The funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles III have been planned in detail over several decades. But someone forgot to script how the King should react when faced on live television with a leaking fountain pen. Of such accidents is history made.
“I can’t bear this bloody thing . . . every stinking time,” exclaimed the King, walking away irritably from the table after signing a visitors book in Northern Ireland. It was his second pen revolt in a week: at his accession in London, he was shown grimacing at aides, while gesturing for one to move a tray of pens.
It was an awkward peek behind the curtain at a king once described in the New Yorker as “a ninny, a whinger, a tantrum-throwing dilettante”, although many felt sympathy for a tired, grief-stricken man taking out his tensions on inanimate objects. This was the first accession on camera and some official may already be redrafting plans for the next one.