I'm finding some of the twitter discourse a bit discombobulating and I can't quite decide if I'm very naive about the extent to which the royal family has any real power, or if many twitter commentators - particularly from overseas, vastly over-estimate their power. A little from column A and a little form column B, I suspect. They have a lot of influence even if not much practically useable power.

I'm sad at the level of its sad when someone dies, and someone I'd been aware of all my life. I find it hard to assess how good a job she did. Keeping one's opinions to oneself in public is a much under-rated skill, as is managing not to significantly rock the boat for 70 years but there's a sense in which she merely kept the tides of history at bay without finding a way for the monarchy to go forward once her time passed. Apres moi le deluge and all that.