How the Queen Can Make You Happy

Book excerpt: A witty and passionately argued essay calling for a return to good manners, using the Queen (the mother of all Brits) as the ultimate example. Mary Killen is an expert on manners and social etiquette, and her humorous advice column in the Spectator provides original solutions to the problems of modern life. In a world currently ruled by reality TV, over-sharing through social media, and an increasingly fractious and fractured public space, we could all do with a lesson or two in from Her Royal Highness. Examining such under-rated virtues as discretion, politeness and kindness, My Queen is a humorous celebration of long-held British values in an age where discretion is not generally the better part of value. Never mind the curtsey, where's the courtesy?