News of international Lego thieves, plus monarchists in mourning

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In case you don’t think the world’s strange enough, an international ring of toy thieves is stealing Legos. Not that jumble of Lego’s you stashed behind the couch to pacify the kids from down the block when they stop by. Sure, those are useful. They keep the kids from tipping over the refrigerator, but the thieves are a more discerning bunch. What they want are Lego sets.

We can blame Lego itself for this if we’re in the mood. They started producing limited edition sets aimed at collectors. 

And there you were, thinking toys were something kids played with and dripped chocolate ice cream on. Shows what you know. Toys are something you leave in the box and collect, thank you. If you never open the package, they’re worth more than if you crack the lid just to breathe the rarified air inside. A set that sold for $150 in 2007 (this is allegedly a kids’ toy, remember, selling for $150) can now go for $3,000. If and only if it hasn’t been opened.

Irrelevant photo: A neighbor’s camellia peeping out from behind the stone wall.

Can we agree that collecting them makes no sense at all? It’s so easy to get wrong. You can get in on the right trend at the wrong moment, when the price isn’t going up anymore, or just before it drops. You can misread the trends and collect the wrong thing, ending up with something you can’t eat, can’t wear, can’t live in, and can’t even play with because, who knows?, the damned thing might be collectible in another year or three.. 

Which may be why people steal them. It takes all the uncertainty out of collecting. And as long as you don’t get caught, it’s an economically viable plan.

 

Home, digital home

A digital home–in other words, a house that doesn’t really exist–has sold for $500,000. Or if you count in ethers, for 288 of them.

What’s an ether? A cryptocurrency. 

Can you buy anything other than imaginary houses with it? Probably, but listen, this really isn’t my area of expertise.

What is my area of expertise? Well, I’m not a bad baker and I passed myself off as a competent editor when I was working. And I wasn’t bad as a cab driver either. 

So–final question–what can you do with a very expensive imaginary house? Explore it. In 3D. Or explore it–and I’m going to have to quote here, because I haven’t a clue what this means and don’t necessarily want to–“using virtual reality (a digital world) or, in future, augmented reality (where digital elements added to a view of the real world).”

At the moment, it’s set in a Mars-like landscape. I think that quote means  you can move it if you want to.

 

Life and death in a monarchy

As I write this, on March 9, all news has been suspended because Prince Philip died. You know Prince P: the queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. 

The first news bulletin announced that the Duke of Edinburgh had died.

The second news bulletin announced that the Duke of Edinburgh was still dead.

The third news bulletin told us in detail that he always appeared in public wearing two shoes, both on his feet.

A later news bulletin detailed the however-many-gun salutes that were set off.

After that, everybody who’d ever seen a picture of him or could spell his name was interviewed live on radio or television, or not-quite-live by the print media. When the interviews ended, the news outlets all traded sources and started over.

This has edged out everything except the weather. Those loyalist kids in Northern Ireland protesting the Brexit border that now separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK? They’ll have to do more than set fire to a bus and roll it downhill to make the news for the few nights. (If I’m wrong about that, I apologize. I wrote this on Friday night and it won’t post till Sunday.)

I’m late in offering this, but I have a bit of advice for the kids: I’ve listened to enough folk songs to know that if you swim down below the waterline and take out your trusty little knife, you can sink an island by making holes and letting the water in. Now that would grab headlines.

Or maybe it only works on ships. I should’ve paid more attention.  

Anyway, the loyalists are the ones who want to stay with the United Kingdom. They’re not in a great position to complain when the queen’s husband bumps them out of the headlines.

As a mark of respect, the Labour Party suspended its campaign for the May elections. 

What? The Labour Party supports the monarchy? Let’s say it doesn’t oppose it. That would be like touching the third rail of British politics. The Green Party, the Scottish National Party, and Plaid Cymru (the Welsh nationalist party) also suspended campaigning, although the nationalist parties want to leave not just the union but also the queen and the rest of her family, and the Greens  have “a clear commitment to divesting the monarchy of its legislative, executive and judicial roles.”

That’s not quite the same as abolishing the monarchy. Or maybe it is–I can’t quite tell. Whatever it means, it’s very carefully worded.

The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have also suspended their campaigns, but I’d expect that. 

A friend assures me that life will go back to normal any day now, all I have to do is sit still and wait. In the meantime, we’ll all be pious, and I expect I will have offended more than one reader by making light of it. Sorry. People do die, and many of those deaths I regret deeply. This isn’t one of them. You’re welcome to your own reverence. Me, I’m trying to find the narrow footpath between respecting other people feelings and not censoring myself. 

Sorry, I think I just trampled somebody’s flowers. 

The weather, by the way, held its place in the evening newscasts. This is Britain. Princes may come and princes may go, but the weather goes on forever.

 

Your bit of redemptive news

After a spate of hate crimes against Asian Americans, a New Yorker, Maddy Park, found herself terrified on her thirty-minute subway ride home. No one attacked her and no one called her names, but the strain was enough to get her thinking: She could afford a cab, but not everyone could. So with some friends and $2,000 of her own money, she started an Instagram account to pay for other people’s cab rides. “I just said look, I have $2,000, if you need a ride, just charge me on Venmo,” Park said.

What’s Venmo? A digital wallet. If you have to ask, you’re at least as old as I am. Now be nice and don’t ask me how it works.

Within 48 hours, she’d raised $100,000.

The Instagram text invites Asian women and elderly Asians in New York to charge up to $40 for an Uber or a Lyft to @CafeMaddyCab. A later addition includes Asian LGBTQ people. At last call, she was planning to expand the program since not many seniors know how to use 

Tell me about it. 

“People who are donating are people from all across the nation, across all races, ethnicities,” Park said, “and they just sent me messages saying, listen, we really want you guys to be safe too and we’re donating so that more people can take rides in the city. It really opened my eyes to how many people are actually supporting the Asian community in New York City.”

134 thoughts on “News of international Lego thieves, plus monarchists in mourning”

  4. I think regardless of how many people feel about the monarchy – and let’s face it – exalting humans to positions like that is just odd – but as it happens the members of the royal family here in the UK do engender an element of empathy for various reasons even amongst those who find having a royal family odd, often for the mostly dignified behaviour throughout their very public challenges and trials being amongst them.

    But in all honesty, I think that the reaction to the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh is a mark of respect for a man who did have a rather extraordinary childhood, and gave up a career which I do believe he loved to be in the relative shadow of his wife. However anyone views monarchy, we do tend to celebrate those who make it almost a century of life and whose marriage has lasted more than 70 years. It grieves me that we lose so many at a much younger age, and that so many relationships fall apart.

    I think most people grow tired of the endless contention in politics and scenes of anger and violence – being able to pause and take a minute and pay respects to someone who in some ways represents our precious older generation, who have been the forefront of our concern throughout the pandemic, brings something good out of many.

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      • No, no, you did not offend me at all. I don’t agree with the concept of royalty. But I do have fond feelings for the Queen as a person, her character, and I do empathise with her losing her husband.

        I have been impressed by some of the sweet tributes I have seen younger people making the past couple of days though. I think that for younger people to pause and pay respects to someone who had a very tough childhood and yet went on to live a full and active life, and reached such a grand old age – I find it heart warming effect that has.

        Death is sad, but when it makes someone pause and contemplate and learn something about how to make the most of life…well, I don’t know – I suppose there is some imparting of wisdom from one generation to the next.

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        • My sense is that we haven’t a clue who the royals are except when we catch flashes of reality when their well-oiled publicity machine fails to function. Other than his having had a hard childhood–which I do believe–I’m doubtful about the picture we’ve been presented with.

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          • I just consider them a wealthy and very connected family. But they are just imperfect humans. I don’t mean that any particular way, but I expect there will be stories. Every family is going to have dramas. If Robert was the King and I the Queen – I am sure that we would want a PR team making us look the best we could.

            It is a strange idea to me that so much of their lives is on display. Most of relish a day off. As soon as they let their hair down, they are pinged for it.

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            • I think the anti-monarchist movement (I know I should call them republicans, but having spent most of my life in the US I struggle to do that–and to remember what I mean if I do) missed a trick by not trying to rally the nation around the slogan “Free the Royals.” It must be repressive and deadly, living in the fishbowl you describe.

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  5. Those loyalist kids in Northern Ireland protesting the Brexit border that now separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK?

    Isn’t the border a channel? Seems like it’s always been there separating NI from the UK, unlike the imaginary line separating NI from the rest of Ireland.

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    • The problem isn’t the water, it’s the paperwork that’s been imposed since Britain left the EU. Being in the EU used to mean we had an invisible border between Northern Ireland and Ireland itself, with no paperwork and no problem with goods flowing back and forth. To keep from ending that, Johnson agreed to putting the border down the Irish Sea, effectively sawing Northern Ireland off from the rest of the UK. It hasn’t gone down well in the loyalist community.

      Anyone who stayed awake in the meetings could’ve told him this would happen. Not that he’d have listened. No matter hwere you put that border, it’s going to ignite the troubles.

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        • Nope. Ireland trades borderlessly with the EU. If it had a treaty to trade that way with Britain, it would be a conduit for UK goods into the EU or vice versa, and the point of Brexit was to not trade seamlessly. Or–well, I’m not sure what the point of Brexit was. To cling to / gain public office. Set that aside. The Irish border was a problem from the start, and everyone who paid attention knew it was. Basically, it’s insoluble. Johnson, being the blustering sort he is, pretended he’d solved it. He hasn’t. And here we are.

          The problem with denying reality is that eventually it will have the last word. Even if you’re a politician who made your name by inventing your facts.

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        • Nafta (or Cusma as it now is) isn’t really any more ‘open’ than the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU. No tariffs most of the time, but still plenty of paperwork and border controls, and unpredictable fees when you order something from the US.

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  6. Wall to wall death of old man….. yet think of how much worse it is going to be when Queenie dies……

    Do you know they have codenames? When Phil the Greek died the BBC controller would have been phoned and told the the Forth Bridge had gone. When she dies the code will be “London Bridge has fallen” . “Many Bothans died to bring us this information”

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  7. I think the stealing Legos story is a hoax. It’s being spread by parents who are tired of stepping on the damn things. The only thing worse than stepping on a single Lego brick is stepping on the iron or the wheelbarrow from Monopoly. Is it a coincidence that Hasbro has “retired” those pieces? I think not.

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    • There are no coincidences. Their retirement’s due to the blood-sucking pedophile lizards who quietly run the world while we’re all pacified by the work of fitting little plastic blocks together and moving pieces around a colored board.

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  8. This is why I find you a joy to read. “Me, I’m trying to find the narrow footpath between respecting other people feelings and not censoring myself.” I get fed up with people who have no opinion, or who think only their opinion matters. We should all be able to say our truths without yelling or shoving it down our neighbors’ throats, and be able to graciously listen to our neighbors as well. To touch on a comment by Lady A, I am extremely “tired of the endless contention in politics and scenes of anger and violence”. My gawd, I can Not look at, or listen to, or read about any more angry, lunatic politicians who are free to say irrational things and incite others to act like raging maniacs. My opinion, well-funded politics and religion wreck every good and decent thing.
    Maddy Park’s story is amazingly wonderful! Most people do care about and love one another, despite news reports to the contrary.
    We have buckets of well-played with Legos collected over the past 30 years. I wonder if I can repackage them and sell them for an imaginary house?
    Also, my condolences to the Queen on her loss. 70 years, 99 years… there would never be enough time for me and my true love to be together. He is my knight in shining armor, my prince charming, and the most adorable grandpa to our grandbabies.

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    • To start at the end with the most important piece, I’m glad you found someone you still feel that way about. Everyone should be so lucky–and so wise, since it ain’t all luck.

      I do think there are times when yelling and throwing things become necessary–times when nothing else works and every possible door has been barred–but they’re nowhere near as common as the yelling and throwing that people do. We seem to live in a time of craziness and me-first politicians whose only way to get into and stay in office is to whip people into a frenzy. Frightening times. Genuinely.

      As for me, I’ve gotten better at looking for that narrow path as I’ve gotten older–and I confess, it’s easier to do in writing than in person. I don’t always find it, but I am at least more likely to look these days.

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      • Thank-you, yes true love has very little to do with luck. It was a lot of kindness, self-accountability, deeply sincere talks, and knowing our hearts, that has led us to this ‘sweet life’. We’re not taking one second of it for granted.

        I agree there is a time and place for raised voices and ‘fisticuffs’. I’ve had to violently fight for my life, and for the honor of others, on a handful of occasions. I believe in Equality, unfortunately not everyone seems to. We should all be free to be who we are, to live, learn, and work, to love who we love, and it should be imperative that we take care of our planet. I know this sounds naïve, but I think we could get more good things done by using positive words, thoughts, emotions, and actions. Otherwise, we just keep escalating violence, and that’s been horrible. I’m going to continue to hope for, and try to herd people in a positive direction. (As soon as I typed that sentence my mind filled with images of herding cats – ‘good luck with that’ my brain said as it left for an imaginary island vacation. Thanks Brain, for always abandoning me at the most crucial moments.)

        Also, as I type this, we’re suffering another officer involved shooting in Minnesota. There are so many things wrong with our current systems, that… Oof, I can’t even begin. Please accept my apologies for straying from your post topics.

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        • I welcome most digressions here, but especially this one. We’ve been following the Brooklyn Center (or was it Brooklyn Park–I always muddied those two up) shooting. In case anyone thought the cops had learned something from the George Floyd killing.

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  9. I remember when our daughter was little and obsessed with Lego, trying to buy her sets on ebay, and being consistently outbid by dudes who paid huge prices only to resell them again as ‘collector’s items’. We still have some in the attic though, and based on those prices, even though they’ve been opened, it’s tempting!

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    • Hell, why not? For all I know there’s a market for the ones that have actually been treated like toys.

      The idea of sets with something like Lego offends me. I thought the idea was for kids to have these pieces so they could put together whatever they wanted–or at least try to. You know, use their imaginations, not follow a set of instructions. Silly me.

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      • The sets are kind of fun though, like doing a puzzle. My objection was always that once they’re done, you can’t actually play with them without breaking them–they just sit on a shelf and collect dust!

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        • Oh, what fun!

          When we were kids, my brother and I had a set of wooden blocks we built with. I don’t remember that we ever started out with a plan. We just let whatever it was sprawl across the floor and then knocked it down and started over, building something else. I guess that’s where my expectations came from.

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  10. I sympathise with HRH’s nearest and dearest, but I have to say I was bored stupid by the TV on Friday night. I know the soaps aren’t vitally important viewing, but I do like to watch them and follow the stories, and I was waiting to see what happened next on East Enders (BBC1), Coronation St (ITV!) and Home and Away (Channel 5) – but they’d all been cancelled and replaced with THE SAME talking heads saying THE SAME things about Prince Philip on ALL channels. By all means have it on one channel for those who want it, but was there really any need to clog up every channel with the same thing?

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  11. Ellen, so Prince P died at 99. Old people die. He had a good life. RIP. Really, the royal family is full of drama and more to come. I read the front page of Esquire & other tabloids while standing in line at the supermarket. And we know, all of that news is true. 😏😉 Keep trampling somebody’s flowers! No one can beat you telling the news (that we can read and laugh at). Stealing Collectible toys? Shoulda started that collecting business when I was a kid. Who woulda thunk? Have a great Sunday! 📚🎶 Christine

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    • Well, yes, but it would’ve meant (a) never ever playing with your toys and (b) having enough space to store every last one of them because you couldn’t know which ones would be worth money.

      Nah. Not worth it.

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      • 🤣 Seeing as there were few boxed “toys” in my childhood, I would have failed as a young entrepreneur. We had the wide open outdoors to play in. Remember those good old free to climb a tree days? Unwatched, no helmet, unprotected. See where your initial collectible toys went? Happens all the time. You are a great thought starter. 😊🎶 Christine

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        • I grew up in Manhattan.We played on the sidewalk. I loved it. The older boys played stickball, baseball with a broomstick as a bat. The younger girls played jump rope. All of us played kingsies, a kind of handball game that involved bouncing the ball against a wall until the neighbors yelled at us. Not much in the way of collectible, but I collected some great memories.

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  12. Before I get sidetracked – hurrah for the woman in New York ! Thinking of and acting to help others What a concept (and apparently having some seed money to start it up…)

    Legos eh ? I have plenty of baseball cards from the 1950’s – but of course we looked at them, traded them – even chewed the bubblegum…At one time some of mine would have brought $1500…IF I could have found someone willing to pay that. But Spahn and Musial had more sentimental value to me as is. Just ask the people who invested in Beanie Babies.

    I’m of two minds on news coverage – over here when they broke into the afternoon programming to tell of the shooting of little kids in Newtown people went ballistic (pun intended) over missing their “stories.” But I was trained as a reporter and have always been nosey, so I guess that’s just me. HRH’s death wasn’t as much of a shock as – say -JFK’s.

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    • JFK was genuine news–who, what, when, where, how. Some of it we still don’t know. Phil dying at 99 is–sorry–not more than a few paragraphs and a photo.

      It’s a good thing they don’t put me in charge. I’d piss everyone off.

      The Beanie Baby craze died out, didn’t it?

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    • You’re wonderful. Thanks for letting me know you did that. I couldn’t work it in, but on that half-hour subway ride home where she realized how afraid she was, one of her fears was that no one would stand up to defend her. I think the response she’s gotten to her initiative has renewed her faith in what people will do.

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  14. “An Asian Prince was found dead after stealing vintage legos in a NY taxi, riding form one off-line home to the other. Rumour has it that cause of death were the 42 cannon shots fired in an off-line palace.”
    And you think we can ever go back to “normal”? 🤣

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      • You have a point. The question that’s been lurking at the back of my mind is: “was I blind?Was everything always so screwed up? Everybody so stupid and corrupt?” There were lots of bad things but there was hope. I don’t know. Must be gettin old. Need to take my memory pills. 😉

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        • Okay, I’ll get serious for a moment here. I think there are two possibilities:

          1. What dog trainers call Old Shep syndrome. A person gets a puppy. It pees, chews, and is generally a pain in the neck. They remember the old dog and say, “Old Shep was never like this.” They’re remembering Old Shep at 12, however, not at 3 months.

          2. You and I, my friend, grew up and lived much of our lives in more stable times. A thousand years ago when I was in my teens, I remember hearing someone (no idea who) say that revolutions happen when governments can no longer govern. I tried to imagine a situation in which a government couldn’t govern and it ran beyond the borders of my imagination. I’d never seen such a thing and couldn’t picture what it would be like or how it would happen. Guess what: I have no trouble imagining it these days. We live with corporations that are larger and more powerful than governments. We live with crisis that are larger and more powerful than governments. The old systems that kept nations and the world staggering forward, no matter how problematically, aren’t working anymore. No wonder simple and stupid solutions appeal to people. They’re simple. They offer either hope or an outlet for their anger.

          Boy, I’m a ton of fun this morning.

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          • You are a lot of fun this morning. Remeber never to write before you had a cuppa, my dear. Clears the mind. ☕️
            1. Jason and the golden fleece. Actually Jason was chasing an old golden retriever. Misled by bad intel. When he got back, they had to fix the story a bit. Switch the retriever for a Shep, then Marketing came in and switched to sheep. (Childhood is the basis for the Golden Age theme…) 🐏
            2. Yes there was more stability. To a point. But I do remember in Africa my parents coming home early from one of their daily parties. I asked, all little ten-year-old of me: “what’s up?” My dad was white. (I mean whiter than usual. One does notice those things in Africa. he took his coat and tie off. Yes. In Africa. And said: “Kennedy has been shot”. the following week all the ladies at the American Embassy went to their tailors to get black dresses.
            A year or two later, we were living in Holland, the local African dictator staged a coup so he could arrest all the French friends of ours who’d stayed behind plus his Chief-of-Staff who was a great friend of the family. and executed him. So maybe it was not as stable as we thought.
            Now, today? Yes, Amazon’ worth is larger than a good many countries. The day one or the other realizes they can buy a couple of countries and make more business they will. Plenty of local rulers who’ll take the check graciously.
            And yes, we will soon face a worldwide “face-à-face” of hope and rage. It should be interesting. (If one can save one’s bones in the process, of course)
            Well, well. We are having so much fun!
            Would you like some scones my dear?

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            • Scones? Oh, hell yes. Live while we can.

              You’re right about the stability. The death of Lumumba comes to mind. The coup in Guatemala. The overthrow of Massadegh. The etc. etc. etc. Stability if you’re in one of the centers of stability, as you so rightly remind me. How easy it is, even when we know better, to think that our experience of the world is the world. I think what I was reaching for was a mix of things changing more slowly and of the great powers having achieved some sort of tenuous balance. They may have kept that balance brutally, but in hindsight centrifugal force looked less likely to spin things outward and splatter them against the walls.

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              • Lumumba indeed. We were in West Africa when he was killed. And scores of Europeans massacred “next door” in the former Belgian Congo. Obviously, there was a serious risk that it could spread to Guinea where we were. My parents must have been very worried. Never let anything out. Us kids were protected from all the fear.
                Yet I agree with you, the balance of things seeemed better, tenuous but still better. The classical example is that in “those days”, kids would grab their bikes after school and and ride away with no concern other than “be back at 6:00 sharp!” “Yes Mom.”

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      • Happy to oblige Ellen. I have found a couple of Brecht books on my shelves. Will delve into them. I have been thinking often lately of Stefan Zweig and Walter Benjamin, both Jewish, German/Austrian, who committed suicide once they had escaped the Nazis. (Not that I’m thinking of that). Benjamin at the Spanish border, Zweig in Brazil. They did it because the world they knew was gone.
        My personal concern is the outburst of general stupidity in the human race. COVID we will recover from eventually. Widespread moronism? I don’t think so.
        (And you identify it very well)
        Take care.

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        • I haven’t read much Stefan Zweig. I remember some of his books being on my parents’ shelves, which left me with the conviction that he was important. (That’s the standard of a twelve-year-old, but then there’s a twelve-year-old wandering around in here somewhere, even today.) I did pick up one of his books few years back and I don’t think I ever finished it. What do you think of his writing?

          Benjamin’s suicide I knew about. Zweig’s I didn’t. It’s odd being outside your country as it descends into madness. I’m not remotely suicidal, and we’re not at the Nazi Germany stage of things yet, but I do understand some thread or two of their choices. I’ve tried to write about it a few times without producing anything worth saving.

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          • I’m the same with Zweig. He was a very cultured man, touched a lot of subjects. My father had dozens of his books. I started a couple. Style I remember was very ’30’s, “In-between-wars”. I thought I still had one or two but no. I might have given them away to the library of the French Lycée here, when my father died. I kept maybe 30-35% of his books. Not enough space here. Oh well, if we can ever travel again, I’ll find Zweig’s book for 5 Euros on the banks of the Seine. (Found a great Saint-Exupéry last time)
            12 year-old? You mean you? 😉
            And I agree with your take in the second paragraph. A difficult subject to write about. The end of despair. I couldn’t write about it. Too close to home.
            Thanks for the chat as usual, Ellen

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            • Yup, me. I read adult books early and 98% of the contents went right over my head. However.

              It’s oddly reassuring to read what you say about Zweig. So it’s not just me….

              Most of my parents’ books went to my brother, who lived in the same city and had a bigger house. I took a few representative books was happy with the arrangement. Then his house burned down. Life’s an ironic son of a bitch, isn’t it?

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  17. Pingback: News of international Lego thieves, plus monarchists in mourning – Know That

  18. That’s awesome re: the sponsored cab rides! Also, news lite over here–apparently Harrison Ford was just in Wichita (where I am). I didn’t see him on the one day I was out and about, which was probably a good thing because I would have just mumbled asked him something unoriginal and kinda nerdy like how many parsecs it took him to get from California (or wherever the heck he lives) to Wichita, Kansas.

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  19. Pingback: News of international Lego thieves, plus monarchists in mourning – sport

  20. All we hear about is how Megan stayed behind while the Prince is in quarantine, but it is okay because he liked his grandfather. Sorry to hear about the lego’s- though I am still baring a scar on my left foot from a midnight snack run to the kitchen in 2007.

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    • A midnight snack’s got to be worth the sacrifice, don’t you think?

      My sense is that what we hear about the royals compares to what they and their lives are really like the way the notes for a novel compare to the novel. But that’s only a guess, of course, because the notes are all I have and the truth is that I don’t read most of them. I’m a dedicated non-royal watcher–although sometimes a peek or three is forced on me.

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  21. After the Diana death drama all those years ago, I wasn’t overly surprised by the fuss being made. But I do agree with you about the mundanity of what is being broadcast. A rare occurrence in this day & age, I found myself in the car, and switched on the radio (yes my car & I are that old). Between each piece of music was a memory from a member of the public – most were those who’d done some kind of Duke of Edinburgh award, even though their stories & experiences were in no way memorable. The worst though was the person who wrote in to say that they’d been stood on a traffic island in London when they saw the Queen & Prince Philip drive by on the way to Victoria station. I waited for the punchline, and was utterly dumbfounded to find there was none. A well-produced programme, full of historical photos and film, balancing the doubtless sacrifice and dedication to duty, with the irascible old man who had a sharp mind, wit & tongue to match, could be enjoyable to watch. What isn’t is this interminable old rubbish of every man & his dog’s dull trivia.

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    • Our world’s gotten stranger and stranger, and harder to for someone tuned to the old one to recognize. I think we’re all fishing around for a way to explain it to ourselves, and yours could make a person stop and think about it. Which is no bad thing.

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