Hello listeners. Well I didn't expect to be recording this right now this evening.

It is Thursday the 8th of September. It's about 8.45 PM my time

here in Paris where I am. That's about 7.45 PM in the UK.

And so yes, I didn't expect to be doing this, but here I am doing it.

I just felt like I had to quickly do a podcast episode and publish it as soon as possible just to talk about this because I suppose you've seen the news.

I don't know if you have, I don't know if you've seen the news, maybe you're getting the news from this, but it's a significant one, big news story and a significant thing for the United Kingdom,

for British people, and for many other people

around the world, including other countries

such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, members of the Commonwealth, and probably just people

all around the world who can see the significance of this.

So the news is that the Queen has died. Queen Elizabeth

the second has died. She was was she 96 years old and she died at the end of the afternoon or during the afternoon today.

And so I thought that I really should immediately do a podcast episode talking about this and share my thoughts.

I know that some people are wondering how I'm feeling about it and stuff. I'm going to talk about it all.

I'm going to have a kind of ramble because I'm not completely prepared.

It's not like I've, I mean, you know, I think we knew that this was going to happen fairly soon because obviously the Queen was 96.

I hope I'm right in saying that. Was she 96? Yeah, 96. Queen was 96 years, and we'd known for some time that she wasn't in the best of health,

and that, for example, she'd had to cancel various engagements and public appearances and stuff and obviously she lost her husband,

Prince Philip last year and that must have been a big blow for her.

So it doesn't come as a big surprise, you know,

she'd had a long life and she wasn't very well.

So I suppose I could have prepared for this but nevertheless I didn't really.

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