happy anniversary ma'am ...

Sorry, I keep laughing at 'on the throne'.

I'm not particularly a monarchist, but you have to say she's done a decent job of it for a very long time, without arsing it up the way pretty much all our politicians do in some way or other (less said about Phil I suppose but you can't have everything).

I don't know what will happen when she finally relinquishes the job, because I think there's going to be a lot of call for things to be changed and modernised, but it'd be a churlish man who didn't admit she's done about as well as anyone could ever be expected to.

Just hope Charles doesn't cock the monarchy up when he takes over.

I'm pretty fundamentally opposed to the concept of a monarchy, but I do think Elizabeth has on the whole been a pretty good example of how it should be carried out if you are going to have one (primarily acting as a figurehead and not interfering with things). I think Charles has already made it clear that he's going to be an absolute [LIFTED] of a ruler.

I think when Liz finally kicks the bucket there'll be a very strong push for Charles to step aside in favour of which ever of Harry & Will is next in line. I don't expect him to give in to it and that could be a very interesting situation.

In any case, Charles has a pretty thankless task IMO. Following Liz is like being the Manchester United manager after Alex Ferguson. No matter how good or bad he does, he'll almost certainly look bad compared to the previous owner of the job.

You missed out a possibility - that the shock of finally getting to be king gives him a heart attack or something and kills him.
But yes, Charles is onto a loser whatever happens. He'll be at best a transitional placeholder until Will takes over although there's a fairly good chance he'll make a complete tit of himself as, unlike him Mum, he's not terribly good at sitting on his oh so important opinions about things.

Have any of you seen The Crown? I've nearly finished the first series now - a really great show.

It didn't end very well for the last two King Charles...

Imagine the curry that caused that amount of time in the smallest room.