
This cartoon by Paul Thomas from the Daily Express relates to the Queen's appearance in the James Bond spoof during the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. The Queen is reported to be 'delighted' with her acting debut, which The Telegraph describes thus:
In the movie scene, audiences watched 007, played by Daniel Craig, walking into Buckingham Palace surrounded by corgis to pick up the Queen, who was sitting at her writing desk.
She greeted him with the words "Good evening, Mr Bond", then the pair apparently boarded a helicopter which flew across London to the stadium.
They parachuted down to the ground, but at the last moment – and in real-time – the Queen appeared in the arena to take her seat to cheers and applause.
The cartoon shows the Queen and her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, taking tea at Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty says to the footman who is serving the tea from a teapot, "One lump - shaken not stirred". Prince Philip tells the footman, "Don't worry - she's been like this ever since the Olympic opening ceremony".
EXPLANATION
"Shaken, not stirred" is a catchphrase of James Bond for how he wished his martini prepared. The phrase first appears in the novel Diamonds Are Forever (1956), though Bond does not actually use the line until Dr. No (1958) when he says "shaken and not stirred" instead of "shaken, not stirred." It was first uttered in the films by Sean Connery in Goldfinger in 1964, and used in numerous Bond films thereafter. It has become a recognisable catchphrase in western popular culture, appearing in any number of films, television programmes and video games for its cliché value (source: Wikipedia).
The joke is that the Queen, carried away by her triumphant Bond appearance, uses 007's famous phrase in relation to her tea - she wants one lump of sugar, and the tea to be shaken, not stirred.
VOCABULARY
1. Sugar lumps are small cubes of sugar you put in cups of tea and coffee.
2. If you stir a liquid, you move it around or mix it in a container using something such as a spoon.
3. A teapot is a container with a lid, a handle, and a spout, used for making a serving tea.
4. Shaken is the past participle of the irregular verb to shake (shake, shook, shaken).