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| Can you see Anything? |
I’m too much of a liberal to be a monarchist but I’m
grateful for an extra day off work this week, and in general think the Queen has
done a reasonable job of the rather peculiar role that she was born to. Can you
imagine who might have been able to be President in her place? Without
patronage from the political parties or from the landed classes? Without
corruption or self-interest? Answers on a postcard please…
So as one of her majesty’s loyal
subjects I travelled to London on Sunday to watch the Thames Diamond Jubilee
Pageant, where over 1000 boats sailed down the River Thames to accompany the
Queen to celebrate her 60 year reign. The last monarch to celebrate such a
lengthy reign was Queen Victoria 115 years ago, and it is plausible that we may
have to wait as long again until the next diamond jubilee. It’s a shame there
was not a visitor guide for this year’s flotilla, so I have prepared a handy
cut-out and keep guide for the next one, perhaps in 2127.
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A Visitors Guide to the 2127 Jubilee River Pageant
Getting There
In 2012 we used a train to get to London. I guess in 2127
you will also be using trains as the last drops of petrol will have long been
wrung out of the planet and even the rich will not be using cars. Our 09:23
train had its last spare seats filled at Winchester, and many had to teeter and
sway for the over an hour. I guess the situation will change by 2127 and there
will be no seats at all on standard class tickets, because at the moment I can’t see
any increase in the size or frequency of trains. First class will no doubt be
wonderfully sumptuous, and affordable by only those sorts who these days use
Range Rovers and Mercedes as their commute-to-the-station runabouts. Everyone
else will get the opportunity to feel dirty and poor as they are beaten and
squeezed, bullet train fashion, into standard class.
Finding a Spot to Stand
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| Yes, But Where is the River? |
If you caught the 09:23 in 2012 you were already an hour
late to catch the last free spaces on the walls of the Thames. In 2127 you will
have turn up the day before to grab a spot, but it is likely that by then all
public spaces will have been sold off to corporate sponsors, as were many of
the bridges this year. True, access to these bridges was also granted to invitees
of the riparian boroughs, which is much the same but is funded by the public
purse. This year there were only three bridges that could be crossed on foot,
once you had your bags checked. Judging by the queues these must have been
manned by the UK Border Agency practising congestion tactics for this year’s
Olympics. Visitors from Winchester are advised that if you want to view the
pageant from the North Bank in 2127 then please travel via Oxford to get to a
suitable railway terminus. Let’s face it, there’s no point trying to watch the
river pageant from the South Bank unless you are right up by the wall. Better
to be on the North Bank where the elevations are higher and you can get longer
sightlines around the curve of the river.
Meeting Friends
If you would like to meet up with friends and family to view
the event please first invite them to your home and travel with them. Any
movement along the South Bank was cleverly designed to eject you from the riverside
into a confusing maze of roads in the surrounding area, only to be denied
access back to where you started. We spent over an hour trying to get from the Tate
Modern to meet friends at London Bridge only to end up back at the Tate and
even further from the river wall. Our daughter, down from university for the
weekend, nearly didn’t complete her rendezvous. One of the great innovations in
policing in recent years has been kettling,
a method by which the police help ordinary people to make new friends if they
share a common interest, such as free movement about the city to visit their
families, a situation in which my daughter found herself. It’s a bit like being
friended on Facebook, except that you are stuck behind metal barricades and can’t
get unkettled. Unless you have a mother
who by shear persuasive force can wear down unflappable stone-faced policemen until
they become meek little lambs and let you through.
You will naturally meet a lot of new friends at an event
like this, especially if you have a marginally better vantage point than they
do. People will naturally sidle up to you, become part of your personal space
and assume that you are only there to reserve a position for them. It’s all
very friendly.
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| British Rain Needs a British Brolly |
Watching the Event
If you are more than four deep from the wall you won’t be
able to see anything, so you need to get extra height. People were, in 2012, standing
on bins, benches and dangerously narrow bollards. Flimsy trees and appropriated
chairs and tables were pressed into action. It was as though the thought of a
thousand small boats had induced some sort of warped Dunkirk spirit and plucky
subjects found novel and potentially lethal ways of watching the spectacle.
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| Is the Queen on that Boat? |
We spent about four hours perched on the plinth of an ugly
fibreglass anatomical statue outside the Tate. Although far back, the height of
the plinth and the slight slope up to the Tate gave us a clear view of the
surface of the river. Well, it did when we got there. By the time the flotilla passed
us the tide had gone out and the level in the river dropped by two or three
meters. Which meant that we saw two-tenths of bugger all. Thank god the Queen
was in a tall barge, and we got to see her. As far as we were concerned the
flotilla was only made up of six boats. We were amazed to see so many craft in
the television news reports later that evening. It looked like a different
event. My advice to spectators in 2127
is to do what the tradesmen did this year; turn up with step ladders and
decorator’s platform and get one up on your fellow visitor. Or take along a
mini scaffolding set with you. Fortunately, by 2127 global warming will provide
you with an extra couple of meters of sea level which should help a little.
Getting Home
Seeing Getting There
(above) only in reverse, plus being very cold, very tired, and very wet.
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