’s body? Why had she edited it in the first place?

Her explanation she “experiments” with editing didn’t help, given parents routinely post objectively bad pictures with their children and it’s fine, because they’re with their children.

It was so utterly bizarre and the response has been brilliant. The memes, the conspiracy theories, the fact we still haven’t seen or heard from Kate outside of a written statement that could therefore be written by anyone.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I was facing questions about being alive, not having fled the country or not having had cosmetic surgery, I would simply show up. Instead Kensington Palace poured fuel onto the flame, encouraging the speculation about where she is and damaging the estate’s own reputation. Delicious.

If she’s not well enough to go out, that’s so fine, get well soon. Prince William is still out and spending time with close friends, we don’t need a pretend version of what’s going on.

But I’m glad we do. It’s made the royals look really bad and it’s been tremendous fun.