In the unlikely event that you’ve spent the last week in a coma and this happens to be the first thing you see when you wake up:
The Queen of England died last week.
So sorry you found out this way.
Queen Elizabeth II passed away at home surrounded by her family, which on balance is a pretty good way to go. As far as I’m aware she didn’t suffer a long period of illness and at 96, I don’t think anyone can claim she was taken before her time, but it’s still a loss.
She did have to put up with meeting Boris and Liz Truss the day before but even as someone who can’t stand either of them I doubt we can really pin the blame there, unless upon meeting them both just thought ‘fuck this’ and gave up, which would have been entirely understandable.
Her state funeral will be held on Monday 19th September, which has been made a bank holiday in the UK.
I don’t have any strong feelings towards the monarchy, although if pushed into a corner I’d probably say I was a republican. You only have to see the footage of our new king Charlie having a minor meltdown over a pen to perhaps consider that that maybe, forcing a man who is grieving for his mother to perform a fortnight’s worth of ceremonial gubbins starting literally hours after the death is announced seems fairly barbaric.
However, most people have only seen one monarch in their lifetime and it is a big deal to many who felt connected to her somehow, so despite the fact I’m not personally affected and I won’t be tuning in to the funeral myself (I am self employed, so I’ll be spending the day attempting to work while my children entertain themselves with electronics), I do understand that people feel like they want to grieve and pay their respects.
So far, so normal.
Most people are somehow affected by the news if not emotionally, then practically. Work projects have understandably been paused; it isn’t right to put out new advertorial content while the country is in mourning. I noticed that the adverts on All4 disappeared which I am, er, all for. Every single corporate Twitter account had to pay their respects, of course, because the world is watching what Subway and ASOS have to say on the matter.
Google has gone grey and even ATMs have pictures of the Queen on them to look at while you wait for your little portraits of the Queen to be dispensed. Clouds are only allowed to appear looking vaguely like the Queen’s face.
Schools and most workplaces will be closed, and supermarkets are closing on the day of the funeral as a mark of respect.
I did my weekly shop a Tesco this week and they even had a table set up with a book of remembrance, although what they’re planning to do with it I have no idea. I’m not sure the Queen’s family will be particularly desperate to read the thoughts of Reading West Tesco Extra’s shoppers.
(I’m quite thankful I don’t shop at Morrison’s though…)
Five days on, and it seems that the British public is going out of its way to see who can mourn the best.
The performative grieving is quite something to behold.
Is it ‘grief porn’ or ‘mournography’?
Dan Wootton, a cunt of quite unimaginable degree, got called out when he filmed himself leaving flowers for her maj…
…Despite spending the majority of his working life dragging on Meghan Markle with whom he is unhealthily obsessed for sharing personal moments.
This you, mate?
(Talking of Meghan, and taking it off on a bit of a tangent for which I do apologise, the right-wing media’s obsession with her has been bizarre to witness. Piers Morgan won’t shut the fuck up and the Daily Mail are whipping their dullard readers up into a frenzy at every opportunity. Check out the lunacy below)
Madness has clearly taken hold of this Very Normal Island.
People are currently travelling from across the country and reportedly queueing upwards of thirty hours to catch a mere glimpse of the coffin. I have a specific question about where they’re going to the toilet, but that’s probably not the biggest one I have.
After the famed Platty Joobz sketch (which I thought was terrifying but many found heartwarming; let’s agree to disagree) Paddington Bear is featuring in this mournathon quite heavily. In a country which is suffering the biggest cost of living crisis in decades, people are apparently leaving out not just flowers in their thousands, but Paddington toys and even marmalade sandwiches for the rats and pigeons of London to devour. There’s even a grammatically incorrect Queen/Paddington tattoo out there.
I heard the Queen actually called Paddington a furry little twat and said that marmalade tasted like jism, but that might be a rumour.
Center Parcs pulled a right howler by deciding to close entirely on the Monday of the funeral – and announced they were going to kick people out of their accommodation overnight as a mark of respect. Because it’s what she would have wanted, ruined holidays, sad kids and wasted money. They did do an inevitable U-Turn but only when called out by literally everybody; it was actually nice to see the country united for once. I think that will go down in the annals of history as one of the most bizarre PR decisions ever made.
More disturbingly, there are reports of important medical appointments being cancelled because of the funeral, and some foodbanks are having to close through lack of volunteers and donations. While it is unfair to blame volunteers for wanting to spend bank holidays with their families etc, it seems somewhat dystopian that people are being left to starve in order to mourn the life of someone who wanted for nothing; that people are stepping over the homeless in order to lay expensive flowers and food which will go to spoil in memory of someone they never met.
And I will leave you with this public notice
Please do not be aware of guinea pigs next week. Thank you.
RIP Queen Elizabeth.
Is guinea pig awareness week where we dust off our best recipes and compete to make people aware of why the Peruvians love them? I certainly did not change my sunday lunch plans to respect her majesty 😀