1.What had the Queen Mother never done once herself? Open or draw ...
2.What did Mahatma Gandhi send the Queen as a wedding gift? A piece of ...
3.Where did the Queen keep the Gandhi's gift? In ... in her bedroom.
The Queen Mother lived through the whole of the 20th century without once having to open or draw her bedroom curtains herself. But she did get more exercised when her normally abstemious daughter, Queen Elizabeth, once asked for a second glass of wine at lunch."Are you sure dear? You have got to reign all afternoon, you know," she said, gently teasing the monarch.When it comes to tales of the quirky or eccentric, little beats the Royal Family -- as writer Thomas Blaikie discovered while researching "Corgi and Bess: More Wit and Wisdom from The House of Windsor."From the memoirs of dressmaker Hardy Amies and portrait painter Pietro Annigoni to the recollections of novelist Barbara Cartland, he trawled the archives researching a second volume of royal trivia after the success of his first in 2002.No tale is too obscure for English teacher Blaikie.For instance, whatever happened to the piece of cloth woven by Mahatma Gandhi as a wedding gift for the Queen? She still keeps it in a drawer in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace.Anecdotes about how the royals relate to elected rulers and families make for entertaining reading.When Tony Blair won a landslide election victory in 1997, the Queen said of her 10th prime minister: "I suppose he will want me to call him Tony?"Blair's wife is also said to have told Princess Anne: "Do call me Cherie." Her frosty reply: "I think not, actually."
