The news was obviously full of the Queen's death this morning, and I do wonder how much they can wring out of what's happened? It seems that we revel in these kinds of events, dragging up old footage and photos of the Queen from when she was a baby to the present day. Everything is discussed and dissected ad nauseam...
I sound like a complete whiner and an Anti-Royalist (I'm definitely not!), but this huge coverage really irritates me. It leaves any other news items out in the cold, and although it's massive about the Queen, there are other things going on in the world that we'd like to hear about! She had lived to the fantastic age of 96, had had a truly fabulous life and had been very frail in the last few months. It was going to happen one day!
At work, I had an email from someone asking if one of our early morning swims was still on, in light of the events? Why wouldn't it be? This theme carried on for most of the day, and we received a lot of calls from people asking if we had cancelled swimming lessons, and classes or just if we were still open? It felt like the early stages of the pandemic all over again.
I hate to say it but the speculation in the office was: When is the funeral? And will we get a day off? Several of us were convinced our holidays would be affected by the funeral. I think the funeral will be when we're on holiday! And will we get another day off for the coronation of King Charles III? It still feels funny to say that! And of course, not forgetting Queen Camilla! I never thought I would hear that!
The mawkishness flooded Facebook today with ghastly profile pictures of the Queen walking off into the distance with Paddington Bear, and one particularly vomit-inducing cartoon of the Queen and Prince Phillip sitting on a bench with the words, "Hello again Lilibet"
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that the Queen was not overly sentimental at all. I didn't know her personally (obviously) but I think she was a fan of the stiff upper lip and had no truck with this kind of thing at all. You only have to remember how she reacted to the death of Princess Diana, which was truly shocking news.
As well as all the sentimentality, we also learnt that a great number of sporting fixtures were to be cancelled over the weekend, including Keith's Sileby match. I understand it was out of respect to the Queen but would she have wanted this? What about our national slogan, Keep Calm and Carry On? Couldn't we have played the National Anthem, have the players wear black armbands, and have a minute's silence?
Sophie texted me to say that there was talk of the staff in her office wearing black ribbons or armbands, and the conference she's going to next week being cancelled. She was looking forward to working at the Gala Dinner afterwards, but that is very much in doubt.
Our newspaper today had 85 pages of news about the Queen. How they managed to come up with that at short notice is mind-boggling!
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