♔ Yesterday was just an ordinary Saturday. You could have gone shopping, you could have headed to the football, you could have tackled a Parkrun, you might even have had to do a full day's work. Or you could have watched a man ride to a church to get a jewelled hat. Your choice.
♔ I went for a walk down the Mall on Thursday. Only the hardiest royalists had settled in by this point, maybe three dozen tentsworth, all of them at the palace end adjacent to St James's Park. Some had patriotic garb, some had bunting, most had garden chairs and only one had a cut-out of the Queen saying 'That's My Boy'. The level of security hadn't yet ramped up to the max but crossing the Mall required permission and the Victoria Memorial was already way off limits. In St James's Park I found freestanding boards with maps showing the intended location of amenities on Coronation Day. I liked how they said YOU ARE HERE in big letters, not on the map but underneath it, emphasising the uniqueness of the event. Also the weather was relatively glorious and if only some flunkey had picked Thursday 4th rather than Saturday 6th everyone would have had a much more pleasant experience.
♔ I also walked past the front of Westminster Abbey where the lamps were being touched up and a large group of dog handlers were having a private meeting. The police suddenly made moves to close the walkway and I looked back to see the royal Bentley arriving... with Charles at the window waving to a surprised group of onlookers. So yes I saw the King in his coronation week, and I didn't have to wait in the rain for a gold coach, I just got lucky.
♔ A coronation is a once in a lifetime experience for many of us. Let's try and quantify how many. To be able to remember the last coronation you need to be at least as old as the King, that's about 6 million Britons. For the other 90% of the UK population this is coronation number 1. Whether it's your one and only depends on whether you're still around for William's, assuming that's the next we see. The average life expectancy of a 74 year old male is another thirteen years which suggests the next coronation could be in 2037. But Charles's parents both lived into their late 90s so there's a good chance he'll still be around in the second half of the 2040s, in which case all you have to do to see another coronation is live another 25 years. Not all of us are going to manage that, in which case this really was a once in a lifetime experience. And in the event of revolution, Armageddon or the advent of constitutional republicanism, perhaps never ever again for anyone.
♔ I went for another walk down the Mall on Friday. The crowds were busier but nowhere near 'The Queue' levels of devotion. Tents were much more plentiful but you could still easily have got a pitch at the far end for a one-nighter. The restrictions on where you could walk were much stricter, indeed trying to cross the entrance to St James's Palace proved such a ridiculous bottleneck you'd think the police had never undertaken crowd control before. The £10 Souvenir Programmes were selling well, each dispensed in a clear plastic bag which was both environmentally suspect and practically essential. Just before noon an ominous cloud approached and within minutes a downpour of biblical proportions was scattering the crowds accompanied by a couple of deafening rumbles. I have rarely been so assaulted by falling water. If only some flunkey had picked Friday 5th rather than Saturday 6th everyone in the Abbey would have been perfectly dry but the crowds waiting outside would have been brutally drenched.
♔ I managed to pick up one of the special edition Coronation Travel Advice leaflets and they were nothing special, they basically just said try and walk round central London if you can. No expense had been invested on producing any bespoke maps, not like the 1953 leaflet which was a work of art, but I suspect 2023 will also end up a collector's item.
♔ I sat through the entire ceremony and the processions on either side, not on a big screen but at home on my telly near a kettle. It was an outstanding outside broadcast, technically speaking, the producers cutting between a nigh-impossible number of cameras with shots framed to perfection. It was a perfect chance to people spot (ooh that's Ant and Dec, blimey that's Floella off Play School carrying the sacred stick). It was Penny Mordaunt's day to shine, similar to how she'd nannied the Accession Council back in September but this time with a big sword. The ceremony was fascinatingly old with several modern nods to diversity, including at least one act who'd've registered well on Britain's Got Talent. Only Camilla appeared to be enjoying herself, or maybe that was a contented smirk. But it did drag on a bit, the royals usually ensuring that none of their ceremonies go over the hour, indeed given how long the congregation had been stuck in their pews there must have been such a dash for the loos at the end.
♔ I walked up to the Olympic Park for the flypast, leaving the house just before it was announced they'd cancelled most of it. The helicopters flew over a good five minutes before the Red Arrows, such are the mathematics of relative speed. I can confirm that the pilots fire their smoke jets inbetween the Velodrome and the River Lea, should that ever be important to you when positioning yourself for a commemorative shot.
♔ On my way home I walked through the Big Lunch at Here East. This was their chief punt at a community event for Coronation weekend, including activities for children, a sequence of musical performances, a big screen to watch and a seriously long table for eating food purchased at one of the many canalside eateries. And although the archery was keeping some kids occupied and the performers were belting away to a small but appreciative audience, the relentless rain shrouded the entire event in endurance rather than joy. Not a soul sat on a bench beside the puddled tablecloths, they hid instead in undercover huddles alongside each restaurant and ordered another beer, or waited patiently under brollies for their children to tire. I thought of all the outdoor Coronation events long scheduled across the country, and all the drippy bunting and wasted quiche, and all because it's impossible to forecast the weather seven months in advance.
♔ Tonight of course it's the Coronation Concert, an assemblage of musical talent so middle-of-the-road it makes Smooth Radio look risqué. I may treat you to my thoughts here later, or I might prefer to go to bed early with a mug of cocoa.
