The passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who oversaw a close to century of public life, is a time to replicate on the numerous roles a determine like her essentially performs. The UK’s longest reigning monarch was a tireless and dignified head of state and a figurehead for the evils of colonialism, a real consolation to huge numbers of individuals throughout instances of turmoil and somebody whose private decency could not overcome the absurdities of monarchy and the warping impact it had on a couple of of her family members.

One doesn’t should harbour any fondness for her or any royal member of the family to recognise a merely outstanding life; it could be so merely by its size, merely by the worlds it connects — she was born 4 years after the Soviet Union was established, and she or he dies greater than 30 years after it collapsed, simply one of many many unfathomable historic markers her time on earth simply swallows.

There can be time sufficient for all this to be unravelled, however for now, I can not be the one one pondering “what does PizzaExpress make of this?” Behold the staggering variety of manufacturers that, very appropriately, are talking up at this unhappy time: