22 June 2017

Flummery

The Times attends the state opening of parliament:
This may have been a depomped ceremony but everything is relative. Yeomen with bouncing plumes still marched along the Royal Gallery; there was parping brass at the monarch’s arrival; and the leader of the Lords carried forth on a stick the Cap of Maintenance (not to be confused with George Osborne’s Hi-Vis Jacket of Construction). Up in the gallery we reached for our Biros of Whimsy to scribble upon the Notepads of Irreverence.
The crown, too heavy for the Queen on such a hot day, had been sent ahead in a separate car and was sitting there on a cushion. The royal head was instead covered with what appeared to be the flag of the European Union: a blue floral number with a circle of yellow dots. You can take the girl out of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha but . . .

It is time that we got rid of all the nonsense: gold sticks in waitng, ladies of the bedchamber. Lord Maltravers Poursuivant and all.

   

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