Liars and Saints

 My husband is mourning the Queen; he sends me poems from the p.o.v. of a corgi, snapshots of a "regal" rainbow, "letters" from Paddington to Elizabeth. He has read extensively about the strange bus protocols that heads of government have swallowed (not by choice), in preparation for the funeral. My husband has read also about Anne, and how her role may grow, and he wonders aloud if primogeniture is still "a thing." He asks if we can pose for a selfie in front of an improvised "tribute" to Elizabeth; the tribute is in South Orange, and it's roses climbing up a streetlight. After the photo, Marc discovers the roses are *not* a tribute. They're just roses. The tribute part was a narrative that Marc had constructed in his head. "Of course," says Marc, "there isn't room in the funeral for *former* heads of government. If you're going to be invited, you have to control your country right now. The head of Turkey declined,...

 I'm reading "The Palace Papers," by Tina Brown, and it's quite long. The Prince Charles portion drags on. (And on and on and on.) Still, there are treats. For example: *Despite her self-absorption, Margaret was an excellent parent. The Margaret/child bond was quite a bit stronger than the Elizabeth/child bond. When Margaret's child was unhappy at school, Margaret responded in a sensitive way. When Charles suffered in his Scottish boarding school/penal colony, Elizabeth said, "Tough it out." *People liked to work with Philip. People liked to work with Margaret. (She listened when her employees described their needs, and she chose gifts accordingly.) It seems that no one likes to work with Charles, who comes off as clueless, self-pitying, disorganized, and insufferable. *Flaws aside, Charles understood that East/West relations were a major problem long before 9/11. Charles was also talking about the toxicity of plastics many, many years before paper straw...