Kate Middleton is 26 today. Royal Anecdotes wishes her a very happy day and many festive returns.

Her long-term boyfriend, Prince William, began a four-month stint in the Royal Air Force on Monday, so it’s likely to be a family and friends only day today for Kate. Nevertheless, I’m sure William will get in touch somehow, even if it is from 30,000 feet.

There are a few good-news Kate stories doing the rounds just now. Often they start in a single red-top tabloid and gain currency through news agencies and by pickups in the world’s local press. Blogs then report them as fact.

One such — which Royal Anecdotes is a bit wary of — started life in The People newspaper. It seems Kate bought Wills a Nintendo Wii game set for Christmas. For those who don’t keep up with these things, it’s a minor marvel of modern technology. The user holds a couple of sensors and plays along with, say, a game of tennis on the screen. Every move made by the user translates to a player onscreen.

Now, the bit that makes me suspicious is that the Queen — Her Royal Britannic Majesty — is said to have become addicted to the thing and spends all her time bouncing around in front of a computer. Such is the state of her dependency on the gadget that poor William can’t get near it : “Go and play with your aeroplanes”, one imagines the Queen snapping while at deuce in the third set against her phantom opponent.

I wonder if the PR firm of Nintendo’s UK distributor had anything to do with this leak to The People?

According to Buckingham Palace, at 5pm GMT this afternoon, Queen Elizabeth II will become Britain’s oldest ever Monarch, overtaking her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria who died in 1901 aged 81 years and 243 days.

The Queen and Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey

We’re told the Queen will spend the day quietly with Prince Philip, her husband for 60 years.

She is the world’s second-longest living monarch, after King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. Elizabeth has outlasted 11 Prime Ministers, the first being Sir Winston Churchill, and is the first to have a premier, Tony Blair, born in her reign.

However, Queen Victoria will retain the record for longest-serving Monarch ever until September 9, 2015.

Peter Hennessy, Professor of Contemporary British history at Queen Mary’s College, University of London said, “Even allowing for the improvement in medicine since Victoria, it is remarkable. I cannot think of any other head of an institution who has not put a foot wrong over such a long period of time.

“In those years, she has presided over the most dignified withdrawal from the superpower status, which is no bad legacy. The way she has adapted, without succumbing to faddish fashions, is a gift of genius.”

Elizabeth’s cousin Margaret Rhodes says it is highly unlikely she will step down early — the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, which forced her father to take over, is still a painful chapter in Royal memory.

The author Robert Jobson says, “Abdication I don’t think is an issue, or something that’s even in consideration to the Queen. As long as she remains in good health, she will continue to be Queen until the day she dies. Otherwise the system does not really work.”

Let us hope this situation does not change until at least September 9, 2015.

Prince Andrew has decided on a very homely Christmas card this year which includes all members of his less than nuclear family.

Eugenie, Andrew and Beatrice on the York’s Christmas card

But where, you might ask, is Mum? Actually, the Duchess took the photo, so modestly remains hidden. Hey, there is a ten second timer on most cameras these days!

And as if one pic was not enough, there’s another on the back.

And still no Fergie. I never knew she was so shy and retiring.

Is this where Zara Phillips gets her ability to jump over obstacles on horseback?

The Queen and Prince Charles helping Princess Anne into Balmoral

She certainly looks the part of a future Olympic sportswoman. A very young Princess Anne is shown being helped to climb into a window at Balmoral by the Queen and a youthful Prince Charles.

Nowadays, of course, such “shocking” behaviour would fall foul of the European Union’s “health and safety” rules. And she hasn’t even got a hard hat on!

Children do need adventure and real learning experiences. Both youngsters grew up to be fearless horse riders.

Methinks the Queen was a much better mother than she’s often given credit for.

This is one of the pictures released by the Palace in advance of Prince Charles’s 60th birthday next November.