The UK is about to enter a four-day national bank holiday from Thursday, June 2 until Sunday, June 5. The Platinum Jubilee Weekend is to celebrate Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the British throne.
Her Majesty. Step back a few mental paces and consider the two words. I have a couple more. Freak show.
Ludicrously, the Royals are adored by some. You have to wonder why. The Windsors epitomise elitist privilege, living effortlessly off the sweat and taxes of their “subjects”. The wealth of ‘The Crown’ is beyond anything that most of us can comprehend, running into trillions of pounds.
And let’s pull no punches about these people. The Royals are dysfunctional, arrogant, manipulative and downright dangerous.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, was a good friend of the rapist Jimmy Savile. His disgraced brother, Prince Andrew, was a top mate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
I can only guess that some people are just blissfully unaware that their enthusiasm helps prop up what amounts to a feudal system that sits outside of the law.
–
None of that mattered some 45 years ago, on 7 June 1977. Silver Jubilee bank holiday. I was 20 years old, living in Birmingham. It was one of the happiest evenings of my life. Pure pleasure, causing no harm, and racking up a legend or two.
A pack of us headed to the Plough in Harborne.
Great pub. Good cheap beer. Our exhilaration may have been upped a notch by the BBC’s banning of the Sex Pistols caustic new single, ‘God Save The Queen’.
The merriment we let out fully equalled the ale taken in, too many to count. Get it down your neck and get another round. Again and again.
We had a mentor. Neil, the Mancunian that we tagged Big Dad. A mature student of around 24, Dad provided fathomless wells of stories and jokes. He had enigma and charisma to burn.
After the pubs had closed, a group of us congregated in the High Street, singing our slanted homage to the monarchy.
‘Jubilee, Jubilee,
Oh we’re all pissed up and we’re having a Jubilee’.
Swarming in the road, we surrounded a double decker bus, and Dad proceeded to scale the side, like a mountaineer, to the driver’s incredulity. This stopped the traffic in all directions as rubber-necking drivers clocked the action.
Five minutes later, we were still laughing, eyes streaming with joy, heading back through the leafy neighbourhood of Edgbaston.
Dad and some others decided to break into a swimming pool in an unoccupied house. I had a fresh criminal record – and so this seemed like intrinsically dangerous behaviour. Others chose to climb over walls and steal some expensive-looking plants. I sat on a wall by the road with a couple of unknown girls, waiting to see what transpired.
Two of the lads returned with green things in pots. They began debating whether to take a swim in the pool of the particularly sumptuous house where Dad had ended up, and whose owners were obviously away.
Suddenly, with zero warning, a police car came screeching to a halt just feet away from our little wall. You should have seen the boys scramble. Left, right, over walls, behind bushes.
One instinct told me to do the same, while a stronger command said stay put, because you are guilty of nothing. Micro-calculations in less than a second, resulting in me remaining wedged on a wall between a random set of cactuses. Pulse racing.
The coppers asked if I knew any of the culprits. Instinct kicked in. I said I’d met them that night. They wanted names and descriptions, so I invented a shedload, and sat in the back of the police car while the information was sent to HQ. “There was a tall guy called Gary, well over six foot, dark hair. Smaller fella with ginger hair, said he came from Erdington. Think he was called Brian.”
I described about six non-existent humans. The two rozzers told me to stay in the car, and went outside again, sniffing around for perps.
Now the tour de force. A never-to-be-forgotten image appeared in the wing mirror. A bloke walking down the road, whistling. A pumped up yellow lilo slung over his shoulder. At night, in the middle of landlocked Edgbaston.
As he neared, I could see it was Big Dad. He had lifted the lilo from the pool. Intending to give it a new home. As he walked past the coppers, who were still scrambling around for clues, Dad said, very politely, “evening officers,” before winking at me and ambling on. They were too preoccupied to notice.
Then I got a lift home for my co-operation. Grinning from ear to ear.
Happy days.
The Biscuit Factory 
Good morning Kev, a Bank Holiday Kev, the first man to throw the money lender’s out of the temple was crucified against the wishes of the ruling elite. Money is power and compared to many around the world our Head of State is well down the list. Our system may be broken but please enlighten me of a democracy that is not controlled by influence and money.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Good point Ed – I can’t think of a single democracy that isn’t under the boot of finance. But can a democracy also be a constitutional monarchy? I really don’t know. For me though, feting a monarch is like beating yourself up.
LikeLike
My point Kev. What is a democracy, in my opinion certainly not a group of people mostly men representing and voted for by a minority of a nations people. At least our nation is honest enough to say we are a Kingdom if not quite as United as is claimed.
The chance of living in a democracy for me remains a dream, but one worth fighting for.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One day, maybe. But not on today’s horizon.
LikeLike
This very day, in the book I am reading comes the following quote from Wordsworth
There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain …….
A rather apt quote for your post and one I agree with. Some episodes in my life ( a good number very trivial and without great importance) fit this perfectly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That Willy Wordsworth had a wisdom or two to relate. We were fortunate to have participated.
LikeLike
You’re completely on the same page as hubby, Kev. Whenever there’s hoopla about the Royals, steam comes out of his ears. Among the many things that annoy him are when Americans get starry-eyed over their weddings or babies being born. He’s like, “We left that place–why are we hero worshipping them? They’re not even English–they’re German! Diana was REAL British royalty,” he says in a moment of regressive backwards acknowledgement and praise, lol.
Oh, well. It’s always the same, isn’t it? A tiny handful with so much while the masses crawl in the mud.
Hey, GREAT story about your rambunctious youth. You thought on your feet in the way I WISH I could have when I was 20. I love it, lol !! Good job. And Big Dad walking past: “Evening, officers.” I was never that ballsy or interesting! I think it would have made me a much better person !!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
It still amazes me that I could think rationally, given the beers chasing around my system Stace. I think that in reality my drunken inertia (ie I’m sitting and can’t be bothered to get up and run) may have got the upper hand. 🙂 Funnily enough, my mate who lived at Long Beach for awhile was, indeed….. Big Dad.
Is it possible that your relative anonymity at 20 made you steadily more interesting as you got older?
Always appreciate your feedback – thank you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
We have so much in common! Rousing details from your well spent youth! When I saw folks were calling this Platty jubilee, it brought to my mind a platypus, that amusing creature neither this nor that, being duck billed, beaver tailed, egg laying… the royals are amusing, but pub beer and peanuts amusing…paid for (it seems) by the 95% of folks that don’t know any better and the 5% that do. Time to revolt…?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I used to think the Queen did a decent job. But when she signed the same-sex couples Act in 2013 I thought that’s it, I’ve had enough. I would not have signed the bill into law. I still think a monarch is fine along as they are truly a servant of the people.
But then I begin to wonder if perhaps the Royal Family have been kidnapped and living in Leicester incognito a bit like Sue Townsend’s book ‘The Queen and I’. Somethings don’t quite add up.
Anyway, I did write the following about Kings and Queens of England if you have not seen it. I think it is quite funny myself. Elizabeth the II is there at the end. I ask a question. What do you think?
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/03/19/k-is-for-kings/
LikeLike
I didn’t get past the idea that the Queen shouldn’t have signed the same-sex couples act. Why would anyone object to the union of two people who love each other, whatever their sex and sexual orientations? It’s the business of nobody but the couple concerned. Don’t understand your objections.
LikeLike
Thank you for your comment. However, it should be obvious. The whole thing has been a slippery slope into chaos and disorder, hence the Covid 19 nonsense now. The LGBTQ+ nonsense has been perpetrated by certain elites to destroy society and implement a One World Government based on fear and control.
You recorded your youthful misdemeanours here on your post. Youth is like that. I did silly things too. And of course it is quite funny your tall tales to the coppers.
But society cannot function in chaos, and if everybody merely does their own thing then life grinds to a halt, whilst the evil people behind it all slowly or not so slowly poison the world with drugs of all kinds. They make huge amounts of money at ordinary people’s expense, both health and wealth.
Most LGBTQ+ etc. people have been abused in some form or another, mentally, emotionally or physically. They are the way they are because of what happened to them. But then we all are in some way.
Two world wars did immense damage to societies with the loss of mainly good men, killed or maimed. The loss of fathers has resulted in much of the chaos, but chemical pollutants also play their part in changing the balance within the human body.
There is also the role of MSM which has distorted the perception of the way people should live.
Same sex unions are not about love, depending on how you define love. Lots of people ‘love’ one other in different ways. And for years and years people of the same sex have lived together: even brothers and sisters do that.
What is love? Ultimately the best love is looking after one’s own health carefully and the health of others in all sorts of ways. To put it as is written ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. And as it is God who created it all in the first place, following His guidance on the matter, His manual of life, is sensible.
This is why Jesus was called Emmanuel, em or ‘im manual, the manual of Life.
But to impose same sex unions as marriage on society is plain silly and has led as I say to the chaos today.
LikeLike
You’d probably be taken aback/shocked/appalled/disgusted by the enthusiasm Australians have for the Royal family. Maybe not the family so much as one particular member. ER II is held in high esteem generally.
It’s got something to do with distance. I call it the interstate cousins syndrome. You see those cousins once a year, or maybe two years, usually at Christmas, and everyone gets along. If you lived closer, like an hour’s drive apart, your feelings might be rather different.
The Queen can’t have too many more years left. I wonder though if we won’t all be missing her about five minutes after Charlie gets the crown.
Fun fact: William S Burroughs shared your view.
LikeLiked by 1 person