THE Queen braved a traditional Mancunian drenching to charm the city with her deadpan humour.
The Queen, in Manchester for the first time in two years since the rain-soaked Commonwealth Games closing ceremony, turned round another "horribilis" week for the Royal Family with sheer magnetism.
She laughed and joked with well-wishers during a walkabout after signing a charter to mark the official launch of the city's new super-university.
And she impressed one student by taking an interest in his chosen choice of career - designing lavatory systems!
James Hern, a 22-year-old civil engineering undergraduate, said: "She asked me what I was planning to do and when I said I was very interested in sewerage, she said: `That's very useful.'"
The Queen had arrived as her grandson Harry was facing criticism for his public brawl with a photographer outside a London nightclub, but she showed no sign of being troubled by the latest problem to hit the Royal Family.
Shirley Chiu, a university worker living in Sale, said she had first met the Queen when she was a young girl living in Hong Kong.
Shirley said: "I'm very happy and excited to see her for a second time and have the chance to look at her from only a few feet away."
At a ceremony to mark the merger of Manchester University and UMIST the Queen praised the city for its "bold and imaginative" response to the challenges facing higher education.
Earlier she had arrived at Stockport station on the Royal Train.
She visited the Royal School for the Deaf and Communication Disorders in Cheadle Hulme, where crowds lined the streets, waving flags and cheering. Prince Philip was today in the "Valley of Death", reliving a massive but brave military blunder in the Crimean War.
He was commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade in what is now Ukraine.
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Simon Walsh, Lancashire (23/10/2004 at 12:14)
I was though disappointed tha the MEN Thursday editiom did not remind readers of her visist and also publish her itinerary(which had been on the Royal website for weeks).
anon, manchester (25/10/2004 at 18:47)
i think if you asked all the tax paying mancunians where they'd prefer all their tax to go, surely they'd opt for better police duties on the community, & putting criminals behind bars etc, than watching the queen wearing all the jewels they'd already paid for & rubbing their noses in it.