C3167

Male
40
Single
Stoke-on-Trent
Office Worker

A Jubilee Diary Saturday 2nd June Woke up earlier than I wanted or had need to since there is no work today, giving me time to lie in bed thinking about the conversation I had with a friend in the pub last night. She was commenting in the amount of bunting the owners have put out for the Jubilee, it covers every inch of the building several times over, and how hard she was finding it to get hold of any since every shop she had visited that day had sold out. It’s amazing really to think that people have the money to spend on such things during what is supposed to be the ‘age of austerity.’ A little later I trooped off to the Co-Op to get the papers and ended up wishing I hadn’t bothered, page after page of Jubilee related nonsense most of it repeated from the day before and not worth reading then. The television news isn’t much better with pious platitudes about the Queen shoe-horned into every story and the troubles of the wider world all but ignored. There were more flags about when I went down to Newcastle to do my shopping and at least two of the banks in the town had closed already and won’t be open again until Wednesday. I’m not sure this is really necessary since the celebrations proper don’t start until tomorrow when the banks aren’t open anyway. At home later on I watched more news coverage, this time of the Queen arriving at Epsom for the Derby, the tone of the commentary was so hushed and reverential it could have been lifted wholesale from a Pathe newsreel circa 1955. Perhaps the most comical incident was when opera diva Katherine Jenkins sang the national anthem; Jenkins is a peculiar performer who seems to have built her career out of combining a small amount of talent with a lot of cleavage. Anyway the microphone didn’t work properly and the crowd mumbled rather than sang along. In an attempt to distract myself from the flag waving I listened to a reworking of Sleeping Beauty broadcast as Radio 4’s afternoon play, this was not your average Disney style fairy tale; it was altogether darker and more overwrought. Frankly I could have done with there being a few singing dwarves on hand to cheer things up. Later I watched the England match on television, every few minutes the crowd would start singing the national anthem, carried away with the Jubilee spirit I suppose. They certainly can’t have been celebrating the thrilling football being played, Hodgeson can grind out the results for sure but his teams seldom deliver much excitement. Sunday 3rd June A rainy and overcast morning, if things carry on like this the water pageant on the Thames is going to be a washout, if you’ll pardon the pun. Yet more nonsense in the papers and on the TV about the Jubilee, all that has changed is that now the presenters are standing on the riverbank in the drizzle conducting fatuous interviews with other journalists; fantastically dull viewing. Incidentally, has anyone in all of human history ever grovelled as cravenly after a knighthood as Andrew Marr does; I really hope he doesn’t get one. Out to buy the papers and noticed that the flag has been hoisted on the pole in the churchyard in honour of the Queen, very nice I’m sure, but why can’t they fly it every other day of the year in honour of everyone else? Listening to The World at One on Radio 4, normally a sensible programme and I am disappointed to say that the tide of sycophancy has swamped even this bastion of common sense. Sandwiched between reverential commentary on people messing about in boats and a dreary non-debate between Phillipa Gregory and Antonia Fraser about the significance of the Queen to our national life was a report on the deterioration situation in Syria. This is the sort of thing news programmes should cover; not the childish antics being acted out in the name of the jubilee. Busy in the afternoon writing a letter for the resident’s association and my weekly blog post, this week the subject was how the Olympics and Jubilee are being used by the government to distract we foolish citizens from the real problems facing the country. Later I watched coverage of the pageant on television, actually it seems to have been quite impressive as a spectacle, although the commentary provided by the BBC was awful, managing to be smug and infantile at the same time. At one point the presenter and her guests spent at least ten minutes debating the significance of the Queen wearing a ‘wrap’ to keep out the cold; dull beyond the bounds of imagination. In the evening I put on my Sunday best and headed to the Greyhound, my local, to attend a party to say goodbye to the former landlord and lady. It was quite an edgy affair with no small amount of tension between them and the incoming couple, who are more popular with the regular customers. Even so I managed to have a good time. Monday 4th June Another day; the same old Jubilee themed nonsense on the box and in the papers, maybe all this is part of a subtly planned propaganda strategy designed to swamp any non monarchists out there with so much information they experience a sort of Stockholm syndrome. Any day now I might find myself staring into a webcam and saying that henceforth the world will know me as Comrade Camilla… I spent the early part of the morning in the kitchen ironing pants, socks and two shirts, an activity more useful, in my opinion, than standing about in the drizzle waving a flag. After that I wrote another letter for the resident’s association, this time about setting up a neighbourhood plan for the village, which will mean a lot of work but could pay dividends in the long term. In the afternoon I did odd jobs in the garden with my father, he is eighty two and his health is starting to fail and so any time we can spend together is a bonus because I think it is becoming ever more finite. Back into the house afterwards to watch the news, only one subject covered of course and there no prizes for guessing what that is. There is some speculation about the Duke of Edinburgh being taken to hospital with a ‘bladder infection’, is that what it is or is it a euphemism for something more serious? I’m not all that interested personally and anyway it hasn’t ‘put a dampener’ on the big concert planned for tonight, which I have no intention of watching; whatever happens the Windsor circus keeps rolling along regardless. Tuesday 5th June I watched the Dean of St Paul’s being interviewed on the BBC this morning, he seems to have come straight from central casting, an upper middle class egghead with a soft voice who clearly represents a ‘safe pair of hands’ from the point of view of the establishment. You have to wonder how the former Dean, Giles Fraser, he of the principled resignation over Occupy, would have approached the Jubilee. Perhaps with a few more questions and a lot less deference would be my guess. Outside it is cold, wet and utterly miserable, so I decide to stay indoors and catch up on what the papers have been saying about the Jubilee. There is a good article by Catherine Bennett in the Observer highlighting the ludicrousness of some of the adulation poured over the Queen by the media. Stephen Pollard and Tim Stanley, both in the Telegraph, have interesting things to say about the awful BBC coverage of the pageant and the Jubilee concert. Perhaps the most surprising article comes from Sunder Katwala, a former Chair of the Fabians if you please, who writes in the New Statesman that the left should stop worrying and learn to love the monarchy; talk about blotting your radical copy-book. What about my own feelings about the jubilee? I am not and never have been a monarchist, partly out of political principle but mostly because I dislike the way its presence always encourages the British to look backwards. That said the present Queen has undoubtedly made a success of her role, due to longevity, never expressing an opinion in public and never having to test her popularity against the whims of the electorate at any given moment. I am not at all sure that her son will make so good a fist of being monarch when his time comes, unlike his mother Charles has no shortage of opinions, most of which are not weighed down by much in the way of knowledge. Not that a short, disastrous, reign by King Charles III will sink the monarchy, if nothing else the cheering crowds of the past weekend have demonstrated that the British public would be likely to put its love for the institution ahead of its frustration with the inadequacies of the current incumbent.