Attending a reception at Buckingham Palace, astonishingly overrated guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were surprised to discover the Queen had no idea who they were.  Lucky lady.

At a medium-sized push, Page and Beck have a right to be a tiny bit disgruntled, but Clapton… God, NO. 

Clapton appeared at a recent benefit gig for the bulging Tsunami Appeal. He ‘headlined’ the bill, strolling on at the end to play a load of spit-bucket sludge from his new album. Gleefully ignoring the chants of “Play Layla!” from an aggravated audience, the Clapmeister choked his way through ten minutes of mind-numbing boredom before floating away on a big cloud of self-righteousness.

On further consideration, perhaps Clapton is right to be ticked off that the Queen didn’t recognise him. Everyone ought to know who he is. Children should be made to read his lyrics backwards as a satanic death chant every time they do something naughty. 

“It must be 45 years now,” said Clapton to the Queen after Liz 1 enquired about how long he’d been playing.  Many good people have died in a shorter length of time.

Roll on the next group of musicians who will soon be making an ‘Invaluable Contribution to British Culture’ the same as Clapton and his cronies. With any luck they won’t sound as banal, although the phoenix-like rise of Embrace has astounded us all and we doubt Coldplay are going to sound dynamic anytime soon. Pixies they ain’t.