Royalty and Jubilees

Bloody Royal Mail. 

Being British is a funny old thing. We spend half our lives being insanely proud of our heritage and the other half apologising profusely for everything that we've done wrong in the last 2000 odd years. We're fish and chips, haggis, Yorkshire Puddings, tea and biscuits. We're the Beatles and Take That, Torquay and Manchester. We're Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter and Elizabeth Bennet. We're the grimy inner city and the quaint seaside. 

We're also a nation composed almost entirely of contradictions and opposites. The stiff upper lip versus the eccentric. The gentleman against the street urchin. Exquisite manners versus hooliganism.  

We like a good moan. Especially if it's about the weather. Or queues. The weather is invariably too cold, wet, hot or windy. Or, our personal favourite, 'Grey'. Here in Britain, 'Grey' is a meteorological occurrence. A tediously regular meteorological occurrence. This is why the young ladies and gentlemen of Britain feel compelled to take off all their clothes at the slightest hint of sunshine. In Britain, sunshine is An Event.

Queuing in Britain means tutting, glancing at your watch and looking knowingly at your fellow queuers, maybe even throwing in an exaggerated eye-roll if it's a very slow queue.

That, however, does not stop us from joining a queue if one presents itself.

We eye a queue (the Post Office is a good one for this), trying to single out the weak. To leave a queue before you've reached the front is to dishonour your family and bring shame on your name. It's legitimately ok to be late to something if you're in a queue, because everyone knows you can't leave until the bitter end. 

As I was saying... (Staying on topic is another problem for us Brits. We do love a tangent). We like a good moan. But by God, we can't stand a whiner. By all means, have a bit of a grumble but then chin up, make an inappropriate joke about it and crack on. There's that whole 'Keep Calm and Carry On' thing for which we're so well known. And don't get me started on our stance over-sharing outside of the confines of gossip.

We also don't really like a fuss. Unless there's an opportunity for a fuss and then there had better be a fuss or else. So this weekend looks to be pretty darned exciting for everyone on our little island.

This weekend, we are, en masse, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation. To the right, for those who don't know (looking at you, Steve Rogers), is The Queen. You can say 'The Queen' to anyone in the world and they will know you mean that one. She's quite the lady. So I, for one, am excited to celebrate her Jubilee. Sixty years on the throne is quite an achievement and we all know she's gunning for Vic's record so this won't be the last party we throw in her honour. Not by a long shot.

One of my very favourite things about being British is the fact we live in a Kingdom. We live in a kingdom with a Queen and Princes and Princesses and they live in palaces and castles and hob-nob with Dukes and Barons and the like. Anti-royalists and those who'd cheerfully abolish the monarchy think this is AWFUL. I, on the other hand, think it's GREAT.

How can you not be inspired to create and dream when you live in a place that for most of the world is like something out of a fairy story? Just last year, a 'commoner' married the most eligible man in the country, someday-heir to the throne, Prince William. That actually happened. We watched it. I even teared up a bit.

I love the pomp and circumstance of it all, the archaic pageantry. I love the protocol and the elegance of it. It all seems to happen in beautiful slow motion, a wave of the hand, a graceful nod. Yes, it's elitist and I'll never get to be a part of it in the same way they are. But I can't help loving it, all the same. There's still a little girl inside me that wants to put on a beautiful dress and go to a ball and dance with a handsome stranger. He doesn't have to know that under the dress my garter belts hold knives and my tiara is actually a Chakram.

Bargain

If I could go back to any time-period in history, despite my deep and abiding love for the Victorians, it would would be Tudor Britain. Because they rocked this kind of thing. They were all about the highfalutin drama. Parades, processions, hunts and jousts and tourneys and the like. Life for the Tudors was an endless parade of eating, drinking,  'making love' and making love.  

Admittedly, if you were a peasant like me, the best you could hope for would be to wait at the palace gate and hope Henners didn't eat all the pies (he did) and you could have some genuine Royal Table scraps. 

They couldn't do that now, the stuff would be on Ebay within an hour. And the best, in this era, that a peasant like me can hope for is a glimpse of a Royal Wave as a boat goes past, or to watch it all on telly and simultaneously tweet about it. At least in this era, I'm less likely to be beheaded for treason if my critique of some of the royal attire is less than flattering. 

So, yes, I'm excited about the coming festivities. I'm excited to watch this fantastic woman sail the Thames. I'm excited to go to a party and eat cucumber sandwiches and Victoria Sponge. I'm excited to wave a cheap plastic flag and get drunker than is strictly necessary.

Despite the state of the country, and the world at large, at the moment, there's still a lot to be hopeful about. Let's start it with a party. Let's start it with this party, to celebrate a woman who has been the global figurehead of who we are for the past sixty years.

And if that doesn't float your boat: FOUR DAY WEEKEND.