The adoring young couple rode about in a stagecoach, laughed like drains and waved to the crowd, posed for the cameras, the sunlight glinting off their toxically orange hides.

Their professionally whitened grins were those of two people deeply in love; deeply in love with themselves every bit as much as with the attention.

Katie Price and Peter Andre haven't reconciled their well-publicised differences for the sake of their fawning public.

These populist cowboys were none other than the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, whose antics are being followed with the sort of intense scrutiny normally reserved for Glenn Mulcaire.

The Cambridges' 10-day tour of the US and Canada was demeaning for us as much as it was for them.

It was, when all's said and done, little more than an exercise in establishing them as the I'm a Celebrity couple of our times, what with their dragonboat racing, landing helicopters on lakes and playing street hockey.

And the reportedly 'enchanted' US and Canadian public lapped it all up; fawning and frothing like serfs with scrofula.

Many of us have been bummed out about the fact that the previous decade's lack of interest in - and, indeed, widespread contempt for - the Royals must have been a blip, given the gusto with which the media and common psyche have entered an era of New Royalism.

We've all bewailed the return to obsequiously hyperbolic commentary and a fervour redolent of Girl Scouts promising to honour their Queen and country.

So what does the ascendancy of Waity Katie Price and Prince Andre mean for the rest of us?

Simply this: that we will not be spared from the most minute Royal goings-on from now on. They spawn, we must gasp and murmur; they break wind, we'll all genuflect.

It would be practically medieval were it not for the obvious inspiration that the Royal couple have taken from reality TV culture.

Mark my words: Kate and Wills have been studying Heat and OK! as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. And here's what they have learned from their researches.

Lesson One: cultivate a will they/won't they romance. We poor saps were so concerned about whether Kate would get her crown or not, that we didn't realise they were simply following the same steps as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.

Lesson Two: perpetuate your popularity by asking Press photographers to stay away, but by lingering in front of them wherever possible.

Lesson Three: don cute matching outfits, so that even your critics can have fun slating you. Hence, the cowboy look - the Press and the public are so savvy these days that it takes more than a baseball cap (William Hague) or denim shirt (Tony Blair) to gain notoriety.

Lesson Four: the law of averages means that the more time you spend in front of the cameras, the more likely we are to see your knickers. Which was proven on a Canadian airfield.

Wouldn't it be better for all involved if Kate and Wills just closeted themselves in the Welsh cottage they profess to be so fond of?

We're all tiring of celebs and we'll tire of this pair, too. Just look at what happened to Kerry Katona.