Narrowly missed getting a telegram from his wife

She looked at the message

she'd crafted and penned -

A letter to Philip

that she'd never send.

From reddit's resident poet, "poem_for_your_sprog": https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/mnerwn/prince_ph...

By the 2nd line of your comment I had lost my shit.

I thought The Sprog had emerged on HN

She sent the card (it’s a card now) to her mother (also Queen Elisabeth) when the latter turned 100.

I believe my grandmother waited around for this, at the end. She had never been particularly interested in the monarchy, I’d thought, but when she got older and had trouble reading I noticed that among her large print gardening books were a couple on the monarchy.

The question I want answered is, if she lives to 100 will she send a card to herself?

Her royal assistant will get stuck in a loop sending thank you for contacting the queen messages

And the halting theorem says there is nothing to be done about it!

The UK civil service agrees.

The UK civil service is actually fairly good, isn't it, or is it just the Internet facing side of it that gets great reviews?

I have also long wondered about this Bertrand Russell paradox.

You get the tele-message (not a telegram) from the Queen when you turn 100. But it seems you have to apply for it.

https://youtu.be/7Quyte7zN70?list=PLkX9Ba6AAK_2g3Y9Y8MdLbbcT...

You also get one on your 60th wedding anniversary.

I organised one for my grandparents a couple of years back. They also received a card from the Prime Minister [of New Zealand], the Leader of the Opposition, their local MP, and a couple of other random politicians and dignitaries.

It's not something that I thought about at the time, but I'm quite happy that it's something you need to apply for. It would be a bit disconcerting if the Queen had access to the birth, death, and marriage records of everybody in New Zealand.

Are birth, death and marriage records not public?

I don’t know about New Zealand, but nowadays in Australia recent births deaths and marriages records are only available to their subjects and close relatives. Two reasons (a) privacy (b) helps prevent identity theft, since birth certificates (and sometimes also marriage certificates) are often accepted as identity documents

Yes but localized and rarely digitized

For people in the states, you can get appropriate cards from the White House for important occasions.

I sent Bill Clinton an invitation to my high school graduation party, and got a letter back from the White House telling me to work hard in college.

But mailing a birth announcement to the White House is a much better idea. They send a card back to the child welcoming them to the world. You can file it away and then give it to your kid when they are an adult and tell them this is the first letter they ever got.

In Germany, the first letter a child gets is one that gets sent automatically, assigning them a tax number. A letter from the President is much nicer. However, German parents can apply for the President to be the honorary godfather of their seventh child.

The funniest thing with this tax letter is that on the envelope it says “Karriere mit Zukunft” meaning “careers with a future” like they completely seriously expect your newborn baby to start working for them 18+ years down the line.

It hasn’t been a telegram for at least 20 years. She sends a birthday card these days.

Does this count as a technological regression?

I'm sure they have automated a lot of it, so maybe it has progressed in that less man hours are required per message, and on top of that, they are probably in color, with pictures, which is way more than you get with a telegram.

This comment could literally (literally literal) be an imperial apologist in one of Asimov's books... even the concise, urging, commaed style.

You promised us instant messaging. All we got is colour postcards. This is the beginning of a dark age.

I feel like people would appreciate a handwritten physical memento over, say, a short SMS.

Most electronic messaging forms are either closed (do you have Telegram? How bout Signal? Or maybe Messenger? Snapchat? Etc.) or basically inundated with electronic spam. If I got an email claiming to be from the Queen of England I’d just think it’d be a more ballsy version of the Nigerian prince scam.

Actually these days you can send coloured images with Telegram, it is really really smooth although I don't think the Queen will want to depend on it ;-)

You also get a card on your 60th wedding anniversary

...with only two months to go for the three digits.

Base 10. Nobody so far has gotten to the more interesting 7 digits.

pretty sure she gave him a signal

Underrated comment.

GP completely flew over my head. Care to explain?