THE ALMOST continual media coverage of the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first child has finally started to settle down in the wake of some actual news happening.
By contrast, on Monday, it was relentless and largely unwatchable.
From the breakfast announcement that Kate had gone into labour and been taken to the private Lindo wing of St Mary's hospital in London - to the moment, 10 hours later, that she had popped out an 8lb 6oz sprog - the likes of the BBC and Sky provided all-day coverage of... nothing much.
That much was confirmed by the brilliantly frank BBC royal correspondent Simon McCoy, who was forced to wait outside the hospital to report on any news.
He admitted on air: "Plenty more to come from here, of course - none of it news because that will come from Buckingham Palace but that won't stop us."
Meanwhile, this was - we were told by Prime Minister David Cameron - "a very exciting occasion and the whole country is excited".
And it was certainly afforded the sort of breathless coverage - both at home and, in fairness, elsewhere around the world - which befits a landmark event.
Surely, though, there was far too much fuss over what was - on a basic level - a woman in childbirth, something which has been happening for thousands of years.
Private Eye perhaps best summed up the arrival of the third-in-line to the throne on the front page of its latest edition, which states simply in large letters - "WOMAN HAS BABY" - adding in tiny print at the bottom, "INSIDE: Some other stuff".
Of course, for the likes of the Sun and the Daily Mail, baby George Alexander Louis was gold dust in the generally quiet summer season.
Top cringe marks must go to the Sun for taking the unprecedented step of changing its masthead for the day to 'The Son'.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail website benefited from its biggest ever audience - 10.5m unique users, and its print edition was unsurprisingly a "Royal Baby Souvenir Special".
Amusingly, though, in the midst of the copious amounts of print, the Mail had the nerve to criticise the BBC for its over-the-top coverage. Incredible.
At least those looking for an alternative view would have found some job with the Mirror and the mini version of the Independent.
The Mirror, though joining in the gushing of the new royal in its editorial, gave room to republican commentator Brian Reade - while, rather pointedly, 'The I' led with the headline: "Born to Rule".
Media Guardian commentator Roy Greenslade has claimed that the media was simply "giving people what they want" - and it is true that the baby has arrived at a time when the royal family is riding a wave of popularity.
An Ipsos Mori poll last week showed 77% of Britons were in favour of remaining a monarchy over a republic, close to its best-ever level of support.
However, another poll, by Yougov, found that only 14% of UK adults were "very interested" and 32% were "somewhat interested" in the royal baby.
As you may have guessed from the tone of this post, I fell into neither of those groups - though I should point out that this does not necessarily make me a strident republican either. It really was just too much coverage for something which is relatively insignificant to me.
Indeed, I have watched and read less news this week than in a long time but I will always remember it as a few days that Britain went baby bonkers.
And there has not even been the Sunday features or the ITV documentaries yet...
