Not What She Seems

I finally figured out the whole Jubilee business - it was a sham. My problem was that I didn't want to feel like a bystander during another cultural 'event', instead wanting to feel that, for once, I had actually participated in a national celebration. I was tired of being an outsider. However, what I've come to realise is that, despite all the TV coverage of cheering crowds and street parties, the truth was that, over those four days last week, the majority of people were actually completely indifferent to it all. Only royalist fanatics and invited (rich) sycophants were on the banks of the Thames for the pageant, watching that awful concert on big screens on the Monday or lining the Mall on Tuesday. Indeed, the whole thing was London-centric. For those of us outside the capital, it was just something happening on TV. As for those street parties, well, I still haven't met anybody who actually attended one, let alone organised such a party. I suspect they only took place in those bunting-clad villages full of middle class interlopers I drove through the other day. Actually, even those were the exception, rather than the rule. Bunting was in short supply in most of the villages I've subsequently driven through.

So, I don't feel bad about having been repulsed by the orgy of toadying to that bastion of inherited wealth and privilege that is the Royal family. Like I said at the outset, it was all a sham, a hollow spectacle to try and divert attention from the crisis of capitalism currently engulfing us, whilst simultaneously reasserting the traditional class structure. This latter point was epitomised by the revelation that some of the stewards 'employed' by the company with the contract for stewarding the event were actually unpaid unemployed people. (despite the attempts of the Tories and their lackeys in the right-wing press to dismiss this story and contest its facts, the fact remains that we, as taxpayers, were effectively subsidising this firm, which was already in receipt of a lucrative government contract, through their use of slave labour). Still, we did learn some things from it all - mainly that the defence cuts have been far deeper than originally thought: if that fly past was anything to go by, the entire strength of the RAF now consists of two Spitfires and a Lancaster bomber. (Incidentally, where were the Messerschmitts and Heinkel bombers to commemorate the Royal family's German origins?) Oh, and I was, of course, incorrect when, in an earlier post/rant I said that we only had the Olympics to get through now - we have Euro 2012 first. Already we've had to endure the manufactured 'controversy' of John Terry's selection for England, whilst Rio Ferdinand is left at home. If I was a cynic, I could speculate that, in view of the allegations of rampant racism levelled at tournament co-host Ukraine, the favouring of Terry is an obvious move - he'll feel right at home there. Allegedly.

(As you may have gathered, this is the post postponed from Friday due to the twenty-hour power outage I had to endure. Indeed, repairs to the power cables still haven't taken place, and we're still receiving power courtesy of a generator truck).