ten things you never knew about the queen mother...

Click here to start a message board topic related to this article.

1) Her nose was made from the same silicon compound that coats the Space Shuttle. It was attached by NASA doctors during a commercial break in Channel 4 Racing in June 1992.

2) Up until 1998, she was officially the seventh largest consumer of Tequila in the world, after Canada.

3) She once called C.S.Lewis a cunt.

4) She used to make the young Prince Edward wear her old bra and knickers and march up and down the gardens of Buckingham Palace with an old pair of laundry tongs as a baton, while the gardeners pelted him with fir cones. She said it would help give him character.

5) She enjoyed the works of Charles Dickens - in particular, the character of Captain Cuttle in Dombey and Son. In fact, in later years, she would come to address all of her close friends and relations as "Captain Cuttle" - and insisted that they address her as "Uncle Sol." This was typical of her whimsical and puckish mind.

6) Every morning, she would spend half an hour in the company of a heavily sedated tiger. This was her private time. She was always fascinated by the natural world, and would spend many minutes inspecting the genitals of the tiger, sometimes sketching, other times making rubber moulds.

7) She combed her hair with a bunsen burner.

8) Prince Charles is actually her child. She conceived him after a Royal Variety Performance. Rumour has it that a young Dennis Nordon did a turn that night.

9) Scientists estimate that her body will take 17 days to attain room temperature.

10) The Palace bar-staff named a cocktail in her honour. The 'Queen Mum' is thee parts gin, two parts benzedrine, four parts gin, eight parts scotch, five parts gin, two parts Duckhams Supergrade, seven parts Benson and Hedges, and a heaped teaspoon of hundreds and thousands.