Amazin' Zara's a jewel in the Crown.

Byline: Maureen Messent

SHE'S gutsy, almost beautiful and, despite her education at the poshest schools where her A-level results weren't enough to get her into university, the feisty Zara Phillips can barely string a couple of words together.

In the week that we were told her grandmother, the Queen, had dropped her cut glass accent, Zara came out with the ugliest of speech patterns to receive her BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

"It's amazin' she said. "I'm sat there in awe of everyone...it's amazin'.

"I was, like, no, I haven't prepared a speech."

It's clear Miss Phillips has spent far too much time in the stableyard and should leave speech-making to others in future.

Still, there's lots to amuse us in this woman.

A couple of years ago, when she shared a Cotswold loose-box with jump jockey Richard Johnson, the pair would brawl in pubs - she once had a fist fight with him and blacked his eye.

Then there was the day at Cheltenham races when, wearing jeans and a pullover, she strode into a public women's lavatory with a carrier bag, locked herself in a cubicle for five minutes then emerged dressed to the nines.

What a House of Windsor jewel she is when compared to her uncles Charles, Andrew and Edward.