Jubilee Fever

OK, I realise I’m a little late.  The world has moved on from waving soggy flags in aid of some under qualified, over privileged crone to waving them for the Olympics...and a bunch of dudes in shorts.  Fair enough.

Let me take this opportunity to admit that I am a staunch republican and so, those of you who are of a royalist disposition may not want to continue any further.  Not that I am going to use this post as a way of explaining or justifying my beliefs to you.  That will come later.  Much later.  When we’ve got to know each other a little better.  Then I will discuss the finer points of my political beliefs and why I think inbreeding is wrong.  However, for now, I am going to content myself with providing a brief critique of the pantomime that was Jubilee weekend....

So, a few months ago my manager informed me that we would be getting Jubilee weekend off work whether we liked it or not and that I would owe time back.  So much for living in a democratic bloody nation!  Not only was I being forced to take holiday against my will but I would also owe additional time back for the pleasure.  You might well wonder why I felt so resentful.  Well, the simple answer is I had work related stuff to do.  I had people’s family history to poke around in and books to tidy.  I had stuff to do that was wholly unrelated to a bunch of over privileged inbreeds who I will never meet and, if I’m being honest, have not even the slightest inclination to meet.  How interesting can a bunch of posh morons who’ve never had to even clean their own boots or hold down a day job actually be? 

Anyway, I digress.  So, once I had established that I had to take that weekend off work and that there was literally no getting out of it (I mean, calling home “sick” wouldn’t have done much good) then I had to get thinking about how I would spend it.  Had it been entirely up to me I would have sat in the living room with the curtains drawn, whilst watching back to back episodes of “Blackadder” and “Not Going Out” and eating dry shreddies out of the box.  Or maybe I would have just curled up and slept the weekend away.  Whatever my plans would have been they certainly wouldn’t have involved leaving the house or watching any of the coverage on TV.  I could have lulled myself into believing that there was absolutely nothing going on.  Then I could have returned to work, where I would justifiably avoid talking to anyone (because one is not allowed to talk in a reference library) until the royal farce had been forgotten....

As per usual, I wasn’t to get my way.  It was suggested (and not by me) that we should use this as an opportunity to visit family.  Usually this would be fine but not when the streets between us and said families were bespattered by union Jacks and bunting, making the whole area look something like a BNP rally.  I was actually fearing that we might encounter skinheads.

The weekend seemed to pass without incidence if you don’t count my boyfriend’s sister shotting champagne-there is a context to that, it wasn’t just a random act of unprovoked alcoholism-and my mother shrieking like a banshee on helium-again, there is a context.  In fact, the only bit of the Jubilee panto I was exposed to was the concert, which my parents had on in the background whilst my dad and boyfriend were having some nerdy debate (no explanation, just an unprovoked act of nerdism).  The dog was, understandably, completely underwhelmed and a bit cheesed off by the whole thing.  I think she decided that dragging her bed from one end of the house to the other would be a more fulfilling pursuit than watching Madness perform “Our House” whilst pratting around on top of Buckingham Palace.  I can’t say that I disagreed with her.  I would rather have been sitting in the store at work, picking paper mites off a dusty volume than have to sit and watch that crap.  What is worse is the fact that so much cash was spent on the whole bloody charade.  Money that I didn’t actually think we had.  Or at least, money that we have been repeatedly told we don’t have.  Can we have extra money so that we can provide better services?  Sorry folks, there’s a recession.  OK, so can we keep the NHS?  Sorry folks, there’s a recession.  Can we run such and such a scheme to help job seekers get into work?  Sorry folks, there’s a recession.  What about rehousing the homeless?  There’s a bloody recession, we’re not made of money!  OK, so can we have X amount of pounds to celebrate some crone scrounging off us for sixty years?  Why, what a spiffing idea.  We shall also give the proles an extra day off work, make them feel as though their miserable little existences are worth hanging onto for one whole day.  Mwahahahaha.

God save the bloody Queen, she’s cost us enough money!