No one can cancel a birthday, however hard they try. Trooping the colours, well, we can give the poor horses a rest for this year.

In Canada, the Queen's Birthday is 24 May, marked with gun salutes, the planting of tender annuals, and double-dozens of beer drunk on cottage docks throughout the land. Let us all hope that, by then, gunners, gardeners and beer-drinkers alike will be able to do what they do without fear of infecting anyone with something nasty.