Fair enough, my example was a fail. Nonetheless, I believe the general point stands that an Act of Parliament could remove the monarch (since an AoP can change the rules of succession, as has been proposed by the present government, it follows that one could remove the monarch or the monarchy entirely too).

However, passing of a bill into law (so that it becomes an AoP) requires royal assent, so it's perhaps technically the case that parliament can't unilaterally force the monarch from the throne. Still, the mechanism exists so that if there is sufficient political will, it could happen, and we really couldn't claim to have a constitutional monarchy if the monarch refused to abide by any clearly expressed political will.

Yes, the regnal numbering of English/Scottish/British Kings & Queens is a bit messed up, e.g. pop quiz trick question: How many Kings of England or Britain have reigned under the name Edward? Answer: Eleven (the eight "numbered" ones since the Norman conquest, plus three before: Elder, Martyr, Confessor).

Back to the subject, I believe that at some point post-union it was decided to number the UK's Kings / Queens according to the maximum of the English / Scottish / British regnal numbers. So the present Queen is Elizabeth II, and the next time there's a King James he'll be James VIII, since there's already been a James VII of Scotland. I can't be bothered to look for a reference to back this up right now, so I'm open to being corrected here.

However, an Act of Parliament can remove the monarch, as it did in 1936.

Mod +1 Ironic

Have you thought about investing in a keyboard equipped with a "Y" key?

They don't. Westminster Bridge runs East-West.

However, GNU's not.

Not to mention Brian May, who was lead guitarist with Queen.

Do you mean Russell Howard? Just imagine Frankie Howerd doing that show: "And here's my mystery guest this week. Let me guess, were you in the news for boarding the wrong flight and getting tossed off by a stewardess? Now, now, settle down. Ooh, missus!"

I think you've just paved the way for a new academic discipline: Comparative Thermodynamic Econo-politics. Wanna organise a conference? We could get News Corp or someone to sponsor it.

Ben Miller? Wikipedia says he started a PhD in Quantum Physics and Cambridge (then abandoned that to go showbiz).

See also Brian May, who completed his Astrophysics PhD after a three-decade hiatus playing guitar in some band.

You mean the one that played keyboards for D:Ream? (Wasn't he the first Hannibal Lector too, or am I getting confused?)

There was a story doing the rounds a couple of years ago about a (small, local) study which found that 9-month old infants displayed gender-specific preferences when playing with toys, i.e. girls tended to play with "girl" toys, boys with "boy" toys, with the suggestion that this could be due to innate rather than cultural factors.

This is possibly the case, but I wonder how well the researchers actually controlled for other factors which could influence the outcome. Unfortunately, I can only find journalistic write-ups of this study, and not any actual paper, even when searching the proceedings of the conference where this was supposedly presented.

I know this is is off-topic, but I think one of the main reasons (perhaps the reason) the UK rejected AV is because the No campaign successfully cast it as a Nick Clegg popularity contest after his party's series of policy U-turns.

I think I've binned it now, but I did have a campaign leaflet which said something equivalent to "If you vote Yes to AV then Nick Clegg will get to decide the outcome of every future General Election" (what, even after he's dead?)

I also don't know why Labour campaigned against AV when arguably they would have stood to gain from it.

Which would be funny, except that in the Republic of Ireland, being a republican (in the pro-unification sense) is not at all controversial, and probably the default position of the general populace (or at least among those who care).