Only in Britain!

Oh Friendos, I was so excited to start a whole series on the blog called "I'll have what She's Having" where I buy and then review foodstuffs that are by appointment to her Majesty the Queen. Sadly, the dream is but over before it's even begun - because, as it turns out, "By appointment to her Majesty the Queen" refers not to the product, but to the company who produce the product. You really have no idea how hard this hit me. For the last three years + I've been going around feeling happy that I use the Queen's facial scrub, or that we both like marmalade without bits in it. Now it turns out that I will never know which facial scrub she uses - it just happens that she uses *a* product from the same family of products as my facial scrub. What this mostly robs from me is the image of, say, the Queen sitting at home eating Quaker's mini rice cakes. I had this idea, from the one time I'd seen the insigna on a package, that she preferred salt and vinegar. I'd be watching a movie, enjoying my salt and vinegar mini rice cakes, and I'd look at the package, and I'd think, "We aren't so different after all, are we?" But no, no, no, it's all gone. The Royal We and the Collective We. Forced forever to stand at odds with each other. When they stopped selling mini rice cakes in Britain, I remember distinctly thinking, "How could they do such a thing? The queen eats them! Does she have a special private appointment with them now? Are they sent directly to her house? A special batch made only for her? Will she give me some?" But the truth is she probably doesn't like mini rice cakes at all. She probably likes something boring from Quaker, like corn flakes. Okay, okay, I'm being overly hard on corn flakes. I'm sorry. Blame it on my newfound disappointment over no longer having a precious window into the Queen's pantry.