A Royal birthday without spelling or music?

A new website on our monarch's life has been launched today to mark the Queen's 80th birthday on 21st April. Unfortunately the Government literacy drive doesn't seem to have reached Buckingham Palace as the site says: 'The search functionality allows you to search for the pressence (sic) of a word or words on the website.'

If we leave that aside there are photographs, documents and other archive material charting the life of the Queen online. The new site promises: 'This web site celebrates Her Majesty's life and times and provides information about events taking place to celebrate her birthdays'.

But the site search engine delivers more disappointments. Searching for the term 'music' gives the following result: 'Sorry, your search didn't return any pages.'

A recent Guardian interview about a royal birthday commission for the new Master of the Queen's Music Sir Peter Maxwell Davies reported: ' Sir Peter, who as an anti-establishment figure surprised many when he accepted the position, said the royal family were "very good. I was surprised that they are so helpful and keen. They have been falling over backwards to help. I have had in-depth conversations with the Queen and Prince Charles about music. The Queen in particular has shown great understanding and perception. The idea she's a philistine is complete rubbish".'

The last sentence in the second paragraph is not a typo, the Queen may not have two dictionaries or two CDs, but she does actually have two birthdays.

Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
If you enjoyed this post take An Overgrown Path to * Teach our children to play music * Orchestras are "boozy cultures" - continued * The bookless Mrs Beckham * A musician with teeth

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks, pliable. I thought that the British Queen's birthday was in June, and your report about her having an actual and official birthday is enlightening. One more of life's little mysteries solved.... Do you know whether the Queen has an MP3 player or a CD player? Thanks.
Pliable said…
I'm reliably informed the Queen has an iPod. In fact when the picture at the head of my article was taken she was allegedly listening to Coldplay on the headphones under her scarf while attending an early rehearsal of the celebratory birthday cantata composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and the poet laureate Andrew Motion.
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