sawyl | Soup and constitutional history

Lunch with one of my father's former protégés and his wife — due the vaguaries of the visa system, he is currently stuck in China trying to get residency in the UK, while his wife works in London. Over the course of a couple of hours, we had a long discussion about all things English, royal family and the consitational system (I made a horrible mess of trying to remember the details of Glorious Revolution which, since I gave up history at 14, is not terribly surprising), and why his father kept getting him to take the civil service entrance exams.