Peter Rhodes: The Queen or Our Queen?

MORE things misheard in youth. A reader who did her teaching practice 40 years ago at an infant school in a road called Beehive Lane recalls the discovery that some of the little kids didn't know the Lord's Prayer. They were found to be chanting: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hello Beehive Lane."

WITH less than three months to go to the EU referendum, I wonder how long it will be before somebody in Whitehall or Brussels tells us that, under some tiny and well-hidden sub-section of EU law, the result of our voting will be advisory rather than mandatory? Just a hunch . . .

THERE is nothing in the 2015 Conservative Manifesto about converting all primary schools into academies. The closest it gets is the pledge to "Turn every failing or coasting secondary school into an academy." Jeremy Corbyn hasn't exactly set the nation alight with his choice of policies so far but in fighting this imposition of power from the top-down, he may be on to a winner. It is a simple matter of honesty. If it isn't in the manifesto, it shouldn't be on the agenda.

MORE on relatives named after famous battles. A reader tells me the member of his family known as Uncle Ipe was actually christened Ypres. How odd, he says, to name someone after one of the grisliest battles of all time.

AS Ireland commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, I wonder what those heroic, doomed young revolutionaries of 1916 would make of their homeland today. They were romantics and idealists, teachers and poets. They dreamed of an idyllic, pastoral, Gaelic nation, a land of legend and martyrs, blessed by the blood of its heroes and run by the will of the people, not by foreigners in London. Today's Ireland, thoroughly immersed in the EU, is subject not to diktat from Whitehall but to diktat from Brussels. As Yeats didn't quite put it: All changed, changed utterly / A terrible bureaucracy is born.

AND isn't it weird how many Left-wing commentators applaud Ireland's violent 1916 bid to free itself of rule from London, yet condemn Britain's peaceful 2016 bid to free itself of rule from Brussels?

LEAVING aside the advert breaks, how could you tell that the two-hour documentary marking the Queen's 90th birthday was produced by ITV, not the Beeb? The clue is in the title: "Our Queen at 90." If the BBC had been in charge, you could bet your life the usual republican-tinged political correctness would have applied and it would have been titled "The Queen at 90." ITV's use of the word "Our" was unashamedly partisan, and so was the tone of the documentary, totally uncritical and guaranteed not to embarrass the Palace. But what's wrong with that? There are times for 'ard-nosed journalism and there are times simply to celebrate. Lenny Henry looked magnificent and David Beckham, who has been around the world a bit and met plenty of heads of state, pointed out that ours is the best of them all.

THE biggest surprise was how the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were deeply and genuinely moved as they spoke of their love for their grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh. Apparently, he's an old sweetie. His street-cred as royal curmudgeon-in-chief took a right battering.