Her Royal Highness even interrupted her hols! (Not in time to be at Buck House for the Star Spangled Banner, of course, but she did send her second son along.) The last time she broke off her holidays early, and the last time she authorised a breach of Royal Protocol (to fly the flag at half mast) was after Princess Di's death. Both those gestures were made at gunpoint. (She was persuasively advised that if she didn't, she would be booed at the funeral.)

Our gracious queen is learning fast, but I suspect too late, and we can surely now anticipate the death of this anachronistic institution.

It is welcome news that the last night of the Proms, which for many years has shamed the finest music festival in the world, is to be denuded of its jingoistic absurdities. Sad only that it took such a catastrophe to get us out of that particular rut. Land of Hope and Glory is gone, hopefully for ever, as Elgar himself would surely have wished. In its place, the inspired last movement of Beethoven;s Ninth Symphony than which there is nothing in the world more appropriate for the momeht.

It is surely time for all countries, not least America, to rethink some of their outdated nationalist symbolism and start recognising that we are all firstly citizens of the world. And don't forget that behind the title of this thread is a song/hymn that has absolutely no place in any pluralist multi-religious, multi-ethnic civilised society.