My republican colleague David Donovan did a sterling job putting William’s visit into perspective; he certainly did his homework.

However, the hyperbolic crap written by la Overington and the kiddies reporting for the commercial channels had a modicum of reality, certainly when compared to the unbelievably saccharine claptrap that oozed from the norepublic.com website, which is, of course, the mouthpiece of Australia’s self-appointed Buckingham Palace press officer, the redoubtable and ever so impeccably coiffed Professor David Flint, AM.

Flint’s early days of writing were surely learned at the feet of the writers for the Australian Women’s Weekly, circa 1940; his style and content is of an era long gone and certainly forgotten and like the monarchy itself has no place in contemporary Australia.

In Flint’s glory days, thousands of Australians lined royal routes and cheered themselves into frenzy. There was no TV to bring the whole charade into living rooms but in any case interest soon dissolved.

Flint and his sidekick, the former seminarian — not our Tony — Thomas Flynn and their new apprentice Jai Martinkovits were either on another planet or had taken their eyes off the royal ball .

Martinkovits has become the apple of Flint’s eye, even to the extent that the young bloke’s IT company was promoted on the ACM website. The professor seems to be obsessed by Jai; we can only assume he wants him as his successor.

Now Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM) is in the hands of Flint and Flynn — and maybe young Jai by now. There are but two members, both the Fs and the remainder of the Flat Earthers are called “supporters”; they have no voting rights; their only obligation is to pay fees.

Young Jai — who the top-rated radio man Steve Price referred to as “that idiot” — is a dyed-in-the-wool monarchist, in fact he could be the love child of Flint and the Fairy Queen. Witness his statement in norepublic.com:  “… as the excitement of the media surrounding Prince William’s visit reached fever pitch …”

Please!

William’s visit was that of a celebrity — a good-looking young bloke who, along with his brother, is the only normal member of the world’s most dysfunctional family — and the handful of people who turned out to see him would pale into insignificance had the visitor been Brad Pitt or even Bart Simpson.

William for king, William for governor-general — it just won’t happen and it just shouldn’t. Despite Flint, Flynn and Jai, change is on the way and the sooner the better.