{"id":17476,"date":"2015-08-21T11:40:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T11:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delightfull.eu\/blog\/?p=17476"},"modified":"2016-01-29T12:50:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T12:50:27","slug":"11-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/2015\/08\/21\/11-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"11 things you didn’t know about the Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s a well-documented fact that Queen Elizabeth II<\/strong> is a living British legend, but not everyone knows that the queen<\/em><\/strong> is also a total badass as well. On September 9, Queen Liz will officially become Britain\u2019s longest reigning monarch and with that in mind, we\u2019ve rounded up some facts, each one of them arguably more badass than the last.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: <\/strong> London Days Out<\/a><\/p>\n

1. She doesn\u2019t need a passport to travel<\/p>\n

\"11<\/p>\n

Yep, that\u2019s right: because all passports in Britain are technically issued in the Queen\u2019s name, her madge doesn\u2019t need one to travel herself. \u201cAs a British passport is issued in the name of Her Majesty, it is unnecessary for The Queen to possess one,\u201d according to royal.gov.uk. \u201cAll other members of the Royal Family, including The Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince of Wales, have passports.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. She knows how to fire a gun<\/p>\n

\"11
\nThis photo (which is arguably the best picture taken of anyone, ever) was snapped during a royal visit to Surrey\u2019s National Shooting Centre. The Queen couldn\u2019t resist some target practice when she was shown this L85 battle rifle.<\/p>\n

3. She served during WWII<\/p>\n

The Queen is the only living head of state in the world to have served during World War II and she was the only female member of the British royal family to do so. She joined the Women\u2019s Auxiliary Territorial Service when she was 18 and learned how to drive a military truck, during which time she also acquired some serious engine-fixing skills (which leads us nicely on to our next fact).<\/p>\n

4. She\u2019s a trained mechanic<\/p>\n

\"11<\/p>\n

The Queen \u2013 or the Princess, as she was then \u2013 didn\u2019t just drive trucks during WWII; she also learned how to repair them. \u201cWhen the training centre was visited by the King and Queen and Princess Margaret, they found Princess Elizabeth in overalls, working on the engine of a Red Cross lorry,\u201d says the narrator in the video. \u201cPrincess Elizabeth, honorary second subaltern, ATS, is now a competent mechanic, and proud of the fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. She has two birthdays<\/p>\n

\"11<\/p>\n

The Queen doesn\u2019t just celebrate one birthday a year like regular folk, oh no; as well as probably getting better presents than you (she got her first corgi, Susan, for her 18th), she also gets twice as many birthdays. She was actually born on April 21, but her \u201cofficial\u201d birthday is held in early June on a Saturday, during which she hits the town for the Trooping the Colour parade.<\/p>\n

6. She was sending emails before the internet was even a thing<\/p>\n

Think you\u2019re good at technology? You ain\u2019t got nothing on Liz. She may have only just got in on the Twitter game last year, but the Queen sent her first email from an Army base back in 1976 (becoming the first Monarch to do so).<\/p>\n

7. She owns a ton of the most badass birds around<\/p>\n

\"Queen<\/p>\n

A lot of people think the Queen owns all the swans in Britain, but this isn\u2019t technically true. According to the official website of the British Monarchy, \u201cthe Crown retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water, but The Queen only exercises her ownership on certain stretches of the Thames and its surrounding tributaries\u201d. She still owns more swans than the average person, though, and every year the Swan Upping ceremony (aka the annual Thames swan census) provides an opportunity for her to take to the waters and count her glistening, feathery flock first-hand.<\/p>\n

8. She\u2019s not averse to the occasional photobomb<\/p>\n

During the Commonwealth Games in 2014, Australian hockey player Jayde Taylor tweeted one of the most epic selfies of all time, which featured a grinning and slightly blurred Queen Elizabeth in the background, peering into the lens.<\/p>\n

9. She\u2019s starred alongside James Bond<\/p>\n

She can fix an engine in the blink of an eye, she can fire a gun, she knows how to handle intruders AND she\u2019s pals with James Bond \u2013 as the evident suggests, the queen is basically a secret agent. The clip above was filmed as part of the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games, which saw Daniel Craig escorting Her Majesty out of Buckingham Palace and into a helicopter, before the pair made a grand entrance by skydiving into the Olympic Stadium (the Queen may have used a stunt double for that last bit, but given her proven track record in badassery it\u2019s impossible to be sure).<\/p>\n

10. Celebrities queue up to hang out with her<\/p>\n

\"Royal<\/p>\n

Models, actors, Hollywood A-listers, and even members of One Direction \u2013 the Queen has met them all. And they always come to her.<\/p>\n

11. She\u2019s been known to enjoy Ali G impressions<\/p>\n

Or, more specifically, Ali G impressions given by her mother. Yep that\u2019s right, the Queen Mum was an Ali G fan \u2013 a fact confirmed by Prince William and Prince Harry in an interview in which they described a Christmas around the turn of the Millenium when the Queen Mother came across them watching Ali G on TV, and they showed her how to click her fingers and say \u2018Respec\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was at the end of the meal, and she stood up and said: \u2018Darling, lunch was marvellous \u2013 respec,\u2019 and clicked her fingers,\u201d said Prince Harry, before William went on to describe how the whole family burst out laughing \u2013 including the Queen, who the impression had been directed at.<\/p>\n

RELATED STORY: The Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a well-documented fact that Queen Elizabeth II is a living British legend, but not everyone knows that the queen is also a total badass as well. On September 9, Queen Liz will officially become Britain\u2019s longest reigning monarch and with that in mind, we\u2019ve rounded up some facts, each one of them arguably more badass than the last. SEE ALSO: London Days Out 1. She doesn\u2019t need a passport to travel Yep, that\u2019s right: because all passports in Britain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":17487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[654,658],"tags":[5189,37,5194,9,5196,5195,5191,5193,5187,5188],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}