Dateline

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The Queen didn’t want a fuss on the occasion.[/caption]

Buckingham Palace

Her Majesty Sets the Record

ON SEPTEMBER 9TH, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest serving monarch in British history, overtaking the reigning record set by her great, great grandmother Queen Victoria. The Queen eschewed any ceremonial recognition of the day and insisted on business as usual. Her Majesty and Prince Philip traveled by steam train from Edinburgh to the village of Tweedbank to open the new Scottish Borders Railway. In her remarks, the Queen did acknowledge the historic occasion and thanked well-wishers for their “touching messages of great kindness.” The crowd of more than a thousand gave Her Majesty three cheers. Among the many tributes to the Queen, PM David Cameron described her reign as a “golden thread running through three post-war generations.” The bells of Westminster Abbey rang a quarter peal for 50 minutes in tribute.

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Time for reflection on the train to Tweedbank.[/caption]

London

Cumberbatch’s Hamlet Scores a Triumph

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Here the brooding Danish prince, Cumberbatch spent years on his craft to be an overnight sensation.[/caption]
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, who has vaulted to stardom as the latter-day Sherlock, now has won rave reviews from critics and fans alike for his portrayal as the Prince of Denmark at London’s Barbican Theatre. The actor is routinely greeted by mobs of fans after performances, for whom he graciously smiles to the camera and signs autographs. The Telegraph seems to have called it right: “Cumberbatch emerges, unquestionably, victorious.”

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Hands (or Fiber Optics) Across the Sea

The first new transatlantic fiber optic cable in a dozen years has resulted in the fastest connection between New York and London to date. The new 2,800-mile strand laid by Hiberia Network delivers information from America to Europe in a bit under 60 milliseconds. When the first undersea cable was unraveled in 1858, it took 17 hours, 40 minutes to deliver its first message.

Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

Stonehenge in the Shadows?

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Ground-penetrating scans continue to turn up amazing Neolithic finds on Salisbury Plain.[/caption]

THE LATEST DISCOVERIES of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes team have been creating quite a stir (see “Stonehenge Rediscovered,” July 2015). An avenue of stone monoliths, some 15 feet in length, has been found beneath 3 feet of earth at Durrington Walls, two miles from Stonehenge. Archaeologists believe these sarcen stones could form part of the largest Neolithic monument in Britain—one that could encompass Stonehenge as part of a “superhenge.” Stay tuned.

R.I.P

Lord Montagu Passes at 88

Edward Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, died peacefully at his Beaulieu home, Palace House. The former head of English Heritage is best known for the National Motor Museum that he founded on the grounds of his New Forest stately home in 1972. The colorful peer was remembered at a memorial service at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster. His title and estate pass to his eldest son, Ralph.

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Lord Montagu always loved a drive around the estate in a vintage auto.[/caption]

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Blackpool Makes a Comeback

Britain’s most famous seaside resort and pleasure beach has been in decline since the arrival of cheap Mediterranean holidays. Now, it seems the tide has turned. Tourism officials are delighted that hotel bookings are up 72 percent this summer over five years ago. Millions in investment in new hotels, shops, restaurants and Blackpool’s world-celebrated illuminations have paid off, and there’s a new buzz in town.

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Edinburgh’s Joke of the Year

A distinguished panel of comedy critics reviewed some 7,000 gags proffered at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Peterborough comic Darren Walsh was adjudged to have delivered the year’s “Funniest Joke at the Fringe” with the quip: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free.”

Bethnal Green

Wartime Evacuation Relived in East London

SOME 2,000 FAMILIES were evacuated from their Bethnal Green homes this summer when an unexploded 500 pound bomb was uncovered by contractors—where it had lain dormant since World War II—only a mile from the City financial district. Hundreds of residents spent a night on camp beds in the local school while military experts and emergency personnel worked to defuse and dismantle the bomb. The dangerous operation was successfully resolved and the weapon neutralized after a nervous 24-hour coordinated effort, more than 70 years after the bomb was dropped.

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The 500 pound bomb lay buried in East London, unexploded but armed, for seven decades.[/caption]

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Agatha Christie’s Best Whodunnit

More than 15,000 readers voted in a global poll to declare Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None her best novel. The complex 1939 mystery set on an island off the coast of Devon has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling crime novel of all time. Second in the polling came her Murder on the Orient Express.

Residents Happiest in Harrogate

For the third year in a row, surveys by website Rightmove crowned the North Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate “the happiest place to live in Britain,” based on responses by the residents themselves on their own contentment with the quality of life. Shropshire’s county town of Shrewsbury finished second and the Suffolk port town of Ipswich third in the stakes. Perhaps less surprisingly, York and Chester round out the top five.

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Labour Lurches Left

Winning a hotly contested September leadership election, Jeremy Corbyn has become the new head of Britain’s Labour Party. Member of Parliament for North Islington since 1983, Corbyn’s avowedly socialist platform includes renationalizing trains, banks and key industries, ending Britain’s austerity economics, and reestablishing Labour’s close ties with Britain’s principal labor unions.