WHEN an individual is invited to Buckingham Palace to be invested with a national honour, it is a momentous occasion in his or her life. It demands recording for posterity with photos taken or, as at most special occasions these days, with video film to be viewed frequently later.

But, cameras of all kinds are banned at royal investitures. And the occasion has been soured for some people by the offer of an official video of their honourable moments at the far from modest price of £140. The 27-minute film is said to include only about 40 seconds of the person concerned actually receiving their award from the Queen, and the rest is general footage.

Buckingham Palace states that the job is out to contract. The cameras involved have to be robotic and in a fixed position and can only be used for investitures.

However, since these occur 19 times a year, involving large numbers of honoured men and women, it sounds like the palace video business is a lucrative one indeed. Supporters of the video firm would no doubt argue that people are quite prepared to pay a large fee for a commercial video of a wedding, for example. But, of course, then, the couple buying the wedding video are the only stars of the show.

Start counting up the revenue involved, and the scale of fees mounts impressively. And, at a particularly memorable time of their lives, the lasting feeling for some people may well be "You've Been Framed!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.