Chatting with a friend today, she told me about seeing the Queen when in London earlier this week. "Did she look like the Queen?" I asked. "Yes!" came the reply, along with photographic evidence. Republican or Royalist, you'd have to admit she looked dazzling and very much like herself in a bright orangey-red coat and matching flamboyant hat. https://www.royal.uk/queen-visits-royal-academy
I have had encounters with royalties of my own today. A four figure (plus decimal point) sum was paid into my bank account courtesy of ALCS - the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society. https://www.alcs.co.uk/ This made me feel, for a moment, like a poetry princess.
Like most famous people, The Queen is shorter in real life. Very early one morning, I once saw the Royal Train on the platform opposite me on Shrewsbury station. I thought I saw a curtain twitch. And once I saw Peter Ustinov in the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.
I earned the taller-than-I-expected royalties because I registered my poems published in anthologies, and my own pamphlets, with ALCS. I did this after I'd seen a friend's post on Facebook about this organisation which collects money on behalf of writers from libraries, and those who've legitimately photo/copied their work.
When I receive money which comes from my poetry, I like to spend it on something memorable. I think I'll be spending these royalties on a meal out with my sons and heirs.
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