Meditation on the New Queen Stamps in Canada

My friends Maurice and Hugh used to pretend to be the Queen on Mastermind whenever they got drunk. Mastermind was a high-brow BBC quiz show inspired by the by the creator’s experience of being interrogated by the Germans during the Second World War.

Hugh would do the ominous theme music, and we pictured the lights coming up on a small figure in that scary black chair. Maurice would play Magnus Magnusson, the stern interrogator host.

   “Last name?”
   “Kwheen,” Hugh would reply in a high-pitched, imperious voice.
   “First name?”
   “The.”

For some reason this was always hilarious.