I never used to be a Royalist, thinking that it was wrong
for people to have publically bestowed / funded privileges above others simply
by luck / bad luck (depending how you look at it) of their birth. But then I
went to London…
Yes, I’d been to London before – I fed the pigeons aged
about eight and had a fantastic ice cream.
I think I went with a school trip to the war museum as a mid-teenager, and had
a great time arsing about on the underground, but then I went as a grown-up.
I walked around the sights, and finally worked out how it
all fitted together. I walked from Buckingham Palace, past the horse guards,
along the river and to the Tower, and was completely blown away by it all. I
finally realised how lucky we are in Britain to have such a fantastic heritage
and I was willing to sacrifice a few million of my personal hard-earned taxes
to pay for it.
I went to New Zealand not long after and was advised by an
enthusiastic Kiwi that I simply had to
go and see New Zealand’s oldest house. It had been built circa 1875 and was wrapped
up in cotton wool, so important was it to the inhabitants. I brushed off the
offer (a little brusquely in hind-sight now that I appreciate more how
important it was for them) telling them that my own pad was about twenty-five
years older and that the oldest house I’d been in was one in darkest Radnorshire
that had parts (the wallpaper for certain) dating back to the 1400s.
So although I like to be scathing about many things requiring
national enjoyment, I am going to embrace the Jubilee! I am going to dress like the queen for the
Dress Like the Queen Competition, I will have my photo taken next to her
cardboard cut-out, I am going to scoff Victoria Sandwiches as if they are going
out of fashion, and I will swig lager with a dash of gin just to get myself
into character.
Most people would be jacked off with a job that they’d done
for 60 years -try working in a local government planning department for that
amount of time, for example.
So have a good Jubilee celebration all! Throw that wellie,
tug that tug of war, bake that cake and have a fight round the back of the beer
tent: it’s just what we Brits do best.
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