Tag Archives: Diamond Jubilee

Big Girls Need Big Diamonds

1 Jun

I have never celebrated sixty years of my reign over a kingdom, and I’m certainly not implying I have. However, I have celebrated six consecutive triumphs as Spelling Bee Champion at Al Herpin School for Exceptional Children (no mean feat, I assure you) so I do know a little bit about marking important milestones appropriately.

So far the Royal Household has been doing a bang up job with the festivities. I have been loving everything so far (top marks for the Yellow Duckmarine ride in Liverpool).

 

Here’s what’s coming up this Central Weekend.

Saturday, 2 June

The Queen is heading to the Epson Derby. Far be it from me to offer Her Majesty any advice (and besides there’s no grey running) so I assume she’ll be calling on the spirit of the Queen Mum before placing any bets.

Sunday, 3 June

I love the concept of the Big Jubilee Lunch, though I confess I won’t be participating (I’m sure she’d understand if she met the twats who live in my neighbourhood). However, I shall be buntifying the house to show my support.

 

I’m slightly less interested in the boat-related activities (The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and the Royal Barge rides) but hey, that’s me.

Monday, 4 June

It’s always lovely to involve music in any celebration, hence the BBC Concert at Buckingham Palace. However my concern can be summarised in two words: Gary and Barlow.

On the other hand, I’m well excited for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons—two thousand and twelve beacons lit around the Commonwealth topped off by the Queen’s lighting the National Beacon. Brilliant idea! I would suggest refilling the Royal Zippo that morning (or having the Olympic mother flame near) just in case. One can never be too prepared.

Tuesday, 5 June

A service at St Paul’s makes sense, as does lunch at Westminster Hall. Of course, there will then be a Carriage Procession because carriages are pretty much synonymous with the grace and elegance of royalty.

Once back at Buckingham Palace, she’ll make a balcony appearance, and there will be a fancypants flypast by the RAF.

Lastly, there will be a feu de joie. I confess I’m a bit disappointed that the celebration is ending on this note: I don’t support violence and am concerned the rifles may frighten the Corgis. But I guess it’s just the done thing in these circumstances. I suppose wrapping up everything with a make-your-own-sundae party at an ice cream parlour (as I did after my sixth spelling bee win) might be seen as a bit of an anti-climax.

I’m glad Lord Mandelson announced an additional bank holiday so that everyone can thoroughly enjoy the extended weekend. However, I wish he had demanded it be a day of service, namely asking citizens to clean up the litter and vomit revelers will have left throughout the streets (yes, I’m looking at you, Camilla). I myself charitably will be hosting a small garden party for local dignitaries where I’ll be giving a talk on highlights from my writing career. It’s just another of the little ways I like to help the less fortunate of my community.

The Queen has always been a very important mentor to me, so it was a struggle to choose just the right gift to send her (in the end, I went with a book token). Even though she’s so busy, she blessed me with a quick thank you card—it’s so lovely to see that, despite her prestige, manners still matter to ER II.

I wish everyone—from the Queen and her family to Piss Stain Charlie, the tramp who lives at our bus depot—a wonderful Diamond Jubilee.

God save our Gracious Queen,
We mean it, man!

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Surely Such Grace is Worth 69p?

31 May

I would just like to take a moment to say just how great our Queen is. Seriously, I think she’s just swell. I am proud to be one of her subjects and I defy anyone to suggest the UK’s had a better queen in the last one hundred and eleven years.

I appreciate that my view of royalty is not unrelated to the fact that I was born abroad.  In America, we use the word king to describe cigarette lengths and the word queen to describe bossy bees and thin men who wear wigs and paint their lips to extend well down their chins. So, while my childhood was not dominated by forced reverence to any monarch (which, by the by, in America means a butterfly and would therefore be inappropriate to curtsy to or rearrange our Christmas dinner time for), my adulthood has not been affected by outrage over the fact that the royals are draining the public purse with their fancy pants palaces and crown jewels. I am therefore unencumbered by any outside influence on my decision of whether to cherish or condemn our Queen.

I choose to cherish. Here is why: she’s got a great head on her shoulders, does our Elizabeth. She’s smart enough to have been made Queen, after all. And she continues to be re-elected, so clearly she must have the public’s support. She also has a strange, lingering sort of beauty. Regardless of your age or sexual preference, you must admit that if you bumped into her at the Sainsbury’s petrol station, you’d stop to stare. My guess is you wouldn’t be able to take your eyes off of her. I know I wouldn’t.

ER II is also worth celebrating for the very fact that she keeps going in the face of adversity. Would you have the balls to keep going when newspaper columns are calling for you to literally be dissolved? I shudder to think how I would cope (and pray thanks that the media continues to praise me and my work). How many of us would be able to organise our time successfully so that we could open a bridge in the morning, wave at distance to retarded children midday and then count our swans by tea-time? Our Queen has a tough job, and it is a job. Do not think that having one’s face appear on every stamp, every note, every coin and the occasional Sex Pistols’ album isn’t hard work. It must be exhausting. Yet, every morning she gets up and goes to work, just like the rest of us.

The Royal Highness is one hell of a gal and when I swore allegiance to her, by golly I meant it. I think she is a great role model for young women today. Like Barack Obama she shows that it is possible for underrepresented minorities to reach the top of their professions. But more than that, she teaches girls that, with a little hard work and determination and a dash of inbreeding, they too can grow up to be leader of a once-great empire. And possibly have a pub named after them to boot.

So I say, long live the Queen and the inspiration she spreads like haemophilia!

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