Is Elizabeth II really the Queen of comedy?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/09/elizabeth-ii-queen-of-comedy

Version 0 of 1.

During the marking of the Queen’s record-breaking monarchical stint, we have been treated to three kinds of commentator: the deferential, who value the Queen’s service and national importance; the dismissive, who regard the monarchy as an anachronism and an irrelevance; and people who have actually met the Queen.

It’s this last category I find the most mystifying. People who hang out with the Queen invariably describe her as sharp-witted, funny and mischievous – even a gifted mimic – and then go on to be maddeningly discreet. Please, I always think, please provide us with a single example of Her Majesty saying something wickedly amusing, in William Hague’s voice.

I can see how the Queen’s thousand-yard stare and her leaden, dead-bat approach to speech-making have kept her out of trouble all these years, but I still can’t help resenting this public face. Why don’t we ever get the fun Queen? Why is she denying us her best material?

If one were to listen to that subsection of the Queen’s acquaintances who are prepared to speak to the media at all, one might come to believe that proximity to her would be enough to turn everybody into a diehard monarchist. I suppose I’ll never know. I’ve only ever glimpsed the Queen once, at a party. I wasn’t actually there; I was flying over it in a police helicopter, which was banking low over the Buckingham Palace garden in a manner that enabled me to look straight down from the passenger window. Down below a reception was taking place, with thousands of people spread across the lawn. And in the middle, cutting a wake through the crowds was an unmistakable figure in bright yellow. Slaying them, no doubt, with her Ed Miliband routine.

My kind of DIY

Although I possess few relevant skills, I am usually prepared to have a go at repairing stuff in the first instance. It is my firm belief that one cannot make a DIY problem worse; one can only move things forward to a stage where professional intervention becomes urgently advisable. It’s a form of progress.

I was happy, therefore, to spend a week trying to unblock the plastic pipe into which the dishwasher drains. I could tell it was clogged by the way the kitchen floor flooded with hot grey water during every rinse phase.

The last time this happened I tried a lot of things, and I was never sure which one worked in the end. So I tried them all again, in order: boiling water, a run-through with a plumber’s snake, a dose of some kind of proprietary enzyme; plain old sulphuric acid. After each treatment I ran the dishwasher, mopped up all the water and started again.

Contrary to my above-stated DIY philosophy, I did seem to be exacerbating the problem – the flooding was more pronounced each time, not less – and I hadn’t moved things forward at all. After a week I did what I had to do: with yet more hot water soaking my shoes, I grabbed the overflowing pipe and shook it until it broke off in my hand, leaving the corresponding broken join somewhere beneath the floorboards, leaking. Progress at last.

My guide to losing a wife

“I took a bad situation and made it worse,” I told Mike the plumber, handing him the U-bend assembly I’d liberated. “I see,” he said. He then outlined his plumbing strategy, making it clear that the hardest part of the job – reattaching the pipe – was the direct result of my intervention. He was in the house for under an hour, and he still managed to put everything right and do a load of dishes. It is a not inconsiderable blessing to know a plumber who can fix anything I can break, but there is something about the way my wife says “I love Mike” after he walks out the door that unnerves me.