I have not felt that in the past 21,645 days she has been monarch. Long may she reign over us.
But to learn today that she shared a smile with the public at Ascot makes me cringe.
It is one of those stories that denigrates her and her office.
But to learn about it just as she is about to present the Ascot Gold Cup to herself makes it utterly mortifying. It denigrates the occasion which has taken on a quasi-spiritual dimension.
Clips of Elizabeth calling the Queen Mother “Mummy” weren't particularly smart either.
The sharing-a-smile story is already spreading around the world.
We've already had Aussie radio stations calling our office to talk, delighted to be able to put the boot into someone else's Head of State. Just because they’re a republic and we can’t even make up our minds.
Tony Abbott has made two visits to New Zealand this year, in February and earlier this week, and Key scrubs up very well next to Abbott.
I haven’t seen Key in his Speedo’s, but I have a good imagination. I’ve got a brother. I expect The Queen would look good in Speedo’s too.
She is confident, eloquent and clearly comfortable in her role, so comfortable that she loves testing and breaching boundaries.
It is all a matter of fine judgment.
"Going too far" is not part of Elizabeth's deliberate trade-craft as a Queen.
She does things ordinary people might do but that have shock value because she is Queen; such as wearing matching hat and gloves; asking people in crowds if they’ve come far; hamming it up with drag queens at the Big Gay Out (I think the drag queens mistook her for one of them - Ed); and telling UN ambassadors about how Philip once asked a driving instructor in Oban how he kept the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test. .
That's why we were not amused when we viewed the clip on the website this morning, we all knew it was true before we got the Queen's confirmation and apology.
Sharing a smile is just stupid.
Editor - Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s political editor, a job she has held since Barry Soper was in nappies. She is responsible for the Herald’s Press Gallery team. She first joined the New Zealand Herald in 1988 as a sub-editor after the closure of its tabloid rival, the Auckland Sun – they all ran away because they were terrified of Audrey. She’s sometimes called Aunty Audrey, but it’s not a term of endearment. She switched to reporting in 1991 as social welfare and housing reporter. She joined the Herald’s Press Gallery office in 1994. She has previously worked as a journalism tutor at Manukau Technical Institute, as member of the Newspapers in Education unit at Wellington Newspapers and as a teacher in Wellington. She was a union nominee on the Press Council for six years. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. She thinks smiling should be banned. Believe it or not, she’s a friend of Bob Jones.
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