‘Modernity’ is often behind the times. On Wednesday, parliament pushed out all remaining hereditary peers, although we live in an age when scientific discovery is making us understand ever better how much heredity governs the life of each person and therefore of society. Just as the hereditary pinnacle of our constitution displays his role’s unique value in Washington DC, we stamp out the monarch’s traditional political bodyguard. The Lord Speaker, Lord Forsyth, paid generous tribute to the hereditaries at a jolly private party he gave, but his brief words of farewell at prorogation were all that were permitted in the Chamber of the Lords, although its composition was chiefly hereditary from the 14th century until 1999. Earlier, I had tabled a motion that the House should take note ‘of the contribution hereditary peers have made throughout its history’ especially of those who ‘will cease to be members at the end of this parliamentary session’. It was not accepted, however, because of lack of time. I think of Yeats’s phrase about ‘the discourtesy of death’.  

My sister has unearthed my precious copy of The Junior Puffin Quiz Book, published in 1966, when I was ten. It is the Junior version because Puffins were themselves (still are) the children’s version of Penguins. Once you were aged 12-14, you graduated from Puffins to Peacocks. So I imagine Junior Puffins were aimed at seven- to ten-year-olds. The book’s authors, Norman and Margaret Dixon, had already published The Puffin........

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