Her Majesty loved Kellogg's.
For years, the public has read about Operation London Bridge, the tightly choreographed succession of events planned for the death of the Queen, the telltale public sign of which being the donning of mournful black suits and ties long kept on hand by BBC presenters. On Thursday, a cold war system designed to warn of nuclear attack but now concerned primarily with heralding royal deaths would have illuminated blue lights in broadcast studios across the UK, setting in motion the series of events.
By Friday, much of the world was in on the procedure of mourning. Flags at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, for example, were at half-staff in honor of the Queen by order of the Speaker of the House. This was, of course, a historically fraught gesture for a building to which the British set fire just two short centuries ago. The Mayor of New York City, whose office is a short walk away from Evacuation Day Plaza, named for the spectacular 1783 celebration of the departure of British troops from New York, also ordered flags lowered.
To mourn the end of an historic reign (or, if you are the Canadian $20 note and insist on using an improper article, “A [sic] historic reign”) the Newsletter has also set in motion its procedures for the death of the sovereign. This week’s regularly scheduled programming (a very favorable review of the Minnesota State Fair) will be interrupted. A brief foreign dispatch — a very early precursor to the Newsletter — originally appearing in the Kalamazoo College student newspaper in November of 2017 concerning, among other things, Her Majesty’s preference for Michigan breakfast cereal, appears in its place:
I knowingly ate haggis for the first time this week. Haggis, a traditional Scottish dish, has a list of ingredients that would be inappropriate to print in a publication such as the Index, which is distributed near dining facilities, but you ought to Google it if you are feeling particularly adventurous. I had eaten haggis once before at an event where it was presented unlabeled at a buffet. It was delicious, due largely to my not knowing what I had eaten until after I had finished dining. This week, my Glaswegian flatmate served me haggis with dinner and I, with full knowledge of what it was, ate about half of it. I have never felt so adventurous in my life.
Despite haggis, Scotland is almost certainly the friendliest of study abroad destinations for picky eaters like me. For perhaps the first time, my diet — one which is composed largely of carbohydrates, starches, and red meat — can be masked behind the excuse of local authenticity. One of my new favorite dishes consists solely of chopped-up beef in gravy with some sort of dough floating about. I am living my best life.
Even the American food is better. Each morning, I eat a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes for breakfast. They are the same, except that they are called “Frosties” and they are eaten by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We know this because all of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite products have a special label. On my Frosties, it reads, “By Appointment to HM The Queen Purveyors of Cereals Kellogg Marketing and Sales Company.” (“HM” is a shortened version of “Her Majesty” which is surprisingly common in the UK. Apparently, they speak and write so frequently of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II that it necessitates a time-saver.) HM’s other favorite household products include Heinz Ketchup and the kind of dish soap that my flatmates buy.
The Queen also enjoys a repulsive condiment known only as “brown sauce,” of which everybody else here is a raving fan. Brown sauce is advertised as being a distinctly British food, and the bottle features a picture of the Palace of Westminster. It maintains an important place at the top of the collective psyche of the British people. (In Scotland, the collective love of brown sauce is possibly only exceeded by a love of The Proclaimers’ “500 Miles,” a song which is traditionally sung by hordes of inebriated riders on night buses). Brown sauce has the love of the British people and the culinary pervasiveness of table salt. Given these factors, one can only imagine what will come of this land when the Brexit proceedings are finished and it is discovered that brown sauce also has a label that reads “Manufactured in the Netherlands.”
Distractions
“How She Did It: Elizabeth II Made the UK’s Constitution Work. America Could Learn a Thing or Two.” by David Frum in the Atlantic.
Let me be clear that I think it is entirely unfair to give the UK credit for solving the issues of modern governance. From Brexit to PM resignations to the fact that their deodorant comes in sprays (sprays!) instead of sticks, they have far from a utopia on their hands. Still, Frum is on to something when he suggests that monarchy in the context of the UK constitution (which was best described in a reading I did in a college seminar as “a set of understandings that nobody understands”) has lent remarkable stability to their system of government.
“The British genius is the ability to wrap institutional innovations in fake antiquity,” writes Frum. “The American struggle is to wrestle outdated institutions into the modern age.”
I offer all of this in service of the argument that perhaps we might solve some of our own national issues with a monarchy — but only if I am the king. I am great at speaking politely to people, and I love fine linens and Kellogg’s cereal. What do we have to lose?
“We’ll Miss You, MetroCard Machine.” by Karrie Jacobs in Curbed.
The history of the subway in New York is usually a history of very big things — the construction of tunnels, the acquisition of railcars, the advent of express service, and so forth. It is rare that the fare — the cost to enter the system — gets the attention that it deserves. The flat fare (meaning the cost is the same whether you go one stop down the line or cross the entire city rather than increasing with distance) is, in many ways, responsible for the growth of a unified New York City. The nickel fare — the unflinching Costco hot dog/Arizona iced tea price of subway rides — was unchanged from 1904 to 1948 and its preservation made entire political careers. Subway tokens were an icon of the city for generations. Certain traces of them remain on some turnstiles if you know where to look.
Then, in the 1990s, the MetroCard — a yellow plastic card with a big magnetic strip — came on the scene, followed a few years later by MetroCard Vending Machines. Those colorful machines have been largely unchanged for 23 years. They have been the first impression of the city for millions of visitors and new arrivals and a monthly touchstone for lifelong New Yorkers renewing their passes.
What is remarkable about the MetroCard Vending Machines is how little time anybody spends thinking about them. They just work, which is high praise for a government computer interface that has been around for a quarter of a century. The design, led by a graduate of Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art, speaks for itself as a brilliant triumph well ahead of its time.
In June, I switched from my MetroCard to OMNY, a new system where most subway riders need only tap their credit card on the turnstile. The vending machine is completely out of the equation. In the next year or so, most of New York will do the same, just as our predecessors have left behind their tickets, their nickels, their dimes, and their tokens.