She’s frumpy but a granny was never more in style

As she has posed for photographs with her subjects, both famous and unknown, she has produced the same tight smile that never varies in breadth by more than a millimetre. And at almost every occasion, she has toted around a pocketbook.

Her little black patent leather tote is so perfectly frumpy, that it can only be called a pocketbook. Its omnipresence leads one to wonder what it could possibly contain.

It’s highly unlikely the queen would need to carry around a driver’s license or a cell phone.

Utterly divorced from the here and now, her coiffure is eloquently arcane.

Her bosom — not a bust or a chest, mind you — is always neatly swaddled in fabric or jewels.

She has favoured pearls during much of the jubilee celebration. And such modesty is what one would expect for a woman of her years.

But one can imagine her old-fashioned explanation for this conservative cover-up: ‘‘Gracious, dear, one must keep the chill out.’’