What the queen has for breakfast

If you imagine that everything around the Queen is made of gold, think again.

We learned this week that the Queen always eats white toast and jam for breakfast. She eats it from an old white tray with legs. It looks very old and is not fancy at all.

This is not so surprising if you read the British newspapers. We have already heard that Royal breakfast cereal is kept in ordinary plastic boxes. We have also heard that Buckingham Palace has not been redecorated for 50 years.

New museum

The oldest public museum in Britain re-opens next weekend in stunning new buildings.

The Ashmolean officially opened in Oxford on May 21 1683. Now £61 million has been spent on the building. The old front remains but little else.

The work means that many items owned by the museum can now be shown, including Islamic tapestries.

Clever TV

The television of the future will be able to guess what you want to watch without a remote control, says a UK expert.

Ashley Highfield is the head of Microsoft in this country. He also used to work for the public broadcaster, the BBC and helped develop an on-demand service.

Now he says televisions will be able to recognise how viewers look to decide what they want to watch. He expects this to happen in five to 10 years.

No letters today

We’re getting used to not getting letters and parcels as the post service strike ends its second week.

Postmen and women are working most days of the week but the strike has been organised to disrupt services as much as possible. At present there are no signs of the problem ending.

The dispute in the Royal Mail is over modernisation of the way the work is done.

The Government and managers of Royal Mail are now worried that the strike may affect the delivery of Christmas cards and parcels. This is the busiest time of the year for the service.

by Susan Young - susan@englishuk.com