Blog: Jubilee Vehicular Excitement

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On the Bank Holiday myself and The Trains On My Rails travelled into London's fashionable Central London area of London to avail ourselves of some of the Jubilee Excitement. A big chunk of our own excitement was down to the fact that we were going there and back via THE ELIZABETH LINE which was really rather wonderful - a bit like when St Pancras opened, or when The Olympics happened, it is a THING that is a) British but also b) surprisingly really well done. It was also FAST!

We got into town and then strolled to Trafalgar Square, where we found an ENORMOUS crowd of people standing around waiting for things to happen. We were there in this situation for about half an hour, with everybody being incredibly calm, perfectly pleasant, and altogether not how I remember large crowds like this being. There was no shoving or screaming or Beligerent Smoking or anything!

As the half an hour went on I got increasingly Mildly Fed Up. We'd turned up hoping to get there just in time for the RAF flypast, but it seemed to take FOREVER. We used to live RIGHT on the flight path for these, and used to be able to watch it all go over our heads in the back garden when we lived in Leytonstone, and INDEED it goes pretty close to us now, but this was the first time we'd specifically gone into TOWN to see one. As time ticked on I was thinking "Flipping heck, was this worth it?" and then the PLANES went over and COR! was it EVER! They went RIGHT overhead (OBVS as we were just next to The Mall) and were REALLY low, which was particularly impressive when it was the HERCULES, and UTTERLY AMAZING when it was THE LANCASTER BOMBER. There is something about a Lancaster Bomber that brings out the TINY WEE CHILD in me, and I found myself SQUEALING and CLAPPING DELIGHTEDLY.

The whole thing was ACE - I am fully aware of, and fully support, the arguments against a Constitutional Monarchy (e.g. it engrains and celebrates the idea that some people get to have more than everybody else just because of who their parents were) but CRUMBS I don't half enjoy a flypast, especially when a bunch of typhooons ZOOM overhead in a big "70" and especially especially when the Red Arrows turn up. Has there ever been a better way of ending anything EVER than having the Red Arrows zoom overhead? NO. THERE HAS NOT.

After that we wandered through the almost entirely amiable crowd up to the British Museum for a spot of lunch and a look at the Mary Gillick: Modelling The Queen's Portrait exhibition. I am on record as saying I enjoy A Museum Of One Thing and this was very nearly An Exhibition of One Exhibit i.e. a plaster cast made for the first coin with the Queen's head on. It was Quite Interesting, though the way they blithely said that the BIG plaster version was turned into the MOULD for the actual coin by "reduction by mechanical means" left a LOT of questions unanswered and led to a LOT of googling, which in turn eventually led to the wikipedia page about reducing machines.

posted 6/6/2022 by MJ Hibbett

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