The passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who oversaw a near century of public life, is a time to reflect on the many roles a figure like her necessarily plays. The UK’s longest reigning monarch was a tireless and dignified head of state and a figurehead for the evils of colonialism, a genuine comfort to vast numbers of people during times of turmoil and someone whose personal decency couldn’t overcome the absurdities of monarchy and the warping effect it had on more than one of her relatives.
One does not have to harbour any fondness for her or any royal family member to recognise a simply remarkable life; it would be so merely by its length, merely by the worlds it connects — she was born four years after the Soviet Union was established, and she dies more than 30 years after it collapsed, just one of the many unfathomable historical markers her time on earth easily swallows.
There will be time enough for all this to be unravelled, but for now, I can’t be the only one thinking “what does PizzaExpress make of this?” Behold the staggering number of brands that, very appropriately, are speaking up at this sad time:
It’s overwhelming. Somehow it didn’t feel real until Primark (whose work with crop tops undoubtedly meant the world to her majesty) or Playmobil (whose horrific “doll that’s about to come to life” rendering of the queen so moves us on this sad day) went online and with dignity and restraint acknowledged that she is in fact, gone.
