Queen "Tantrum" II - BBC Report

I'VE POSTED HERE THE BBC'S FOOTAGE of The Queen's supposed "tantrum" during the official photo-portrait session with American snapper Annie Liebowitz.

You can click here to see it, and last night's BBC Evening News analysis of the supposed "incident" as reported in the ever-reliable Sun newspaper ...

According to royal biographer Penny Junor, The Queen is cursed by a face that "does not look photogenic in repose" - you can say that again. Quite often she appears to be nearly scowling as she looks on at crowds, performances, new buildings, exhibitions and displays of all kinds. Personally I think this is a bad habit from childhood that was never corrected and so is now seen as part of her character. It is not. I can look just as grumpy as the Queen with "my face in repose" - if I make every effort not to smile and pull my mouth about like a bulldog chewing a wasp.

And as for the Queen's famously squeaky voice. In actuality she modulates her speech far more cheerily than her impersonators ever manage to. I suspect that in childhood her vocal quirks were spotted and an elecutionist was dutifully packed off to the palace to teach one how to use one's voice properly. The elecutionist failed dismally. Rather than improving one's voice in any way, the poor young Princess Elizabeth (as she was then) was merely saddled with a squeaky version of the upper-class and royal accent of her grandparents' generation. This would certainly explain a lot. Listen to her late father, George VI speaking: he sounds almost normal even by today's standards. But that accent our poor Queen has been saddled with for most of her life (only in very recent years has it shown any signs of fading into more normal pronunciations) ... whoever's responsible for that deserves to be locked up in the Tower of London and severely punished!