You do the math, but with 775 bedrooms how many Ukrainians can Buckingham Palace take?
The Queen has moved back, of course, to Windsor Castle in Royal Berkshire.
Which means it’s free.
And even someone of her considerable wealth could do with the £350 per month government payment for taking in a Ukrainian family.
It would all help to pay her second-born’s settlement with Virginia Giuffre.
A day at the palace
Of course nobody gets into Buck House for free, unless your titled or entitled.
So it’ll be £30 of your pleb money for a visit to the State Rooms or £55 when it’s Combined with a Royal Day Out.
And that’s the State Rooms, The Queen’s Gallery and the Royal Mews.
We’ve been down this route before flagging up the royal palaces around the UK which you can visit.
With the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the foot of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh an old favourite and former neighbour.
How to explain the British reverence, fascination and obsession for the Royal Family?
It’s a combination of tradition, pomp, ceremony and soap opera.
Tourist magnet
And it is perhaps the biggest draw for tourists to the UK.
The experts, of course, are the guides who have an unrivalled knowledge of the history.
Whether they’re the Beefeaters at the Tower of London or the guides at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
And while your Beefeater is stiff and proper there’s a twinkle in the eye of your Edinburgh guide.
A bloody royal tale
And he will cheerfully walk you through the story of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots’ favourite David Rizzio.
You’ll be invited into the Queen’s Chamber where the Scots lairds (that’s lords) killed the Italian in front of the queen.
And wend your way down the spiral stone staircase where the guide will point out to you and the impressionable American and Asian party…
Of the blood embedded in the stones.
I swear I saw a brush protrude from his satchel.
Haggis farms
Us Scots are noted for our dry deadpan wit and another example springs to mind of how the guides play with their party.
When Stevie apologised to the Irish party I was with in Aberdeen.
That we were running late and would not be able to visit the haggis farm.
And I had to prompt him later to put them right in case they wrote about the haggis farm in their articles.
So maybe it’s best to leave that question I set at the outset to the guides who know as much about the royal residences as the queen.
How many Ukrainians can Buckingham Palace take?
