From Buzzfeed, June 4:
1. It’s time for the State Opening of Parliament, featuring the Queen’s Speech. Which is one of the greatest, most bizarre British traditions.
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Half the army goes on parade and hundreds of bears are turned into hats. Westminster comes to a standstill.
2. The Queen comes to parliament in an official coach to read out her speech. Which is actually a legislative wish list for the next year written by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
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This happens every year or so. It’s the government equivalent of when your boss calls a “progress meeting” and everyone in your team sets over-ambitious targets and promises to work extra hard and do great stuff over the next 12 months.
3. First up, the Yeoman of the Guard arrive in full regalia to symbolically sweep the cellars in order to symbolically prevent any modern day Guy Fawkes symbolically blowing up parliament with the Queen inside.
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4. Then a single MP is taken hostage at Buckingham Palace. Symbolically. To ensure nothing symbolically untoward happens to the Queen while she’s in parliament.
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We’d like to think they spend this period playing hopscotch with the corgis and enjoying a large sherry.
5. The benches of the House of Lords start to fill up with the spouses of peers wearing diamond tiaras, who have the right to sit there because they always have.
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In some cases this is because they married the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of someone who once knew someone who had an affair with King Charles II.
But that's not the weird part.
Last year the government made her say “internet protocol”, presumably as part of an internal Downing Street joke.But remember, every time the Queen says “my government will”, what she actually means “if the coalition holds it together for another few months then this lot might just pass something resembling the law I’m announcing”....
