It's been just about four years since the Queen Mum was "called home." But that isn't keeping the British press from writing about her. A quite interesting spot in the Guardian today sheds a little light on her fondness for gin. And fawlty towers.

"She would start her drinking day at noon with her favourite tipple, gin and Dubonnet: two parts Dubonnet - a pink vermouth - to one part gin. "Rarely went a day without having at least one of these and getting the mix right was crucial," writes Burgess. Because getting the mix of this potent drink - which, strangely, has never caught on - wrong would be disgusting.

Lunch with red wine followed, finished off with port. If you found yourself lunching with the Queen Mum, don't think you would ever have got away with drinking only tap water. "How can you not have wine with your meal?" she would ask incredulously.

Her sense of duty to her blood alcohol level never foundered. At 6pm every day, according to Burgess, she would ask, "Colin, are we at the magic hour?" "I would then rather flamboyantly look at my watch, raise an eyebrow and say to her, 'Yes, ma'am, I think it's just about time,' before popping off to mix her a martini."

At dinner, she would down two glasses of Veuve Cliquot pink champagne, leaving her staff to finish the bottle (never let it be said that she was a selfish drinker), before settling down to watch repeats of Fawlty Towers (the one with the Germans was a favourite)."

But wait...there's more! go here.