• Luckily, she wasn’t in Scotland

• From the Associated Press

Susan Atkins, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson whose remorseless witness stand confession to killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate in 1969 shocked the world, has died. She was 61 and had been suffering from brain cancer.

Atkins’ death comes less than a month after a parole board turned down the terminally ill woman’s last chance at freedom on Sept. 2. She was brought to the hearing on a gurney and slept through most of it.

California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said that Atkins died late Thursday night. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008, had a leg amputated and was given only a few months to live. She underwent brain surgery, and in her last months was paralyzed and had difficulty speaking.

• The Queen and the coin

News Item: Government ministers and Queen Elizabeth II’s most senior officials have been heavily criticized by a committee of Members of Parliament for allowing historic buildings on the Royal estate to fall into disrepair.

The Queen will be urged to open Buckingham Palace to the public more often in return for millions more pounds from the government to to pay for a backlog of repairs. It now is open only about 60 days a year.

Some of the grandest state rooms at Buckingham Palace have not been redecorated since the Queen came to the throne in 1952. The palace wiring, which should have been replaced 10 years ago, was installed in 1949. The Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore, near Windsor Castle, which houses the tomb of Queen Victoria, has been designated by English Heritage as “at risk” after part of the ceiling fell in. A large stretch of roof at Windsor Castle and at Buckingham Palace also needs replacing.

Royal Tidbits: The queen has an estimated fortune of $571.033 million, according to Forbes magazine. That is her personal wealth and does not include properties held in trust for the nation, such as Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, the Crown Jewels, and the Royal Art Collection are excluded. Also not included in the estimate are her privately-owned properties such as Sandringham House, Balmoral Castle, and the Castle of Mey. The worth of Balmoral alone is estimated at $261.8 million. The Crown Estate Lands also are not included in that estimate. They are said to be worth more than $12 billion.

The Queen’s annual income is about $20.45 million from the Duchy of Lancaster, and the income generated from the Crown Estate land, that had belonged to the royal family since 1066, that generated about $180 million a year, out of which about $65.5 million is paid back to the British government to cover the monarchy’s costs. Thus, she makes at minumum $135 million a year.

• Thumbs down for bank

News item: Employees of a Bank of America branch in downtown Tampa, FL, refused to cash a check for an armless man because he could not provide a thumbprint for ID. He was trying to cash a check drawn on his wife’s account at the bank, and showed the bankers two photo IDs. He was told the only way he could cash the check was if he brought his wife with him or opened a new account with the bank in his own name.

I often observe, or am caught up by, idiotic behavior and inappropriate actions of those in the business world, but in the final analysis usually am able to find some sort of sense at the end of the tunnel. This one, however, baffles me.

A rigid corporate policy is one thing, but an obviously impossible rule to follow should have at least elicited a call from someone at the bank branch to a higher-up to find out what to do in such a situation. That, of course, supposes at least one person in the branch had an operating brain cell.