I read with some amusement the advice to Nicolas Sarkozy to ditch the Bling when he meets the Queen. Out go the Rolex and Raybans in favour of a more restrained look as he attends a State Banquet at Windsor Castle.

I visited the State Apartments at Windsor Castle last week and in my opinion Sarkozy may end up wondering why he bothered to dump the relatively restrained icons of the rich and famous.

The Windsor Castle State Rooms have been decorated in the most ostentatiously blinged up way imaginable. All that gold leaf, plaster moulding, heavy curtains and bright, garish wallpaper make some of the rooms worthy of a drug dealers ‘crib’.

Windsor Castle really is a case of ‘Pimp My Palace’, the only vestment of restraint and normality in these rooms is the tantalising  glimpse through the windows of Slough in the mid distance.