With the King’s coronation over – much to his apparent relief, given his slightly twitchy countenance during the ceremony – millions of social media attention-seekers have been clamouring to tell the world the high-minded reasons they refused to watch at the weekend. Thanks, but we didn’t ask.

Of course some will always try to make a virtue of ignoring royal occasions, although there’s obviously no point doing it unless you can ram your objections down other people’s throats and snigger at those who have the temerity to enjoy it. Fellow travellers on Twitter and Facebook will rush to congratulate you, while simultaneously trying to eclipse your antipathy by claiming they did something even more anti-royal on the big day.

Apart from the inevitable protests, much of the focus, predictably, was on the celebrity guests arriving at Westminster Abbey, some more expected than others.

Among those attracting murmurs of disapproval among the moral majority was Australian singer Nick Cave, a man who rises above the tedious political groupthink afflicting performing artists, most of whom are generally too afraid to say or do anything that might undermine their carefully cultivated ‘anti-establishment’ credentials. The irony here is that people like Cave and the other artists attending the coronation, such as Katy Perry, are the real rebels within the entertainment industry.

Responding to some predictable sniping over his presence, Cave’s explanation, which will surely chime with many, read: “I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals – the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself. I am also not so spectacularly incurious about the world, so ideologically captured, so damn grouchy, as to refuse an invitation to what will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of our age.” This is the sort of free-thinking and rejection of contrived rebellion that makes Cave such a brilliant artist.

Just as republicans aren’t all humourless puritans and spoilt middle class students, so being a ‘royalist’ is more complex than collecting commemorative mugs, camping overnight on The Mall or generally being the servile wretch of lame stereotype.

Millions of people just have a long-standing and sometimes illogical fondness for the gaiety and flamboyance of this irreplaceable part of our public life. Many of us prefer the lavish, peculiar and slightly camp nature of royalty to the dour - and not necessarily cheaper - alternatives, while also believing that a person who actively seeks power would be a far inferior head of state to someone who inherits the role.

And who doesn’t enjoy watching a sacred anointing spoon in action on a Saturday morning?