Avoid the big red bus

I finished reading this massive tome - over a thousand pages including its glossary - which I can highly recommend for those interested in the subject. My main criticism is the size of the book, and by that I'm referring to its sheer weight, which makes reading a rather tiring exercise. The only way I was best able to deal with that was to read it at my desk. Whilst trying to be careful not to mistreat the book, its binding split when I was about halfway through. As Sir Roy Strong suggested, it would have been better to have published it in two volumes.


Queen Elizabeth's longevity meant that she lived through all the significant events of the C20th, and beyond, (just), into the C21st. Throughout, one outstanding characteristic was her zest for life, and this is quite well summed up in these few lines:


The high point of her [centennial] birthday celebrations was the pageant in her honour in Horse Guards Parade...The organiser, as for her eightieth and ninetieth birthday celebrations, was Major Michael Parker. In the mid-1990s Parker had had tea with the Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother. When the Princess said to her, 'We're all so looking forward to your hundreth birthday,' Queen Elizabeth replied, 'Oh, you mustn't say that, it's unlucky. I mean I might be run over by a big red bus." Parker said he thought this was very unlikely, to which Queen Elizabeth replied, 'No, no, it's the principle of the thing. Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent your all life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you didn't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say "Oh my God, I could have got so drunk last night!" That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus.'


One might not necessarily agree that living a healthy lifestyle is a bad or onerous thing, but you get the drift, more succinctly, of carpe diem.


The completion of reading the book coincided with finding a comment on my blog from a new contributor. This naturally led me to read her blog, and by yet another of those extraordinary coincidences, one of the writers on her blogroll faves had written about this biography. Serendipity yet again, or am I blessed with powers?