The Queen has relaunched her website at a Buckingham Palace reception in the company of the world wide web's inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The royal site, which started in 1997, now includes more video material as well as historical documents.

Queen Victoria's journal in which she describes trying out Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone, is be among the new features.

About 250,000 people around the world visit the site each week.

The Queen stood in front of a bank of nine screens and clicked a remote control to re-launch the site.

The Monarchy site's homepage appeared showing a range of simple menus and tabs which it is hoped will make it easier to navigate.

In a speech, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said the website "celebrates a really important part of the British cultural tradition - the monarchy - and is a great resource for the people within Britain, so it deepens that culture.

"But at the same time it's there for anybody to see it from other countries, where they really don't understand how the monarchy works - what it does do, what it doesn't do - so now they can go and look."

When the site was first launched, the Queen spoke of how some parents and grandparents found the internet "a bit of a mystery".

BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said while the site should be more user-friendly, the Queen is only going so far into cyberspace.

"We can't e-mail her and there's little prospect of the Queen blogging, conducting a webchat or indeed twittering," our correspondent added.

The site was visited more than 100 million times in its first year, making it one of the most popular locations on the internet at the time. And in the week of Princess Diana's funeral, some 35 million visits were recorded.

Royal.gov.uk is not the only presence the Queen has on the internet. In 2007, she launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The Royal Channel features her Christmas Day message, and recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the band!  You need the definite article to avoid confusion!
;)

Oh, I thought you were talking about the band!  You need the definite article to avoid confusion!
;)
Been sorted.

"But at the same time it's there for anybody to see it from other countries, where they really don't understand how the monarchy works - what it does do, what it doesn't do - so now they can go and look."


Despite looking, I still can't quite fathom out what the monarchy does and doesn't do...

(Apart from swallow vast shedloads of taxpayers' cash...gawd bless yer, ma'am!)

Does the Queen have the Royal Wii?