Jubilee party Ma’am? Bring your own bottle
PLANS for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee bash have just been released. Highlights include a nationwide Bake Offstyle contest, chaired by Mary Berry, to choose a commemorative pudding.
The anniversary celebrations will be spread over the bank holiday weekend in June. Organisers are still finalising the programme, which will aim to showcase all that is best about modern Britain.
We are promised the four-day party will surpass even the spectacular Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
It is hoped that by early summer, the coronavirus pandemic will be over and life will have returned to normal.
But in the unlikely event of that ever happening, contingencies are being put in place to make the celebrations Covid-secure, just in case another variant emerges between now and June.
Here’s what we can look forward to . . .
THURSDAY, JUNE 2
HER MAJESTY announces a special Platinum Jubilee Honours List. Three of the so-called Colston Four — Jake Skuse, Milo Ponsford and Sage Willoughby — are knighted for services to statue toppling. The fourth, Rhian Graham, is made a Dame.
After the investiture at Buckingham Palace, the Queen attends a BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle) cheese and wine party in the back garden at Number 10 Downing Street, hosted by the Prime Minister.
She is due to travel in the horse-drawn Jubilee Coach. But this proves impossible since The Mall has been turned into a cycle-only lane, so she is forced to use an e-scooter.
On the short journey, she survives an attack by a brown bear, which has recently been relocated to St James’s Park as part of the Government’s ambitious rewilding programme. The bear is tasered by a member of her close protection detail.
In the afternoon, the Queen moves on to Wellington Barracks, where Prince Andrew is to be stripped of the last of his ceremonial military titles, following the success of Virginia Giuffre’s multi-million-dollar civil suit in New York.
That evening, she is guest of honour at the first night of the Royal Film Festival at the Odeon, Leicester Square.
Tonight’s premiere is the muchanticipated disaster movie, The Northern Ireland Protocol, based on the apocalyptic novel by Sir Frederick Forsyth.
FRIDAY, JUNE 3
TO MARK one of the most celebrated events of her 70-year reign, Her Majesty graciously unveils a new statue by Damien Hirst in Argyle Square, King’s Cross — The Headless Man.
She had intended to take the Royal Train north to a Jubilee Pageant in Bradford, but all services are cancelled because 90 per cent of GNER staff are selfisolating after testing positive for the new Platinum variant.
Instead, she hails an Uber to the Met Police college at Hendon where she watches recruits practise Taking The Knee. On the way back to Buckingham Palace, Her Maj decides to make an unscheduled stop at an NHS hospital to personally thank staff for all their hard work during the Covid emergency.
She arrives unannounced at A&E, only to be kept waiting for five-and-a-half hours behind a fleet of ambulances backed up in the car park. Her Maj decides to cut her schedule short and returns to her apartment to pour herself a large Glenhoddle and put her feet up in front of the Bake Off challenge on TV.
After exhaustive debate, Mary Berry and her panel of judges decide that the pudding which best represents modern Britain is a packet of Hobnobs. The winner calls her creation Working From Home.
SATURDAY, JUNE 4
HER MAJ is disappointed to learn that the special Platinum Jubilee race meeting at Royal Ascot has been cancelled following a suspected Covid outbreak. The jockeys have all tested negative but someone heard a horse sneeze in the stables overnight.
Having abandoned plans to inspect what’s left of the Royal Navy at Spithead, she journeys instead to Dover to inspect the flotilla of dinghies arriving in their hundreds on the Kent coast.
As part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the Government has announced a blanket amnesty for all illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and foreign criminals fighting deportation. So no change there, then.
Around the country, street parties are getting into full swing, but only if revellers agree to observe social distancing regulations and wear masks at all times. In Derbyshire, a 75-year-old woman in a Union Jack bowler hat is arrested for drinking coffee and eating a slice of Victoria sponge, after being spotted by a police drone standing less than two metres from her friend.
Returning from Kent, Her Majesty finds Westminster Bridge blocked by Insulate Britain protesters and skateboarding police officers.
With that night’s planned lobster and foie gras banquet at Mansion House cancelled at the last minute, she retires early with a light supper provided by Pizza Express, Woking.
SUNDAY, JUNE 5
IN LINE with the frantic dash to meet Net Zero targets, the Government has scrapped plans to plant 60,000 new trees. Her Maj travels to Windsor Great Park, where she chops down a 1,000-year-old oak to make way for a new wind farm.
During an interview with the BBC’s Dame Emily Maitlis, the Queen is forced to deny she will have to sell Sandringham and take in washing to help pay Prince Andrew’s legal bills.
She suffers another setback when her plans to spend the rest of the summer at Balmoral have to be abandoned because Wee Burney has closed the border ‘due to Covid’. Prince Charles has already been banned from Wales, which is once again in full lockdown for no good reason.
After a swift half and a Scotch egg in the Red Lion, Whitehall, it’s off to Horse Guards Parade for a march past by the Third Battalion Black Lives Matter regiment, followed by a 21-gun drive-by salute from the Albanian mafia, accompanied by the band of the Provisional IRA.
In Hyde Park, the Queen takes pride of place at the re-enactment of one of the most famous battles of her reign, the punch-up between Trans activists and Terfs at Speakers’ Corner.
The crowning event of the weekend is an open-air concert featuring Sir Ashley Banjo BLM and Diversity reprising their famous dance commemorating the death of George Floyd.
Her Maj steps forward with a flaming torch and lights a giant Jubilee bonfire, topped by effigies of the Duke and Duchess of Markle.
And as the wind drops and the lights go out all over Britain, Sir Johnny Rotten leads an ecstatic, mask-wearing crowd in a rousing rendition of the national anthem:
God Save The Queen . . .
‘Mary Berry’s winning pudding — a packet of Hobnobs called Working From Home’