The great leveller

Nine out of ten people in England are currently suffering from the same viral head-cold at the moment, including Queen Elizabeth the Second.

For most people, it began just before Christmas, then pretended to go away shortly afterwards. It then returns within a couple of days as something similar to bronchitus, and it is still making everyone cough right now. It is not so severe as to justifiably stop you from working unfortunately, it just makes your job that much more unpleasant.

I was walking up near our hospital recently, when an air ambulance came into veiw and landed on the grass pad about 50 yards from where I was passing, to deliver a patient who must have been critically ill, so I stopped to watch it settle.

The helicopter pilot saw me looking, so waved at me, making me feel as though I was about 6 years old. I waved back with some embarrassment, as it would have been churlish not to.

I once had the same experience in reverse when I landed in a light aircraft in Dorset. A small boy was standing at the perimeter fence with his mother, and when we taxied close enough to make eye contact, the boy waved and I waved back with a smile.

People don't normally wave at strangers from a distance of 100 feet, but there is something about descending from the heavens which turns ordinary people into the sort of gods worshipped by primitive tribes on remote islands, and turns the ordinary people on the ground into the sort of tribal worshippers who are impressed by anyone who does. It is 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' syndrome, I suppose.

The Queen waves at her subjects from behind the glass of her ancient Rolls Royce limo, but that is more understandable. When her sister, Princess Margaret, spent a lot of time in a farmhouse near Bath, I knew some of her house-mates. The place was a sort of upper-class commune, made all the more upper-class by the arrival of the Princess.

After a couple of weeks, the small group of permanent residents began to get a little fed-up with Margaret not doing her share of the washing-up, and told her so one evening. She responded by saying - and I quote: "I don't have to do the fucking washing up. I am Princess fucking Margaret."

Nobody is so famous that the rain does not fall on their heads when they go outdoors.