Secrets of the Royal Kitchen

Her Majesty gives a state banquet for the Obamas in 2011.
Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?

Your Head Trucker wonders how many of his readers agree with him that the putrid mess in Washington is simply too frightful to keep up with.  How refreshing, then, to turn one's attention elsewhere and reflect upon the virtues of a constitutional monarchy that stays above the thrust and parry of sordid politics.

(We might have been a bit hasty with all that 1776 business, you know.  I mean, would it really have been so awful if we'd stayed in the club and ended up as, say, Greater Canada, after all?  Just look how it's all turned out!  They have Justin up north, and we have -- oh, never mind.)

The Queen's Official Birthday will be observed in Britain on the 17th - and in anticipation here are two very pleasant videos, one short and one long, that may take your mind off Russo-American skulduggery and numbskullery for a while.

First, a lovely glimpse of the back forty at BP:




And second, a fascinating, often mouthwatering insight into royal cookery by Graham Newbould, a former chef on HMY Britannia: