Ah, lovely memories of the old Queen, or the Queen, as some of us still call her.

including obligatory Arthur Askey reference.

I’m not sure if I’ve posted this before, and this platform is so hideously dysfunctional, I’m finding it impossible to look through my back catalogue (if you know what I’m saying missus). But anyway, apologies if you’ve already read it. Round about 2015 I was writing a hit column for the Racing Post, and reflecting on my own mortality and that of Queen Elizabeth ll, you know the proper Queen. Here it is…

One of T.S.Eliot's best gags was the one in his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, about this Prufrock chap measuring out his life with coffee spoons, the poor blighter. I'm measuring mine by the size of my diaries. The volume has been getting scantier by the year. My 2015 one is the thinnest I could find in W.H.Smith, just one page per week.

Back in the '80s I had a bulging leather-bound Filofax, a separate page for every day with lots of extra stuff in the back, indispensable to the rising media star, like public holidays in Hong Kong, and the phone number for O'Hare airport. By last year I was down to a miserable pocket diary, a week spread over two pages, and even that was looking undernourished with acres of white space between "haircut," "pick up dry cleaning," and "Independence Day, Honduras."

So this year, to soften the blow to self-esteem, I have gone smaller. I suppose this is what happens. Your diary recedes along with your gums and hairline until you're left with just one page reading "Crematorium, 3.30." Happy Christmas.

I'm joking of course, but this time of the year sometimes gets me like that. The official line is that 'tis the season to be jolly - I think it's the law - but there's sadness about it too, especially on Christmas Day if your nearest and dearest are far away - and even more so if they're all over your living room eating Quality Street and watching Mrs Brown's Boys.

'Tis a particularly desolate day for sports fans, which is why I expect there was a sudden flurry of bets on Her Majesty the Queen using her Christmas speech to abdicate, rather in the style of Kevin Keegan when he jacked in the England job in a live TV interview, or Dave Lee Travis announcing on Radio One that the nation was going to have to rub along without him on Saturday mornings.

Her Majesty following suit seems highly unlikely - not that that's ever stopped me betting on anything - as Kegsy decided he was "too small" (5ft 8in) for the England job after losing to Germany, and Travis had lost his job more or less, while the Queen hasn't lost anything (Kenya, I suppose, but that was years ago, and it was always going to happen) and after 62 years, even though she and her diary are shrinking in the manner outlined above, there would be no reason for her to feel "too small" for the gig.

No, I can only deduce that the urge to bet on the unthinkable happening in the Queen's Speech was to add some interest to TV's most barren day of the year. There used to be an NFL match on Christmas Day, but even that has now gone, so for those of us who haven't had a flutter on the Queen tearing up the script, breaking into an unaccompanied version of My Way, and saying Hasta La Vista baby, it's just a case of getting through the day the best we can, before reaching the promised land of Boxing Day, and Chelsea - West Ham at lunchtime (the title decider, I'm calling it), and the King George Vl Stakes in the afternoon.

Unlike Keegan and DLT, of course, the Queen is pre-recorded, so one assumes the hopeful punters have been privy to some tittle tattle arising from the taping, and feel this gives them an edge, which is basically what betting is all about.

Case in point; the Sports Personality of the Year Contest. Like the rest of the nation - and crucially the bookies - I felt there was no way Rory McIlroy's remarkable achievements on the golf course would fail to be recognised by the voters, but my friend Jim White of the Daily Telegraph pointed out to me that the Facebook page for Mercedes - Lewis Hamilton's car - had one million 'likes' (whatever they are).

We agreed if people are prepared to 'like' the flipping car, there's every chance they might call up and vote for the driver (wherever he lives, and however little or much tax he pays). Golf enthusiasts, on the other hand, would more likely be relaxing with a snifter, looking through catalogues of ridiculous trousers.

I duly piled on Hamilton at 100-30, making the BBC's terminally dull broadcast, which occupied what felt like 9 or 10 hours on Sunday evening, almost tolerable. The trouble with the endless interviews with athletes is that what makes athletes admirable is their dedication in sacrificing everything to achieve their dreams. Bravo, but for entertainment value you might as well interview Lewis Hamilton's car.

In the unlikely event of the Queen hanging up her crown on Christmas Day, I hope those of you who invested collect, unlike in the definitely apocryphal story of the punter who went round a number of bookmakers in 1978 before finding one prepared to quote odds on Pope John Paul l dying within a year of taking office.

As we know this happened, after just over a month. Shortly after the tragedy, he told a friend about the bet he had struck at very generous odds; "You must have won a packet," said his mate. "I'm afraid not," he replied (and here kiddies is where you'll have to consult your dad or Google), "I had him in a double with Arthur Askey."