Just checking in to see if anyone is watching. It’s breakfast time here in NZ and the nation, as one, is crowded around their TV screens, drinking in every moment of Duran Duran and Rod Stewart while they eat their morning Weetbix(sic).
I’m gilding the lily a little bit – yes, it’s on TV here but I suspect I’m the only person I know who’s actually watching the show.
Highlight so far is Alicia Keys crowbarring in her famous song about New York by having a preamble ramble about how “London feels like home… so in many ways this song is just as much about London…”. Yeah wha’evah, AK.
Anyway, I am enjoying the frosty, eyes glazed-over expressions of the royals until they realise they are on TV. Particularly Kate – her resting face is severe with pursed lips and the narrowed eyes of a ruthless operator.
Yeah but did you see Paddington?
I did. Michael Fagan did roughly the same thing and got banged up. It’s one rule for fictional Peruvian bears and another for everyone else.
It was very funny, though.
Subliminal messaging perhaps. The Queen Is happy to have tea with an immigrant that arrived hiding on a boat. Not shipped off to Rwanda…
Paddington’s been tweeting today, along the lines of “Be kind please”.
He knows he’s on the next boat out to Kigali
I’m seeing a lot of commentary on Twitter, none of which makes me think I’m missing anything (though I did enjoy the Paddington bit which was posted in a clip as above). Could we swap the Windsors for your PM? Sounds like that could keep everyone happy.
She’d abdicate and dismantle the whole royal edifice – is that what you want? Don’t answer that question until all this dies down.
Diana Ross channeling her inner dalek.
Well put together but bloody awful at the same time. We’ve only seen (well it’s on in the same room I’m in) the last bit.
I was sent the Paddington clip on WhatsApp it was assumed we’d be watching it.
Someone called Celeste just managed to sing What a Wonderful World without hitting any of the actual notes. You kept thinking, sooner or later she’s going to find the key, but no
You got that bang on. Shocking.
I haven’t heard this, but I’m surprised as Celeste is a fine singer and her debut album from last year is outstanding.
Even to my dodgy ears it was truly off key.
It was a radical interpretation – she sang it using only one note
She’s never been the same without Daphne.
Y’know what, I thought that
I saw Rod Stewart. He was abysmal.
Charles called her Mummy.
What I saw was brilliantly staged but largely toe-curlingly awful. Apart from the Paddington bit and the drones.
The drones were amazing.
I was nervous on behalf of Diana Ross. She got there though.
Jesus. I thought DR looked like she was rehearsing for a one-woman, off-Broadway recreation of Michael Jackson’s Thriller
Re the OPs comments about Kate, I think I would look pretty frosty if I had to make a day trip to Cardiff with two young children and then had to cpme back and listen stone cold sober to music from my parents or grandparents generation.
I do wonder why they didn’t ask our pm to make a speech.
Was he even there, maybe he’s had enough of parties.
Oh dear.
Ill-judged, badly executed, embarrassing. She deserves better. No wonder she cried orf, obviously seen the fucking schedule.
Poor choice of performers. Poor choice of songs. Still, they’ve only had ten years to plan it.
Off with their heads.
I caught a bit What a Wonderful World last night. It’s a wonder Satchmo didn’t rise from the grave and clout her with his bugle.
Missed the whole thing though saw Johnson being booed on Twitter which I enjoyed immensely.
Me too.. Enjoyed the Fabricant/Dorries faction denying it happened too.
I did see the flypast on YouTube.. I do like a nice royal flypast and hang the expense. The last one a few years ago came right over my daughter’s back garden while I was there. That was quite something, especially the sound of 8 Merlin engines flying in formation.
I agree, I love a flypast. Watched WWII in Colour about the Battle of Britain yesterday which was stirring stuff
I sometimes have to go to dull technical seminars at the conference centre at Duxford IWM. Whenever there’s a Merlin engine flying, attendees drift away from the seminar. It’s almost subconscious.
Now I come to think of it, it’s pretty much the sound we used to make when refighting the Battle of Britain with Airfix models. Anybody fancy some music?
Neeeeeeeeoooooowwww
Dugga-dugga-dugga etc.
There should be a spitfire flypast today nearby. I think the weather may mean it’s cancelled.
I shall sit at home flying paper planes and making aeroplane noises.
I discovered you can visit Fighter Command at Bentley Priory so I shall be taking the FIL for a day out.
https://bentleypriorymuseum.org.uk/
I was at a Jubilee garden party on Saturday afternoon with Mrs. T (she was running the plant stall), and a Spit flew over, was rather wonderful to see and hear, but why do we always have to go back to WW2 all the bloody time? Liz came to the throne in 1952. It seems that any national celebration always involves Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and Spitfires.
I’ve checked my diary, and I don’t believe I’ve sung either since VE-Day., and having won the Battle of Britain several times in my back garden I’m over all that. I just like the noise Spitfires make, that’s all.
I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with it – there are more Spitfires (and Hurricanes) flying now than there were 30 years ago.
https://song.link/gb/i/1302934341
Oh well done. I thought I’d be the only one tiddly pomming in my head to Chris Wood.
Lovely.
Probably seen by all, weeks ago, but I think this is the funniest thing about the whole sorry event
I’ve shared that with my Dad. I’m waiting for him to say…”Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts? Didn’t know they were still going….”
Sure enough, an email has arrived saying “Unbe-f***ing-lievable! Who put this line-up together??”
Oh dear oh dear. Is it too late to divorce my parents?
Missed a trick with Jim Rose – would have been a delight to see him suspended naked from an aerial between the Victoria Memorial and the main gates of Buckingham Palace, pulling Union Jacks out of his ringpiece to the sound of the Sex Pistols.
The real show had more than its fair share of arseholes.
Ayy thangyeww
Yeah, but how many of them were mutilating their genitalia live on stage?
Well, that would have explained the vocals on What a Wonderful World
Arf!
I escaped the whole farrago by hiding in my mum’s caravan on the north Norfolk coast. Given the weather forecast for today, we drove home last night – every radio station seemed to be broadcasting something joob related, so I drove a bit faster to get home quicker and turn it off.
I’m going to spend the day hiding indoors – much like every other day, then. The massive picnic on the park near my house has been cancelled due to forecast of heavy rain. Phew!
I dread to think what it is going to be like when Brenda finally carks it. Do they take dull people on the International Space Station?
The perfect opportunity to share this gem from Irish writer Patrick Freyne from a year or two ago…
Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.
Don’t any of them know the cricket’s on?
Sport is, at times like this, truly sent from God… him or herself.
I turned it on just before Rod Stewart came onstage.
The horror. The horror.
I see that many apparently famous / cool people watched the concert and/ or other bits and then said how awful it was on Twitter. I wa struck by the number who expected it to be rubbish beforehand. I couldn’t help wondering why they had watched it in the first place, if they thought it was going to be crap. Do the rich/famous/talented really have nothing else to do of an evening ?
There’s presumably a FOMO element to it. We watched a few bits of it last night out of curiosity and it was, as expected, not top our tastes so we watched something else. Just occasionally a big event, aimed at the masses, unexpectedly hits the spot in our house – the London Olympics opening ceremony would fall into that category. What if it turns out to be unexpectedly magnificent?
BTW, I must get myself to an event with a drone display. They look quite cool.
I thought most of ’em lurked on The Afterword.
I didn’t know this was on and it seemed to garner no press attention here in Oz. I went and looked at the three most quoted acts from this thread.
Rod: Voice is shot, but he’s an entertainer. What is the significance of Sweet Caroline for this occasion? Is it the name of one of the royal tots?
Diana: I like the way she had to be shepherded onto the stage as if she couldn’t be trusted to navigate herself, and she looked a bit shaky on those stairs. Her vocals were almost certainly beamed in. Why was she there? What a strange choice for a country bursting with musical heritage.
Celeste: Huh? Even given the melody-dodging interpretation that she had gone for, she was noticeably flat for the duration. I’m going to give her the benefit and say that she may have had a monitoring issue.
Sweet Caroline seems to have been adopted for crowd singalongs in recent years, nothing to do with anyone called Caroline as far as I know.
Hmmm…
Celeste and Dirty Diana were two of the (granted, among loads) of acts I was looking forward to watch do Glastonbury on my tellybox later in the month.
Maybe it’s like footballers wheezing through pre-season before emerging as finely toned athletes on the opening Saturday..?
There was some kind of public vote, maybe Radio 2 was involved, to find a communal singalong for the Jubilee and Sweet Caroline won. I’ve read that Rod wasn’t too thrilled about being asked to sing it but played along.
The graceless nerk apparently told the crowd, “This is a horrible song to sing so please make it fun for me.” What a pro.
In Canada all I saw on EPG was a one hour doc something like “The Queen and Canada”, having said that I don’t watch much regularly broadcast TV so I may have missed some other tributes, probably not though,