The End of a Reign
Just a quick note in the manner of a journal entry to mark the fact that Queen Elizabeth II passed away this afternoon at the age of 96.
I was actually sitting on a plane about to take off for Dublin when the news filtered through. The Irish bloke next to me who knew I was born in England as we had been chatting, asked what happens next – what procedure would be followed to install the next Monarch, King Charles III. I told him that The Queen had been The Queen since before I was born, and had reigned all my life until now, so I had never experienced such an event and had no idea at all what comes next!
All I know is that the funeral of Queen Elizabeth will not happen for another ten days, but King Charles becomes King immediately. I’m not sorry to have made it back to Ireland today. I think I would have found the media coverage in the UK very tedious indeed.
It’s strange to imagine there being a King Charles instead of Queen Elizabeth. I suppose football crowds will henceforth be singing “God Save The King” instead of “God Save The Queen”, although I bet they’ll continue to do it just as tunelessly regardless of the change of words.
Queen Elizabeth was the longest-reigning British monarch by a margin of about 7 years over Queen Victoria. If you reckon history as a succession of Kings and Queens like we were taught to at school then today is a historic day. I can’t help wondering though how many more British monarchs there will be…
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In the Dark 
September 9, 2022 at 6:12 am
May Her Royal Majesty Rest In Peace
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle
September 9, 2022 at 10:03 am
Interesting piece on R4 this morning about all the changes that will now happen. QCs will immediately become KCs. New coins will have Charles’ head, with protocol apparently dictating that the head will face in the opposite direction to that of the Queen. Postboxes will be changed. Also, because of the current line of succession, its unlikely there will be another queen for at least 70-80 years. I think the monarchy will survive, but perhaps a much scaled-down version.
September 9, 2022 at 10:15 am
In keeping with the spirit of modern Britain the new monarch should be employed on a zero-hours contract.
September 9, 2022 at 10:38 am
Does that mean my stamps will no longer work?
September 9, 2022 at 10:47 am
Do people still use stamps nowadays? I bought a book of them a couple of years ago and only used one to date. (And i think even that was used by my wife).
September 9, 2022 at 10:57 am
You obviously don’t enter crossword competition.
September 9, 2022 at 2:27 pm
I’m planning on using my passport on Monday which has some blurb starting “Her Brittanic Majesty’s Secretary of State Requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty …”
Hopefully it will still work.
September 13, 2022 at 11:16 am
Have you seen the new ones? They have a QR code so that the PO need no longer stamp them with a postmark (not really ‘stamps’ any more), and now it won’t work to steam off ones which the postmark missed, for reuse – the PO know each individual stamp and if it has already been used. If you paid for them using a credit card, moreover, they can find out who sent the lettter without opening it.
The PO says that you can scan the QR codes on your stamps and become eligible for various special offers, thereby losing anonymity further when you use them.
September 13, 2022 at 11:23 am
I have a couple of books of old ones. I don’t know if I can still use them. I don’t post things in the UK very often anyway…
September 13, 2022 at 11:28 am
You can use them until the end of January.
September 13, 2022 at 11:33 am
Do you use UK stamps?
September 13, 2022 at 11:48 am
Thanks for the info re the QR stamps. Did not know this. Have now returned my supply of nine 1st-class stamps.
September 13, 2022 at 11:50 am
To whom?
September 13, 2022 at 12:05 pm
I’ll be sending out a few Christmas cards with an annual update to people I’m not often in contact with and for whom I don’t have an email address.
September 13, 2022 at 12:13 pm
If you want some free stamps I’ll send a book of 1st class.
September 13, 2022 at 12:16 pm
Go to the website:
https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps
and you’ll see instructions on returning your stamps.
September 13, 2022 at 12:23 pm
Yes – many thanks!
September 13, 2022 at 12:27 pm
You can swap any you don’t use by the end of January for the new ones.
September 13, 2022 at 12:28 pm
Great, thank you.
September 13, 2022 at 12:35 pm
Now all I have to do is remember where I put them!
September 17, 2022 at 5:43 pm
You found them! Thank you very much.
September 17, 2022 at 6:03 pm
I was wondering how long they would take to reach you. Quite impressed!
September 9, 2022 at 10:12 am
Peeved that she didn’t beat Louis XIV’s record.
September 9, 2022 at 11:38 am
Just one boundary and she would have made her century…
September 9, 2022 at 3:21 pm
Perhasps we should subtract the duration of Louis’s regency off his reign?
October 5, 2022 at 1:03 pm
The end of a reign indeed! My own response about the sudden exit of Her Majesty is a post entitled “🌤️🌾 A September to Remember: Greeting Post-Pandemic and Post-Elizabethan Age 👑🏰 with Sapphires, Asters, Poems and Songs 💎🌼📜🎶“, in which I have also mentioned the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA conducting its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) on the 26th by intentionally crashing a probe into Dimorphos, the minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos. The post is available at
October 5, 2022 at 1:04 pm
With respect to music, I have published something much lesser known about Her Royal Majesty in a post entitled “🎼🎹 Pondering Musical Lineage on the Queen’s Birthday 👑🍰“, avialable at