Queen won't allow phones at the dinner table reveals Brandreth
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Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Royal Family and is responsible for ensuring individual members stick to royal protocol. Although royals must abide by their specific protocols, the Queen also likes that they follow normal commonsense rules too. According to Gyles Brandreth who knows the Royal Family well and is very well informed on the subject, the Queen disapproves of bad table manners.
He appeared on This Morning on ITV on Thursday saying: “The Queen is my role model in all things.
“One of the things she won’t allow at the table with her grandchildren and indeed her great-grandchildren is mobile phones at mealtimes.
“She likes a formal, and I too like a fairly formal meal.
“It doesn’t mean to say you have to have a napkin.
“But you do have to sit at the table nicely and you certainly mustn’t eat with your mouth open!”
Etiquette expert William Hanson recently spoke to Express.co.uk about the protocol royalty follows and why it must be upheld.
He said: “Traditionally, cutlery is held with the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left.
“A rule that dates back to when men would carry their swords and daggers in their right hand.
“By-gone attitudes also meant that people who wrote or eat with their left hand were considered ‘thick’.
“Mercifully, we now know this to be a load of rubbish and so it is perfectly acceptable to switch the cutlery, but the cutlery is still held in the same manner: the index finger goes down the fork, stopping before the bridge.
“For knives, the index finger also extends down the knife, stopping where the blade and handle meet.
“As so much royal duty involves soft diplomacy over dinners, having control over their cutlery (and food) is an essential part of their toolbox.”
Members of the Royal Family must position their cutlery in the correct way to reveal they’ve finished eating, according to Mr Hanson.
He claimed: “When a member of the Royal Family is finished eating, they place their cutlery together.
“If you imagine the plate as a clock face and the cutlery as the hands of the clock, when finished eating in Britain, the cutlery is positioned at 6.30 with the tines of the fork facing upwards.
“The cutlery is placed together in such a finished position to alert the staff (and other diners) that you have finished so they can clear your plate without having to ask whether you are finished or not.
“It always amazes me when in supposedly good restaurants, when there is no scrap of food left on the plate and your cutlery is together in the internationally recognised finished position, servers still ask, ‘are you finished?’.”
Mr Hanson added: “Members of the Royal Family usually hold the teacup pinching their thumb and index finger between the handle, with their other fingers following the shape of the handle for support.
“It is not, contrary to popular belief, sophisticated to stick the little finger out when drinking tea or coffee.”
The Queen also reportedly sets the pace for every meal, according to the expert.
He continued: “When dining with Her Majesty, no one should begin until the Queen begins eating; similarly, when the Queen’s cutlery goes into the finished position, everyone else should follow suit – regardless of whether there is food left on their own plates.
“Starting your meal before or ending it dramatically after the Queen would be noticed by others. At your own peril commit such a faux pas.”
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