Heading east along the I-81, I catch fleeting glimpses of familiar country music scenes: countless fluttering Stars and Stripes flags, pick-up trucks outside shabby roadhouses.

BBC: America��s country music heartland

"I have no earthly knowledge of it, " said the 81-year-old, listed as chairman emeritus and a director for Stanford Financial Group.

BBC: Agents find billionaire Stanford

One conversation I particularly enjoyed was with one of India's greatest historians, 81-year-old Romila Thapar.

BBC: Romila Thapar

"I foresee several hurdles along the way, " Khin Maung Lay, the 81-year-old editor of Golden Fresh Land, told the Associated Press.

BBC: Burma sees return of private newspapers

Above all whether you are a fan of monarchy or not it would, I suggest, be perverse not to agree that it was a personal triumph for an 81-year-old monarch who first visited Washington soon after the Second World War, when Harry Truman was president.

BBC: The Queen and President George W Bush