One's obit...

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Inside Westminster Abbey: 'This was history - solemn, spectacular and intense' [BBC]

Hopefully together again and as happy as it is obvious they were...

Update 22:44 with obit: sorry I have no words; been welling up every time I think of it; I know it is eleven days since Her Majesty passed but I think His Grace does her justice: [LINK] "The curtain has fallen on the second Great Elizabethan Age."

Octogésimo octavo...

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Or Ochenta y ocho (88), eighty eighth...many happy returns Elizabeth II. Her Majesty the Queen celebrates her 88th birthday today, in commemoration of which this new portrait by David Bailey has been published (it was taken last month at Buckingham Palace and commissioned on behalf of the government's Great Britain campaign).



May I be so bold as to say that the "grinning granny" image suits Her Majesty, described by Bailey as a "very strong woman" with "very kind eyes with a mischievous glint". During the day the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery fired a 41 gun royal salute (Green Park*) and later a 62 gun salute from the Honourable Artillery Company at the Tower of London**. Eighty eight facts about Elizabeth II from Royal Central  HERE, e.g. The Queen is the only British Monarch to have visited China and proved she is and was always ahead of the game by sending her first email in 1976!



In case you wondered:

* The standard Royal salute is 21-guns; another 20 guns is added when the salute is from a Royal Park or Palace.

** The 62 gun salute is the aforementioned 41 guns (the Tower is a Royal Palace) plus 21 for it being from the City of London.

Octogésimo octavo...

---

Or Ochenta y ocho (88), eighty eighth...many happy returns Elizabeth II. Her Majesty the Queen celebrates her 88th birthday today, in commemoration of which this new portrait by David Bailey has been published (it was taken last month at Buckingham Palace and commissioned on behalf of the government's Great Britain campaign).

May I be so bold as to say that the "grinning granny" image suits Her Majesty, described by Bailey as a "very strong woman" with "very kind eyes with a mischievous glint". During the day the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery fired a 41 gun royal salute (Green Park*) and later a 62 gun salute from the Honourable Artillery Company at the Tower of London**. Eighty eight facts about Elizabeth II from Royal Central  HERE, e.g. The Queen is the only British Monarch to have visited China and proved she is and was always ahead of the game by sending her first email in 1976!

In case you wondered:
* The standard Royal salute is 21-guns; another 20 guns is added when the salute is from a Royal Park or Palace.
** The 62 gun salute is the aforementioned 41 guns (the Tower is a Royal Palace) plus 21 for it being from the City of London.