Bunting is going up in shops and across roads, street parties are being planned by the thousands, stores are advertising everything from Pimms (oh, yes please) to coloured cupcakes (no thanks).
There's a whole 4 day weekend of events from racing (horses that is), mega gig outside Buck P. (questionable line up if you ask me), carriage procession, church service (its not all fun), a flyby (writing QEII in the sky) and finally the real QEII herself on the balcony to do her waving thing.
Of course the highlight is the 1,000 boat pageant of boats on the Thames: as many ships for one woman as when Helen of Troy made Paris's heart go into thumping overdrive.
A lot more information is available out there, from the BBC's dedicated subsite to the newspapers (e.g. the Guardian's downloadable map here. Techies might be interested to note its being hosted on Google Drive), London focus sites like LondonTown.com have their own take here and of course the official site here.
On the Thames Jubilee Pageant site as well as the map shown above you can also find a lot of information about some of the boats taking part including:
- Fireboats
- Dunkirk Little Ships
- Avenue of Sail (which are separate and moored below London Bridge)
- Historic + Service boats
- Human powered boats (or at least that's what they should be called)
- Recreational motorboats
- Explore Vessels (not entirely sure what that means but they sound and look interesting)
- Narrowboats (I've seen them a few times)
- Kayaks (if rowers toss oars what do kayakers do?)
- Barges
- Herald Music Barges (can they Handel the pressure - geddit???)
- Passenger Boats
- Royal Squadron
Plus without downloadable PDFs there are working boats, flags of the pageant and a whole swarm of police launches, RNLI orange specials, mean and menacing Royal Marines and the PLA to keep everyone in order.
Phew! What a list! Should be absolutely amazing even if the weather is threatening to be historically appropriate.
But I'm going to miss almost it all.
Ah well, there'll be another one in 350 years or so and Buff assures me that he has it all under control.
1 comment:
I wish I could be there to see this. My sister saw the Royal barge moored in Richmond. Maybe a little gaudy but still stunning.
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