Inspired by the “Do famous celebrities get junk mail?” thread
A friend of mine and I once tried to figure out how Queen Elizabeth answers her phone. I mean, after all, there’s no way she’s never used a telephone in her life. Now, obvs, she has someone answer it and they patch the caller through to Her Majesty if appropriate. But! She has to announce her presence once she picks up, no? She can’t just lift the receiver to her ear and remain silent. So what does she say?
FWIW, we settled on “Queen speaking.” But anyone who has gotten HM on the horn is welcome to share the experience.
Kimmy Gibbler? Ahhh! I haven’t heard that name in years!
The neighbor chick from the show with the baby anorexics! I had a huge crush on you in my formative years!
Since she became Queen, okay, I’ll grant you that. But beforehand, it’s quite likely that she did. IIRC, she was an airplane mechanic during WWII. I’d be very surprised if she had servants doing her phone connections at that point.
“Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith speaking”
Depends on which realm the subject she is communicating with is from
According to this she initiated a phone call by saying “This is the queen speaking.”
However, I’d imagine that if she’s lounging around at home, whoever is calling will already know perfectly well who they’re calling. Obviously it’s not exactly a reputable source, but I do recall in the thoroughly-mediocre movie The Queen, she was just told in advance who was on the phone and answered accordingly - “Hello, prime minister” or whatever.
Only because “Hello” does leave a little ambiguity, supposing you don’t know what the Queen sounds like (see, I wasn’t kidding when I said my friend and I ran all the angles on this one). One could imagine the following exchange:
**London, in the recent past**
*Brrrrrrrrrring*
Operator: Good morning, Buckingham Palace, how may I direct your call?
Caller: Extension 4, please. It's Tony.
Operator: One moment, I'll connect you.
*Rule Britannia* plays during the call transfer
HMQE: Hello.
TB: Uh, yes, I was trying to reach Her Majesty actually.
HMQE: [Fill in the blank!!]
Fine. She probably does say something boring like “This is Her Majesty.” But can you handle the follow-up? Does the Queen have a voicemail account? If so, what does she use as her greeting?
We hope it’s “[robot voice] Hello, you have reached the voice mailbox for [HMQE voice] the Queen of England [robot voice again] Please leave your message after the tone. When you are finished recording your message, press 1 for more options or just hang up.”
I would guess that the operator, after letting the queen know who the caller is, brings the caller on-line and announces that he is now on the line with her. If I had the money, that’s what I would do.
Being that she’s likely not embroiled in the absolute latest in cultural trends, and what with American programming sometimes being delayed in being exported to the UK…
If the Tony/TB in your conversation there is Tony Blair, how likely is it really, that he’d not recognise her voice?
Even the first time he ever spoke to her on the phone, he’d have known what she sounded like.
And more to the point, I bet no one just phones The Queen, apart from her family. It seems far more likely to me that if you want to speak to her on the phone, and you’ve got the political clout for that to be a possibilty, that you have to make an appointment to call at a certain time.
