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Monday 18 April 2016 5:43 pm

As Buckingham Palace prepares for Queen Elizabeth’s 90th Birthday, here are some of the worst tributes on offer

By: Edith Hancock

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Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 90th birthday this year, and the whole corporate world is clamouring to celebrate it with her.

As the nation gears up to wish her maj a happy birthday, UK retailers are also cashing in on the moment in history.

Affordable Accessories

Affordable jeweller Signet is patriotically promoting products at its Ernest & Jones and H.S. Samuel stores; offering customers a chance to purchase pear bracelets, sapphire rings and wristwatches with red leather straps to "channel your inner royalty with patriotic colours and contemporary styles".

Signet said: "let our jewellery inspire your outfit and ooze class, because it's not just the Queen's special day, let it be yours too." 

Corgi Cake

Unilever-owned margarine maker Stork is also cashing in on the birthday theme – releasing images of a corgi-shaped cake the firm assures us the Queen would love. 

The cake is modelled on the iconic, chocolate-flavoured Colin the Caterpillar Cake, sold by Marks and Spencer for over 25 years. Stork said: "Candy maintains many of the features that make caterpillar cakes special, from the playful feet to animated animal face, but instead has been filled with vanilla bean, whipped cream, apple compote, and honey frosting."

So nothing like a chocolate caterpillar cake, then.

Queen of Parts

Auto-repair firm Kwik Fit has unveiled A giant portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, created entirely out of car and truck parts.

A crew of four worked on the construction of the monarch’s mechanical mirror image; a process which took over 280 man hours to complete.

The giant crown itself includes brake and indicator lights from an original Austin K2 – one of the types of military vehicles that Her Majesty completed her mechanical training on in 1945.

Artist David Parfitt said: “The Queen is one of the most respected and admired women in the world, so there was considerable pressure to produce a tribute that honoured her appropriately."

 

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