It’s been a decent enough week – still no rain of any significant amount although we’ve had a few smatterings. The landscape is beginning to green up again and on Thursday I even had to mow the lawns – I think that’s the first time since July!
Sadly, our plans for the week didn’t turn out as we had hoped. We were unable to get away on our planned campervan adventure – Daisy developed kennel cough. She picked it up on a playdate with Penny’s brother Jeremy’s dog who had picked it up from his son Jake’s dogs who picked it up somewhere. Since it takes a few days for symptoms to develop no one knew their dog(s) had been exposed and hence infectious diseases run rampant.
Daisy has been pretty good with it – not too much hacking and coughing. And generally, it’s not serious in itself but, as it is so highly contagious, we both felt it would be irresponsible to go away where there would be a significant chance that we would encounter other dogs. In the meantime, we’ve kept her isolated and away from all other dogs. I guess she must be wondering what the hell happened to all the friends she used to meet and play with on her walks.
Thank goodness, tomorrow it will be all over. We’ve had coverage of the Queen’s death and funeral preparations 24/7 for the past ten days or so and even the most ardent royalists are struggling to find something else to say. It’s a good job nothing else is going on in the world as the government here has gone into hibernation. Fortunately, it turns out we can park all those “emergencies” – cost of living crisis, climate crisis, the calamitous state of the NHS, war in Ukraine – until the Queen is in the ground.
Whilst running out of things to say the newscasters can at least run images of The Queue of people waiting to file past the coffin and pay their respects. And interview people in The Queue to determine (a) how they feel and (b) why they felt they had to come to London to stand in The Queue for up to twenty-four hours to shuffle past the coffin for a minute or so. This proves it – the British are quite simply stark raving mad.
The BBC web site even has a live stream of The Queue! If you can’t be arsed to travel to London and stand in The Queue at least you can watch it and imagine you were there. Here’s the link for those of you who want to pay your respects by watching The Queue but you’ll need to be quick – I imagine the live stream will vanish once the coffin is moved from Westminster Hall. On the other hand, it might be just as newsworthy to watch an empty room.
In honour of The Queue, someone put together the following which Penny ran across on Facebook.
Right everyone. I need to be serious for a moment. Because the greatest thing that ever happened is happening right now.
I don’t particularly care either way about the Queen but the queue? The Queue is a triumph of Britishness. It’s incredible.
Just to be clear: I don’t mean the purpose of The Queue. I don’t mean the outpouring of emotion or the collective grief or the event at the end and around The Queue or the people in The Queue. I mean, literally, The Queue. The Queue itself. It’s like something from Douglas Adams.
It is the motherlode of queues. It is art. It is poetry. It is the queue to end all queues. It opened earlier today and it is already 2.2 miles long. They will close it if it gets to FIVE MILES. That’s a queue that would take TWO HOURS TO WALK at a brisk pace.
It is a queue that goes right through the entirety of London. It has toilets and water points and websites just for The Queue.
You cannot leave The Queue. You cannot get into The Queue further down. You cannot hold places in The Queue. There are wristbands for The Queue.
Once you join The Queue you can expect to be there for days. But you cannot have a chair and a sleeping bag. There is no sleeping in The Queue, for The Queue moves constantly and steadily, day and night. You will be shuffling along at 0.1 miles per hour for days.
There is a YouTube channel, Twitter feed and Instagram page, each giving frequent updates about The Queue. Because the back of The Queue, naturally, keeps moving. To join The Queue requires up to the minute knowledge of where The Queue is now.
The BBC has live coverage of The Queue on BBC One, and a Red Button service showing the front bit of The Queue.
NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD JOIN THE QUEUE AND YET STILL THEY COME. “Oh, it’ll only be until 6am on Thursday, we can take soup.”
At the end of The Queue is a box. You will walk past the box, slowly, but for no more than a minute. Then you will exit into the London drizzle and make your way home.
Tell me this isn’t the greatest bit of British performance art that has ever happened. I’m giddy with joy. It’s fantastic. We are a deeply, deeply mad people with an absolutely unshakeable need to join a queue. It’s utterly glorious.
Meanwhile, people and businesses have been falling over themselves to be seen as loyally royalist as they can possibly be (while at the same time castigating anyone who doesn’t demonstrate the right level of royalist sentiments). Events have been cancelled and shops and businesses will close on Monday “out of respect for the Queen.” Some of the “better” examples: Centre Parcs, a holiday centre, originally announced that they would close on Monday “out of respect for the Queen.” They initially said that all those who were at the sites would have to go home for the day or find alternative accommodation. Not surprisingly, a few holiday makers didn’t think this was such a great idea so Centre Parcs backtracked and announced that folks could stay in their holiday accommodation on Monday after all. But, that there would be no facilities available. Great idea.
Not to be outdone, the British Cycling Association, the governing body for the sport, initially suggested that no one should use their bicycles on Monday “out of respect for the Queen.” I’m sure the Queen would have been very proud.
So, finally, tomorrow is the Queen’s funeral. Monday also happens to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. That should make for an interesting service.
I haven’t heard or read anywhere but perhaps that’s also been cancelled “out of respect for the Queen.”
The new dimwit Prime Minister we’ve had selected for us is busily burnishing her credentials as one of the loonier of the extraordinarily looney MPs. She’s been on an interesting journey – in her youth she was a Liberal Democrat who advocated the abolition of the monarchy. Just the person to give one of the main eulogies in honour of the Queen. She pivoted to the Conservatives after realising that there was no chance of securing political power as a Lib Dem. Like her predecessor, she’s a narcissist who will say anything to anyone to secure their support. She’s also a not terribly successful self-publicist, dressing up like Margaret Thatcher and posting Instagram images of herself in every conceivable context. Although she supported Remain in the Brexit referendum (she, like just about everyone else, thought Remain would win), she has become one of the more virulent in public pronouncements denouncing the EU and in favour of the hardest and most self-harming versions of Brexit possible. Most recently she announced that the UK would unilaterally decide not to implement parts of the treaty the UK government negotiated and signed on leaving the EU.
She may turn out to be even worse than the preceding three worst Prime Ministers in history. She’ll have a long way to go to beat Boris but she’s certainly made a good start.
Don’t even get me started on her strategies for dealing with the energy and cost of living crisis – hand the energy companies a £150 billion bung to be paid for by levies on consumer’s bills while at the same time cutting taxes for the wealthy and allowing an increase in bankers’ bonuses to up to 200% of their salary. Yep, that will help those who are starving and freezing. YCNMIU.
Finally, just a couple of photos to brighten your week: Julieta has just started crawling (there will be no peace for her parents from now on) as well as producing her first tooth and Jessica secured another academic achievement award from school, this time for “brilliant work in English this week” which apparently made everyone chuckle.
Good girls – so proud of you.
And we should also say that Annabelle was elected House Captain at her school. So proud of her too!
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, be careful, wear a f**king facemask in crowded places and keep your distance. And keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg