Katherine and I had just been to an exhibition of portraits of the Queen, and I asked her mother why it was that, since Annigoni's masterpiece, now hanging in the Fishmongers' Hall, there was not a single picture of any merit.
"It's because she has no interest in the visual," said the Queen Mother. "She was born without any aesthetic sense whatever. Princess Margaret and I look at all the designs for postage stamps, for example. They are sent to the Queen by the Postmaster General for approval. She admits, she can't tell the difference between a good and a bad design,"
Sure enough, since the death of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, the quality of British stamps has steadily declined.
Now read my review of Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown.
