Heading home from work this evening, a passenger in the car being driven by my partner northbound on the M6 (having just joined from the M62) the news came through: Queen Elizabeth II had died.

(No other comment – I’m no royalist, but bore her no ill. Just marking where I was at the time.

Actually, I wonder if this will mark a point in the life of the UK. As we break with this symbol of Britain’s past, will we turn left of right: to modernism and growth, or inwards and further rapid decline?)