No doubt the Queen can bake scones. She has learnt a thing or two in her long life. But normally she invited 30,000 people a year to garden parties, and can hardly be expected to make all the refreshments herself. So the recipe for scones that she, or her public relations people, gave the world earlier this month was by the Buckingham Palace pastry cook. It was pretty controversial, for it included two eggs. I’d never put eggs in scones, nor would Delia Smith. Would you?

Until I thought about it a few days ago, I hadn’t considered scones a particularly Catholic thing. Presbyterians love them. And yet it’s at Mass that I’ve heard people read out Elijah’s instructions to the widow: “Make a little scone.” Some readers say scone rhyming with stone. Some say scone rhyming with gone. We in the benches, our minds on the things of God, don’t mind.

The scone doesn’t come round in readings till next year, I think. Put it in your diary for 7 November 2021. I hope we’ll be allowed to go to Mass by then. That’s in Jerusalem Bible readings, but in a church that uses the Revised Standard Version you will remain sconeless, since that translation, like the Authorised Version of 1611, says little cake.