Dog Blog, Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Maj!

Ten fun things about The Queen. 

After 60 years of meeting and greeting, Happy Diamond Jubilee Ma’am! Here are some things you may have not have known about our Maj!

1 During her reign, the Queen has received many unusual gifts including live animals. The more unusual animals have been placed in the care of the London zoo, among them jaguars and sloths from Brazil, and two black beavers from Canada. The Queen has also received gifts of pineapples, eggs, a box of snail shells, a grove of maple trees and 7kg of prawns.

Queen Elizabeth was riding in a carriage with a dignitary during a State Visit. One of the horses broke wind appallingly. The Queen said, 'I'm most dreadfully sorry!' 'That's perfectly alright Ma'am,' the dignitary replied. 'Had you not said anything, I would have thought it was the horse.'

2 The Queen signals to staff with her handbag. If she wants to leave a dinner in five minutes, she puts her bag on the table. She moves it from arm to arm to tell aides she is tired of talking to someone.

During an interview with the Queen, a British ambassador returning from the Middle East was struggling to explain the character of the head of government with whom he had to deal. He approached it from this angle, and that angle, and roundabout, using increasingly long words with a psychological tinge, until his sovereign extricated him from his misery. 'Are you trying to tell me,' Her Majesty enquired, 'that the man is just bonkers?'

3 She is a patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association and maintains the Royal Lofts at Sandringham.

In 1952, the Coronation year, Queen Elizabeth II was honoured with a dubious title, she was named Times magazine's ‘Man of the Year’.

4 She was a big fan of 70s cop show Kojak, which starred Telly Savalas.

In 2002, Graham Turner, Queen Elizabeth's biographer, revealed a curious royal factoid. In November, 2000, Queen Elizabeth forbade royal footmen from carrying cellphones in Buckingham Palace. According to the UK Sun, The Queen was not amused when the phones started ringing incessantly, especially during royal meals. Novelty rings like the 'Hawaii Five-O' theme song apparently drove her ‘up the palace wall’.

5 Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926 at 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London, which was then her parents’ home and is now a Chinese restaurant.

While visiting the Bahamas one day, Queen Elizabeth observed her host remove a pencil from his pocket and use it to stir a drink. ‘That's all right in our company,’ she drily declared, ‘but what happens in high society?’

6 A security guard denied her entry to a private stand at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1991. He later said: ‘I thought she was some old dear who had got lost.
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Sir Michael Adeane, the Queen's Private Secretary, would send out a six-thousand word document in advance to hosts explaining the royal requirements. There were detailed instructions about gifts. Animals were not really welcome, explained Adeane's briefing, but his warning was not always heeded. Touring the Gambia in 1961, the Queen was offered a baby crocodile in a biscuit tin. It had to spend a night in the bath of Sir Martin Charteris.


7 When she was positioned behind a high lectern at the White House in 1991, a TV man was heard shouting: ‘All I’ve got is a talking hat!’

Queen Elizabeth II spends several sessions every month sitting to have her portrait painted by artists commissioned by high commissions, town halls and regimental messes. 'Now then,' she has been known to say as she enters the room, 'with teeth or without?'

8 Technically, she still owns the sturgeons, whales and dolphins, known as Fishes Royal, in the waters around the UK because of a 1324 statute.

While lunching with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace one day, the trade unionist Hugh Scanlon attacked a roast potato with such vigour that it shot from his plate and landed on the floor. As Scanlon sat blushing, a royal corgi waddled up, sniffed the fallen item and disdainfully left it, uneaten, at his feet. The Queen's response? ‘Not your day, is it Mr Scanlon?’

9 Prince Philip’s pet names for his wife are said to include ‘cabbage’ and ‘sausage’.

One day a preacher leaving Glamis Castle promised to send Princess Elizabeth, then a little girl of ten, a book as a gift. She thanked him and added, ‘Not about God - I know everything about him.’

10 She became the first member of the Royal Family to be awarded a gold disc after 100,000 copies of the CD of the Party at the Palace were sold.

In 2002, Graham Turner, Queen Elizabeth's biographer, revealed a curious royal factoid. The queen, it seemed, regularly entertained her friends... by impersonating world leaders. Among her impersonations are John Prescott, Neil Kinnock, the Reverend Ian Paisley, Tony and Cherie Blair, and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

 Happy Diamond Jubilee Everybody!