Royal Logistics

Been watching "Windsor Castle - A Royal Year" on DVD. It's a great behind-the-scenes look at how Windsor Castle is run. The Duke of Edinburgh, the head linenkeeper, the guards, the head chef, the "general manager," the dairyman, the groundskeeper and tons more are all featured doing their everyday jobs.

Among my favorite sequences:

- Following the official timekeeper around during the daylight savings time change. He does everything from desk clocks to the giant clocktowers at the various estates on the Windsor grounds. It takes him 16 hours to change all 450 clocks. There is even a musical clock at Windsor that Handel wrote a few tunes for.

- Renaming the "Waterloo Room" to the "Music Room" as they prepare to host the French Prime Minister.

- The two person team that does the "stick and chair." There is an official measuring stick that is used to determine the distance the chair must be set from the banquet table.

- New vocabulary word: Fendersmith. The men responsible for laying the fires in the fireplaces and making sure the hearth is gleaming.

- Listening to the guards talk after a hot day in the sun with bearskin hats on. There is a wall of photos that the guards have to study. It has the royal family members, in order of precedence, that must be given the royal salute.

- Unpacking and packing guest suitcases. A list is drawn up of exactly what is in the suitcase and in what order so that everything can be restored precisely as it arrived. The re-packing must be done in 45 min or less (the time it takes for the guest to have breakfast).

I can't imagine what it would be like to unpack a regular person's suitcase. You have to assume most guests at Windsor arrive with their suitcases packed very tidily (by their people, not themselves). If the Windsor staff were assigned to me, they would be hard put to reproduce the way I wad things up and cram them into corners of my suitcase.