Party Like It's 1945?

Enjoy one of those VE Day street parties that the authorities seemed to hope would spring spontaneously into life, despite the fact that today wasn't a public holiday?  No, neither did I.  There seemed to be a distinct lack of VE Day 80th anniversary celebrations going on today.  Which is hardly surprising for a number of reasons - not least being the fact that the whole thing was fumbled at the highest levels, with a half-hearted attempt to celebrate the event on Monday, which was a public holiday, but still commemorate it today, the actual anniversary.  All of which just served to confuse most people as to what was going on.  On top of that is the fact that there are now so few people alive who actually remember the original event, meaning that it no longer has the resonance it might have had in the past.  Although, in reality, VE Day never was something that was celebrated or remembered since 1945.  The last time it was an 'event' was thirty years ago for the fiftieth anniversary (when there were still plenty of people around who could remember the actual event).  Even less observed, in my experience, has been VJ Day in August, which marks the actual end of World War Two, when all hostilities ceased, (unless you were a Japanese soldier deep in the jungle of some remote island, in which case you wouldn't hear about it until around 1970).  

Anyway, to get back to the point, there were no parties on my street, either today or on Monday.   There never are, whether it is a Royal wedding, coronation, some kind of jubilee or whatever.  Every time one of these events rolls around and the local council start granting road closures for parties, I wait for my invite to arrive.  But it never does, so I assume that nobody can be bothered to organise one.  I have this lingering suspicion, though, that one day, when one of these occasions rolls around, that I'll get up to find the road closed for a party I haven't been invited to.  Which I'd take as being some kind of badge of honour - recognition that I'd established myself successfully enough as a miserable old git/recluse, that the neighbours knew to leave me well alone.  (Which some of them do already - there was that time, years ago, when some new people moved in a few doors down and threw a housewarming barbecue to which the entire terrace except me and the old bloke who lived at the opposite end were invited.  Bizarrely, despite this apparent snub, said new neighbours still thought I wouldn't mind if they repeatedly encroached on my property.  Some people really don't have any boundaries).  Getting back to VE Day, it has already been eclipsed by the election of a new Pope.  Apparently, according to crazed right wing extremist Laura Looney, he's a 'woke Marxist Pope'.  I like the sound of him already.