Wednesday, 1 June 2022

The Scruffiness of Jubilee Mania.

The Shire is currently littered with Jubilee detritus. Union flags, bunting, and pictures of our dear old Queen are everywhere – draped across the front of houses, slung between walls and gateposts, hung scruffily on fences, and so on and so forth. There’s even a union flag stuck in one of the farmer’s fields, and several public footpath posts in Church Lane have mini union flag pennants tied to them. To my eye it makes the natural beauty of the Shire landscape look cheap and tawdry, but I suppose it helps people to feel reverence for something in a world turning darker.

What I find amusing is the bunting adorning the village hall. Much of it isn’t composed of union flags at all, but individual pennants of red, white and blue which, taken together, recall the French tricolour. As someone who feels more reverence for Amelie and M. Hulot than I do for the royal family, I can’t say that I disapprove.

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