Intriguing insight into the Royal Family in today's Mail:

Royal favourite and TV pundit Alastair Bruce will remember his recent
stay with the Queen for all the wrong reasons  -  for the Falklands
veteran ended up in hospital after choking on a piece of beetroot over
dinner.

'It
looked worse than it actually was,' Bruce, national events commentator
for Sky, told friends. A member of the Royal Company of Archers  -  the
Queen's bodyguards in Scotland  -  and a herald of the College of Arms,
Alastair was among 20 guests invited to an intimate dinner with the
Queen at Windsor Castle.

'Something seemed to go down the
wrong way and, after asking for a glass of water, he excused himself
from the table,' says a fellow guest. 'Everyone was concerned. An
ambulance was called, but in the event he was driven to hospital in a
car. It was only the following day that people were told he was OK.'

Let me put that in a less  forelock tugging way.

You have someone over for dinner. He starts to choke - so badly that he ends up being rushed to hospital.

And your response? Nada. Nowt. Nothing. You carry on eating with the rest of the guests, as if nothing had happened. And you forget all about it until your guest calls you the next day to say he is ok.

The aristocracy really are a breed apart.