Emma Cowing: No wonder they're rolling in it if that's all they pay for rent

WHAT DOES £69 get you these days? Not a lot, really. A couple of loaves of bread, perhaps. A few drops of petrol. An Icelandic bank, maybe.

That is, of course, unless your surname includes the words "Michael of Kent", in which case, until recently, £69 a week would have snagged you a five-bedroom, five-reception room home in Kensington Palace.

I've always been hazy as to what it is, exactly, the Michaels of Kent do. I know he's the beardy one that looks like a Romanov family reject and occupies some spurious naval role, while she has the nickname Princess Pushy and writes books with titles like Cupid and the King and The Serpent and the Moon. And they always seem to turn up for Wimbledon.

But why we should have to care about them, or in any way subsidise their existence, I've never quite understood. Perhaps the Queen, who once described Princess Michael as sounding "a bit too grand for us", doesn't understand either. At any rate she has finally decided, after a long campaign by a number of outraged MPs, to stop subsidising the Michaels' lifestyle once and for all, and asked them to shell out a proper rent for their fancy digs.

From the Michaels' marriage, in 1979, until 2002, the couple have paid a peppercorn rent for their Kensington Palace apartments, rumoured to be around £69 a week. In 2002 it was agreed that a commercial rent should be paid on the rooms, which the Queen (if only we all had such generous cousins) has stumped up ever since. That agreement, however, has finally come to an end and from 2009, the couple will have to find £120,000 a year in order to hold on to their London pad.

It is interesting that this revelation has come to light in the same week that Jeremy Paxman has spoken out against the BBC's habit of "fawning" over the Royal family, and accused the corporation of having an identity crisis over whether to report royal events of celebrate them.

Personally, I think it's far wider than the BBC. For much of the past 20 years Britain has had a two-faced relationship with the Royals, one minute castigating them for their sheer existence, the next lauding them for getting married (or divorced) and bringing in the tourists. Now even the Queen appears to have waded in, realising that the family, or at least some of its minor members, should be held more accountable for themselves.

These are difficult times, and terms such as 'grace and favour', 'peppercorn rent' and 'Michael of Kent' are unlikely to be tolerated in a country teetering on the brink of severe economic crisis.

When it comes to the Royals, I suggest we follow the Queen's lead, and start treating them like everyone else. Got £69 I could borrow, Ma'am?

Slipping into new stilettos could avert the economic crisis

I KNEW it would take the fairer sex to sort out the credit crunch.

According to a survey by Elle magazine, a third of women have admitted that their clothes-shopping habits have been unaffected by rising inflation, high fuel bills and the general collapse of the global economy as we know it. A quarter said they spent between £25 and £100 a month on shoes alone, while 70 per cent said they thought about buying new clothes "nearly every day".

Now, a few curmudgeonly naysayers have suggested this is in some way a bad thing and an irresponsible way to act in an economic crisis. Heaven knows why. As retailers begin to struggle in an economy that is clearly on its last legs, what they need, what Britain needs, is armies of female shoppers willing to roll up their sleeves and contribute their bit not just for the good of the country, but also for that cute outfit for Saturday night that still needs the perfect pair of stilettos.

WHETHER deliberate or not, it was nevertheless great to see Nicole Kidman heading out for a night on the tiles with grey roots poking through her strawberry blonde locks earlier this week. Kidman has never been one of my favourite Hollywood actresses (too pale, too bony), and in my view did the Stepford Wife thing just a little too well, but her decision not just to embrace her grey roots but to happily allow herself to be photographed demonstrates a more relaxed side to a woman I'd always suspected may have been put together in a factory. Grey hair on women is nothing to be ashamed of and Kidman, for the record, looked beautiful. Good on her.