The jubilee. Oh, the jubilee. I mean, some people appreciate the monarchy, I sort of understand that. People like to believe that there are things greater than themselves, that some people are above the grim humdrum of everyday life. But it's when such royalist schmucks point the finger at American politicians such as George Bush Jr, and hark what a massive drooling idiot he is, that said understanding starts to run a little dry. How dare they question the capabilities of a democratically elected figurehead when their own country is legally, if not effectively, ruled by a monarch. Yes, the Americans made a silly decision when they elected Bush, and yes, maybe it was a mistake. But good god, at least they were able to make a daft decision. I mean if we insist on maintaining this dogmatic, fusty, backwards system, we might as well go the whole hog. Reinstate barons and earls and lords and such crap as bona fide legal keepers of the regions. Get a moat for that Buckingham place and shove some alligators in there, along with some other fairytale crap like talking mice and glass slippers, and a bloody big pumpkin coach. Do away with education, lest the serfs gain literacy and threaten the landed class. And do away with the House of Commons, they can join the proles and tend to their turnips. Not like the Lords can have much say either, and should any get too pushy they can have their heads lopped off. Parliament needs to back off, seriously. The Queen is god's representative, or some such shit.
Hey, everyone loves a big regal milestone don't they. Essentially the jubilee celebration was based around the fact the Queen has lived a long time. I actually was destined to go and see the whole ordeal, but rain and sleeping in put an end to that. I still ended up watching most of it on telly, as it was recorded live, second by second, in excruciating detail. Legions of flag-waving strawberry-eating-monarch-loving Londoners turned up on the banks of the Thames to watch a bunch of ships float on by with Queenie residing on the largest of the bunch. Though it was actually a pretty average boat. I was expecting some sort of towering, gold-plated galleon with a huge image of Betty's face superimposed over a Union Jack hanging from the mast and cannons firing a heated mix of caviar and mother of pearl into the gawping mouths of the gimps lining the riverfront. The boat was sort of dull, it was black and a bit red, sort of long and sort of wide. There was nothing particularly interesting about it, despite its regal cargo. It featured the same colour scheme as The Orca from Jaws, though unlike that ship, regrettably the royal flotilla stayed completely afloat. In fact that TV footage stirred in me a long dormant childhood memory. My grandad fetched me after both upstairs and downstairs toilets had been flushed instantaneously, leading to a crisis of the drainage constitution. After declogging the troublesome articles, he took me out to the front yard and lifted the drain cover, and upon beckoning me over with a demented grin, revealed to me what the clogging had been made up of. Seeing those dull vessels pass lazily over the grim muddy waters of the Thames brought to mind that selection of hurried turds trailing past that drain cover. Long forgotten and deeply scarring childhood memories. Aren't they just the best. God my grandad is such a nutter.
Anyway, enough of troubled childhoods, though 'sticking' with the theme of buoyant turds, we return to the Diamond Jubilee. The BBC kept up a running commentary of the various boats as they meandered on by. Matt Baker did a good job of being utterly pedestrian, offering his relentless commentary on literally everything that happened. At one point he actually referred to the Queen as "like a jewel" on account of the fact she was wearing white. Such perception. Baker's particular talent of being somewhat pleasant has seen him propelled from being a grinning doily on Blue Peter to the lofty heights of Countryfile and The One Show, and now Matt has the unenviable task of not just watching the whole forsaken mess, but commenting in an encouraging manner. Still, enough about Matt. It isn't really his fault is it.
Bizarrely people couldn't stop pointing out how the Queen hadn't sat down. I am fairly sure if most of the country had tuned in and most of the capital had just shown up to watch me float by on a big ugly boat, at great expense, the least I could do was bloody well stand up. Good god. I know she's ancient but she knows better than to sit down and complain about how the rain is pissing on one's parade.
What followed, other than the Duke of Edinburgh getting a bladder infection, was some royal concert at the Queen's place. This could have been brilliant. They could have had Prince Charles do a Pop'n'Lock routine or something. However they failed to do this. I would have settled for Harry and Wills doing the running man but this was not offered either. Instead there was a bunch of washed up singers from times of old, including such relics as Tom Jones, Elton John and Shirley Bassey, three people who really, really need to call it a day. Paul McCartney looked physically withered, like someone had half dug up a fossilised Gallimimus and it had just run onto the stage wearing Union Jack suspenders. Stevie Wonder was impressive, though nothing like Glasto the other year. All in all the thing felt very tame indeed, with a prevailing lukewarm feeling that the organisers attempted to disperse with a firework display. People will never grow old of staring at the sky watching shit explode and making appreciative honking noises like walruses in the mating season. That's what the humans used to distract the zombies in Land Of The Dead, and similarly, fireworks were utilised by crafty party organisers to distract an analogous populace of shuffling, besieging cadavers. And distract they did. Nothing says class, grace, royalty and taste like a ginormous display of creative pyrotechnics, on the kind of scale seen at Bon Jovi concerts. The thing ended up looking like the pissing Super Bowl, with Buckingham Palace arising incongruously amongst a blizzard of pops and whizz-bangs, like the Blitz but somehow so much more annoying. Also the colours of the Union Jack got projected in thirds onto the Palace, which, in case you didn't realise, makes the French flag, not the British one. Oh, it was a night to forget.
The supposed Banksy print that appeared shortly before the Jubilee also drew attention to a far more sinister concern. The impending Jubilee was preceded by a slew of shit for idiots to throw their money at; bunting, cutlery, even godforsaken cardboard cutouts. And much of this was made in third world countries by orphans for a couple of pence and sold by such astute prole holes as Poundland and Wilkos. Indeed the painting itself depicts a small Asian boy working on a sewing machine, and was drawn on the wall of a pound shop, after a scandal a few years ago surrounding imported goods. Perhaps this is the ugly side to consumerism at large, and the Jubilee just serves to highlight it. Whatever it is, it still adds a far darker side to the celebration than the more spurious complaints referenced herein.
There was the Royal Wedding last year, where people watched some fabulously rich and privileged people get married, and now we celebrate some even richer and more privileged people as they get older. It is a shame that it's only a royal celebration that can stir any feelings of patriotism or nationalism in us. Because we don't really need all that, we really don't, and we haven't for quite some time now. Personally, Land of Hope And Glory was always my favorite over God Save The Queen. Britain is great. It's a fair society, and a moderate and progressive society. That should be celebrated. Just not through such contradictory figureheads, of insularity and social immobility, as the sodding Windsor family. People say the royals have a hard job. Those people are idiots. They get paid to jet around the world well-wishing foreign diplomats, their house is a castle, and they live on the dole. The royalty can go and bugger right off with their 'hardship'. Try working as a Christmas temporary at BHS. Now that's hardship.
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