When I am Queen*

In preparation for my upcoming trip to the UK, I hauled out the horde of cash that I had left over from my last visit, and discovered to my great disappointment that I had only £3.85 and an Oyster tube card. I have about fifteen euros, but alors, I am not going to France. That's a lot of egg-and-cress sandwiches that are no longer essentially free. Sadness.

Anyway, I was looking through them trying to remember what-all sorts of coins those folks have (weird ones), when I noticed something about the queen's profile: she ages. I'm used to George and Abe and Tom, who, as far as I'm concerned, have always been dead, and never needed updating. (Except for that time they went and made some of them better-looking.) Point is, it never occurred to me that having a living monarch represented on your currency would pose certain problems. Such as the fact that they would need to change.

Exhibit A: Something goldish from between 1974 and 1984

Exhibit B: 2p from 1988

Exhibit C: 20p from 1998

It is one thing to look at yourself in the mirror every day: unless you're really self-obsessed, the aging process will presumably seem nice and gradual. But imagine if someone called you up and said, "Your Majesty, look, it's no secret you're getting a bit jowly; we've really got to update the currency or people won't recognize you on the coins." Okay, fine. But of course they cannot repossess all the coins of Young You and replace them with Jowly You, so every time a new portrait is released, all people have to do is dig around in their pockets and compare a couple of coins and say, "Christ, she's getting old, isn't she?" I mean anyone looks reasonably good represented on a shiny hunk of copper-clad steel, but I'm sure even Her Royal Highness suffers from vanity on occasion.

So I've decided that when I'm queen it shall be a royal decree that my likeness shall never be represented over the age of 22, and I shall not be opposed to handsomifying it. If it's good enough for George Washington, it's good enough for me.

*In fact, Prince William appeared in one of my dreams last night. Unfortunately: (1) he was for some reason a member of my extended family, (2) he was late, and (3) he was wearing a huge hat with a giant feather in it that I thought was frankly a BIT MUCH. I did not like him at all.