Well, that was very nice wasn't it. I sat down to watch the Coronation - I thought for about half an hour or so. I was still there at one pm in my dressing gown - eating Pringles and trying to tear myself away. HOH went swimming in the sea early on and I was warned - quite forcefully - I thought, that he was not hear stories about me popping down to Aldi - dressing gown pulled over my less than ample bosom, wearing sliders and trying to buy more Pringles. That is obviously ridiculous especially as Aldi is closed for refurbishment.
We are all very taken with the Coronation here. I cried a few times - although I don't think it was the over-arching event that Queen Elizabeth's was. That came after a terrible period of war and darkness and a young and beautiful queen was just what the doctor ordered. This was not that sort of thing at all. I was worried that one of them was going to fall over for a lot of it. Goodness knows, it tried hard enough - pulling out all the big guns - the ancient throne, the bejewelled crowns and Penny Mordaunt doing her best Viking with a big sword impression. That's before we get to how much it all cost, at a time when every area has a local Foodbank, considered normal in the same way that it used to be considered normal to have a local Post Office. No-one has a local Post Office now. Most of the Postal Officials are too busy fighting to get compensation for the fatal blow to their standing that the Horizon scandal delivered. I'm not sure that we are that country anymore. Sitting about five yards away from the King were Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Politicians who openly lied and have left the country in a worse state than they found it. Then there is Prince Andrew - a man so taken with his level of privilege that he felt the Emily Maitliss interview was a roaring success. And Prince Harry - who should have stayed at home. I felt for him but it feels that, for now, it is done.
Now, all this isn't so unusual. If you listen to The Rest is History Podcast, you will know that past Coronations are full of Royal Families behaving badly. Our problem was that we turned the whole thing into a fairy tale - royalty as our example and turns out they are not a great example. Just people. Extraordinarily privileged people. But it seems like a good few of them are willing to put the work in to do some good with it. So there you are.
There seemed to be a lot of fuss about hiding Prince Charles' sausage fingers during the ceremony. I am very keen on people getting their sausage fingers out at every opportunity (not any kind of euphemism) for reasons you will see below. See if you can tell which are my fingers and which are the King's.
1. The History. Some of the things we were looking at were thousands of years old. I know a lot of the physical history was missing because a lot of it disappeared "for safety" after Charles' 1 unfortunate demise but still.
2. The Music. I know next to nothing about classical music but if you don't go a bit wobbly at hearing Zadok The Priest performed by the best musicians in the world, then I don't know what to say. Also, The Planet Suite which, by anyone's definition is banger after banger. A couple of pieces were a bit "songs from the shows" for me and the Gospel bit seemed to be magnificent singers going a bit vanilla but Pretty Yende has been blessed with a pair of pipes that would make a hamster on a wheel stop and listen.
3. The Sacred. It was striking, I thought, that whenever Jesus was mentioned, it seemed to be always be followed by the phrase "who came not to be served but to serve." In the middle of all this "You really must be the King of the Castle with the size of that ruby in your hat." there was a constant calling back to someone who has real authority and what he chose to do with it. In his sermon, The Archbishop of Canterbury, who I thought did very well in the service as he seems to be a thoughtful man and not particularly showbiz, said "We are here to crown a King, and we crown a King to serve". I'm not sure that every member of the Royal Family is happy about it but I think it is in the job description. And, as a Christian, I think it is probably in mine as well.
Have a good week
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