ROYAL ASCOT DAY FIVE

Saturday 20 June 2026

It’s been a rather interesting day on the social front. A very jolly lunch with delicious nibbles, and then rare roast beef with a perfect salsa verde, potatoes and salad. Then the most sensible pudding for a racing lunch - an ice cream cone stuffed with homemade ice cream - followed by cheeses. Later, in the day, drinks and more nibbles in the village, with barely enough time for a restorative nap or even prepping for tomorrow, the last day of O’Brien Fest.

In amongst it all, heaps of gossip surrounding various organisations’ investigation into the finances of a well-known recently retired racing personality; more gossip on the future of various receivers of royal patronage and some stern comments about the handicap marks of some American horses. All in all, a delicious concoction of Lambourn life at its very best.

Once that had all finished and one was waiting for some Scots to get on a plane back home, I did manage to snatch a few moments to glance through a paper, “The Emergence of Time from Quantum Complexity,” published in Physical Review Research by Professor Giovanni Barontini and colleagues at the University of Birmingham. As I did so, it dawned on me that, despite having spent a lifetime measuring it, wasting it, occasionally enjoying it and more frequently wishing there was rather more of it available, I had absolutely no idea what time actually is.