Andrew Motion moans about the Queen

Although the position comes with an annual salary of £5,000 and a butt of sack (translation: an awful lot of free sherry), this has not stopped Britain’s Poet Laureate Andrew Motion (pictured) complaining that the job is "incredibly difficult and entirely thankless". Speaking at the Ealing Arts festival on Tuesday, he revealed that composing occasional verse for public occasions has worked to the detriment of his own poetry and he moaned that the Queen has never deigned to offer an opinion on his rhymes.

"The job has been very, very damaging to my writing," said Motion. "In fact, I dried up completely about five years ago and can’t write anything except to commission."

Motion, 55, who was appointed in 1999 and who will stand down next year having served the statutory ten years, seems most vexed by the lack of feedback from the Queen. "The last thing I did was for her diamond wedding anniversary. I came up with a poem and had to go along to Westminster Abbey. It was read beautifully by Dame Judi Dench," he said. "Afterwards the Queen stopped me and said, 'Thank you'. But I have no idea if she really liked it."

Motion went on: "I just wrote what I could for them [the Royal Family], did what I had to do, and I won’t be including any of that work in my future collections.” This will probably be a relief to Prince William, for whom Motion composed a 'rap' tribute to mark his 21st birthday, part of which went like this:

Better stand back
Here’s an age attack,
But the second in line
Is dealing with it fine.