19th September
Front page of The Times. A smiling King Charles (not my king) standing with open arms opposite a smiling Liz Truss (not my PM, in fact not PM for the majority of MPs who did not vote for her) in Buckingham Palace. What a strange photograph to publish on the day of a national funeral.
Liz, seemingly, was leading us in the one minute silence from the steps of 10 Downing Street last night. Watching polar bears eating other bears was to be preferred.
When the national insurance rise is scrapped, the poorest households will be better off by 63p a month, and the richest by £150. Truss is truly a PM for the whole country.
One of the demonstrators who held up blank pieces of paper on the Royal Mile was followed home by two policemen. Police Scotland have yet to comment.
Monty Don now has a new golden retriever puppy to replace an older dog that was put down. If only politics were as easy as that.
I went out on the bike this morning after breakfast, then back for the royal funeral. Well. Not really. I dipped in and out of the house, with the TV on in the background, and cleaned out the garage at the same time.
What I did see of the spectacle looked – indeed – quite spectacular, or at least would have been if the BBC Hugh Edwards had not constantly interrupted things with a flow of, what he obviously thought was, useful or useless information (depending on your point of view). How many time do we have to be told that members of the royal family were walking behind the coffin – you could see them – if you could not see them a trip to Specsavers (there are other opticians) should be on the cards.
Continued violence in Leicester over the loss of a cricket match (I think).
I think the news commentator got it wrong when she told us – quite a few times – that the Queen would be buried at Windsor Castle. I thought that ‘shelved’ might be a more accurate term. Her coffin placed on a shelf in a crypt next to Prince Philip.
Apart from that I have to say that it was an incredibly peaceful day. Hardly a car on the road. Hardly a plane in the sky. Not even the usual dog walkers out and about, apart from the young guy who lives on the junction and regularly takes his mobile phone and small scotty dog out for a walk.
I rewatched the gory polar bear bits from Frozen Planet II.
Also reading Stephen King’s IT.
Angela was out filling the bird feeders this evening, shortly after the shelving ceremony in St George’s chapel. So, thankfully, she is not dead and must simply have been following events on tv.
Does politics resume tomorrow, or is the government still in official mourning, and will we have to endure a further days of royal coverage?
One Pagers 