WHEN asked who he would most like to interview, the great John Humphrys had no hesitation. ‘The Queen’, he replied.

Me too. Because she doesn’t give interviews. Because she has met nearly all the most important people in the world over the last six decades. And because she is a living, breathing icon of our age, the like of which we will not see again.

If I interviewed the Queen I’d ask her; what’s it like being you? What’s it like to know that every time you go out in public, everything you say or do will be scrutinised, criticised and commented upon?

What’s it like to know that if you snag your tights or drop your handbag or fail to smile at the right moment it will appear on the front pages of newspapers all over the world? And maybe start off some diplomatic incident if you’re very unlucky.

I’d ask her how on earth she manages to sit through the Royal Variety Performance every year and stand through all those meet and greets and Buck House garden parties.

I’d ask her how she manages to look so thrilled and delighted to meet those dreary lines of mayors, councillors, public officials and dodgy foreign dictators, especially when her government ungraciously insists that she puts them up in her own palace for the night.

I’d like to know how she keeps a straight face when reading out most Queen’s speeches, and how she restrains herself from whacking her Prime Ministers with her handbag, when they tell her they are going to cut compensation for injured soldiers or refuse life-saving drugs for young mums with breast cancer.

I’d ask her what it’s like to have to pretend to be interested in vacuous slebs like Kate Moss and Russell Brand when really, she’d rather be chatting to Frankie Dettori or Nelson Mandela.

If she wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask her why she fell in love with Prince Phillip and if he’s ever brought her a cup of tea in bed in the morning. I’d ask her what she really thinks of Camilla, and if it’s true that she told Mrs Thatcher that she never notices what other people are wearing.

I’d ask her what thoughts go through her head when she represents us every year on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph, and I’d ask her what her favourite TV programme is, and if she’s worried her crown will fall off when she’s opening parliament.

More than anything I’d ask her what was going through her mind when she pledged herself to our service as a young woman of 27 and if she really had any idea of what she was getting into or where it would all lead.

I’d thank her for that speech when she broke down, thanking the veterans of Normandy for their sacrifice, and for last year’s visit to Ireland where she told them; “We can all see things which we would wish had been done differently, or not at all”, and I’d thank her for representing us with such dignity over the years.

At the end of the interview, I’d tell her that while I am a republican and therefore would like to have the chance to say who should be our head of state, I would always vote for her because she is, quite simply, the best.

Then, when it was all over, I’d go away and try and fix it for her nag to win the Derby. Because she’d love that, wouldn’t she?

• SOMETHING called the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation are astonished to discover that at least half of all girls are put off organised sport for life because of the way PE lessons are conducted.

Goodness gracious, whoever would have thought it? Only people like me, who, after five years of being forced to run through bogs, bull fields and building sites in nothing but a flappy Aertex shirt and a garment of extreme indecency known as a track brief, to be forced into communal showers while being screeched at by a creature who looked like Ridley Scott’s Alien in a Rebecca Brooks fright wig; swore never, ever to take part in any organised sporting match, team or event again. And I haven’t. And there are millions like me. If you want to know why women hate sports, just look at female sports teachers.