Reasons for Loving this Story:

• The Queen is familiar with the TARDIS!
• I wonder if she knows that in the Doctor’s universe, Queen Victoria was infected by a werewolf, and that the trait has been passed on genetically to her descendants – Elizabeth II included?
• Two other English monarchs, Elizabeth I and Victoria, have exiled the Doctor from England and have threatened him with death. I now very much want to see Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II meeting and conflicting with the Doctor. I can’t think of many other things that I want to see quite as badly on television. Even better, we’ve not yet seen what the Doctor does to annoy Elizabeth I. Elizabeth II could travel to the 16th century in the TARDIS! Mirren could play them both again! What a treat it’d be!

Much hullabaloo has been made of the Queen’s recent visit to the United States. As I think her quite fabulous and have confidence in the uniquely American bend to British-rooted traditions, I am enjoying the hullabaloo. Especially this little bit:

Apparently President Bush (#2) came quite close to implying that Her Majesty Elizabeth II had visited America 200 years ago. This is a simple enough verbal error, and his method of making up the matter was perfectly American: he winked at the Queen of the United Kingdom.

Naturally, Her Majesty responded in a manner perfectly British: she glared at the President of the United States.

He responded with an apologetic remark to the crowd, declaring that she had given him “a look that only a mother could give a child.”

She smiled serenely, and all was well.

2) The Churchill-esque Astronomer

Somehow in the mix of a radio interview, Sir Patrick Moore was turned to the topic of the modern BBC. Naturally, it’s “terrible”. Even more naturally, it’s the fault of the women. Hee!  “The trouble is that the BBC is now run by women and it shows – soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays.”

Sir Patrick does, however, make a slight intellectual allowance for the soap opera epidemic: “I suppose it’s true to life. But so is diarrhea – and I don’t want to see that on television.”