Her Majesty the Queen no longer exempt from the hassles of airport security

Queen Elizabeth II will soon become one of the last people on the planet to be subjected to the hassles of airport security. For some insane reason, her own government has decided that every single air traveler will have to be screened to be sure they are not on a list of known terrorists – and no exception is made for anyone.

The UK system is called e-borders, and is similar to current technology in place in the United States. Every single border passage will be logged, and travelers will need to provide their name, age, gender, date of birth and address.

How the Queen will be able to prove she is who she is will be challenging as she does not carry a passport, and is not required to. In the UK, all passports are issued “in the name of Her Majesty”. All I know is that I’d hate to be the one working the border crossing the day she passes through.

The new measures apply to anybody entering the UK – which includes all levels of VIP, including our own President. The measures even bring an end to the common practice of allowing VIP’s to travel using a pseudonym. Security experts are concerned that forcing high level VIP’s to use their own name will be a bigger security threat than the possibility of the Queen turning out to be a terrorist in disguise.

Christmas greetings from Buckingham Palace

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes on behind close doors at Buckingham Palace, now is your opportunity to get more than a peek: the Queen has launched her own You Tube channel!

Celebrating 50 years of the Queen’s first televised Christmas address, this year, you will be able to watch her Christmas speech on the video-sharing network. At the moment, the site opens to her Christmas talk from 1957.

Called the Royal Channel, it currently has 18 videos that go as far back as 1917 and include: the Queen Mother’s wedding (1923), Palace garden parties, her accession and coronation, her relationship with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and part one of a day in the life of Prince Charles. It’s their way of being more accessible to the youth and people around the world.

Not home videos and nothing close to reality television, it’s merely an official peek (but a peek nonetheless) into many aspects of the royal family’s life.