Why this was the people’s Jubilee...
THISWAS ontwitter in the build up to the Jubilee celebrations, from some spittle-flecked republican… “If the estimated £1billion spent on the jubilee was divided amongst the 26 million households in the UK, it would mean a windfall for each of £38,000.That would be something to celebrate. Abolish the monarchy now.”
Now I’m not brilliant at maths but surely anyone can see at a glance that one billion (a thousand million) divided by 26 million is roughly 38 rather than 38,000. And even for the poorest in the land, a windfall of
£38 would hardly be life-changing.
Apparently – astim Harford remarked on Radio 4’s numbers programme More or
Less – the thousands who “liked” this tweet couldn’t be bothered to do the sums.
You can’t blame them really. For we live in an Alice in Wonderland world where something is true merely because someone says it is. A world where Labour MP Stella Creasy claims “a woman can be born with a penis” and we’re not supposed to laugh.
WHAT A circus. The Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial finally ended with a comprehensive win for Depp as the jury found that he had indeed been maliciously defamed by his former wife.
Predictably, in the light of a verdict, this case has now been reframed as a backlash against the Metoo movement, or an “orgy of misogyny”.we have this compulsion to make everything symbolic of something bigger. Heard said she was “heartbroken,” following the conclusion of the trial, but “even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women”.
The truth is the verdict doesn’t mean anything for other women.
There are no real winners in this case.
The jury may have now spoken but the court of public opinion concluded weeks ago that Heard and Depp were impossible people who should never have been left together in the same room, let alone married.
LAST WEEK I went to see Elvis, the new biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann who made Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby.austin Butler plays Presley and does a good hip swivel. It was exciting to rub shoulders with Hollywood royalty again as in the old days before Covid.when I say “rub shoulders” I mean I saw a tiny Tom Hanks on stage while I was sitting four miles away in the auditorium. He plays Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s odious manager.
But you don’t need to be told that, do you? I suppose I naively thought that every human being is born hardwired with a basic knowledge of Elvis’s songs, movies and life story. But before the screening I was chatting to a young journalist who admitted to being 22.Was he an Elvis fan, I asked?
“I know the name,” he said carefully,
“but I really don’t know anything about him at all”. I lifted my ancient jaw off the floor and went into the film.
WELL,THAT was nice.a long weekend that was a very welcome respite from business as usual, from Covid, Brexit, Partygate etc. God save the Queen. As is always the way with any of our national events, disaster is confidently predicted and then magically averted. And I suppose the Queen, like any hostess, may have wondered if anyone would turn up.
But turn up they did. The Today programme’s Nick Robinson was on duty at the Mall last Thursday at the start of this long Bank holiday as the crowds began to arrive. He had no trouble finding loyal subjects who – no insult intended here – sounded as though they’d time travelled from 1952.
They were just so blessedly uncomplicated. They loved HM and wanted to show it and here they were. Three cheers for the Queen. Hip hip hooray.
Nothing would have persuaded me to travel to central London to become part of that celebration. And it’s not because I’m scared of catching Covid or because I don’t wish the Queen well. I just don’t like crowds and hassle and sore feet.
But thank goodness thousands of people did go so you and I didn’t have to, so we could watch the pageant roll by on our TVS and feel part of history without having to make much effort.
For no matter how much money you throw at producing a big show it’s absolutely useless if nobody turns up. The crowd is the thing, the beating heart of the spectacle that cannot be produced to order. It has to be there because it wants to be there.
Here in Hampshire we had a street party which was organised by people who like organising that kind of thing. I don’t much but thank you to them too.
And the timing was perfect.weren’t we all ready for a party and a get together as at long last we start to shake off the shackles of the wretched pandemic?
For years, ever since Brexit divided the country like a knife, this has been a nation that has certainly not been “at ease with itself” as John Major once said.we manage to turn everything into an argument.
Tomorrow is just another Monday though plenty of people seem to be under the impression it’s another Bank Holiday. But pretty soon we’ll be back to normal and the bunting will be taken down. And because the Queen is human it must be acknowledged that this will probably be the last great jubilee of her long and glorious reign.though you never know.
What comes after platinum for an 80th anniversary? Apparently it’s oak.
‘The crowd is the beating heart of it...’