You probably heard the news: the Queen is dead. She died today in Balmoral, peacefully and with her family. We all knew it was going to happen some day, but it was a surprise, nonetheless. 96 years old, that’s quite the innings. I did always hope she would make it to 100, not least so she could write a letter to herself. There will be a lot of things said over the next few days and weeks by a lot of people, but it is undoubtedly the passing of an era, a real historic moment for Britain. Whatever any of us think about the whole monarchy thing, Elizabeth II was a good person, a very likeable person, quite a funny person and a very popular Queen, even if people didn’t like many of the rest of them. She was The Queen for 70 years, all my life, almost all my mum’s life, one of her earliest memories is the coronation. I was in London with my mum during the Platinum Jubilee. In her time the Queen had 15 Prime Ministers, with the newest one coming in just this week. She did manage to get quite a few Prime Ministers in her last few years. She saw England win the World Cup and Spurs win the Double, both of which were a really long time ago now. She saw the rise and break-up of the Beatles, and was still around when Get Back finally came out. Ironically, last night I learned the ukulele chords to ‘Her Majesty’, not knowing that the next day she would die. I drew this tonight, it has been a long time since I drew on one of those brown envelopes, I still have a big stack of those. I’ll probably give it to my mum. Sh really loved the Queen. I expect the Funeral will be fairly massive. And then I saw that Charles was ill too, and I thought wow that’s all they need, but I misread, it actually said ‘King Charles III’. So Prince Charles is now King Charles the Third. I always thought he would take on a different name when crowned, such as George or Henry, but that might have been too confusing for all those people who get confused when someone changes their name. It actually happens a lot. Many monarchs were called something different, Popes do it all the time, Anakin Skywalker changed his named to Darth Vader. I like the sound of “Charles III”. We need a new national anthem now – I know we just keep the same one and change “Queen” to “King” but maybe now is the time to choose an all-new anthem, one that’s a bit livelier at the big sporting occasions. I do have to get an updated ruler now – I have one of those ones with the names of all the English kings and queens on it – but that’s what happens when a monarch dies, you get a new ruler.

So rest in peace your majesty, you longest-serving British monarch, it’s going to be a long time before anyone breaks that record, and will Britain ever have another Queen? Probably not in my lifetime.