A Belgian goes to Windsor for a quiet look at a castle and leaves holding a reader poll.
WINDSOR, England (Bohiney) – I went to Windsor to stand near a castle in silence, and instead I stood behind a tour group in a tea room for twenty minutes, which is the most English outcome available to a Belgian with a return ticket.
Platform two, a short walk of grievance
The train to Windsor takes long enough for me to open a book and short enough that I never finish a page. Today the book was a thick volume on the political history of nineteenth century India, chosen because it is heavy enough to stop me being asked questions by the man opposite. He asked me one anyway. He wanted to know if it was the Harry Potter.
The town at the top of the hill has the particular glow of a place that has sold itself well. Every shopfront has a crown on it. Even the post box seems to be waiting to be knighted.
The Long Walk, with a flag
I walked up past the castle and did what I always do, which is check the flagpole. When the Royal Standard flies, the monarch is at home. When it is the Union flag, he is not. I find this the most sensible piece of household management in the country. My own flat has no such system, and as a result the neighbours have no idea whether I am in, and neither do I.
I will not pretend I was inside. I stood at the railings with everyone else and looked at a wall for an educational length of time. The wall was very good. It had been there since before most of the people I know had learned to disapprove of things.
A table at the Larkspur
The Larkspur Tea Rooms puts a doily under everything, including the bill. I ordered a pot of Assam and a scone, and the waitress, Mrs Penhallow, asked if I wanted the full cream tea or just a scone. I said I wanted the full cream tea, because a scone alone is a plain statement and I was feeling elaborate.
Over the scone I read the news, which in Windsor means the royal news, and it was all about Mumbai. Hello’s report says the Prince of Wales is due there for a two-day Earthshot summit before the awards night on the seventeenth, with four presenters confirmed and more stars still to be announced. There are five prizes, and every winner gets one million pounds. Outlook India says the host, Karan Johar, met the Prince in London beforehand, and that India has seven of the fifteen finalists, four of them previous winners, more than any other country. Fifteen finalists were chosen from nearly seven thousand nominations. That is a serious number of forms.
Should Princess Kate join Prince William on the Earthshot stage in Mumbai?
That is the real headline of a reader poll on the same site, which also notes that Kensington Palace has not confirmed whether the Princess will attend. I want to be fair. A magazine is entitled to ask. But somewhere in the British constitution, unwritten and therefore always under repair, there is now a point at which the question is put to readers before it is put to the household, and the household says nothing, and the readers vote. It is the nearest thing we have to a referendum that nobody has the power to carry out.
The headline grammar of waiting
I counted the hedges in one article before my tea went cold. Reportedly, widely reported, likely, tipped, yet to be confirmed. Five hedges, no facts, and a lovely photograph. This is what pageantry looks like when it is done in prose. The procession is made entirely of conditionals.
An Empress, and the room that went to India for her
All this talk of India made me think of Queen Victoria, whom the Delhi assembly of 1877 proclaimed Empress of India, and who never once went to India. She governed it through a Secretary of State, a Council and a large number of letters. When she wanted to feel she had been, a room was built for her at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, with plasterwork copied from the subcontinent by craftsmen working to a brief. A whole room as a substitute for a journey. If you are a modern royal, you will find that Mumbai comes with a plane.
William and Catherine did a much-photographed tour of India in 2016, and I noticed that every report this month remembers it more clearly than I remember last Tuesday. The institution has a very good memory for its own outings. It is the dentist’s appointment it forgets.
The same afternoon I found a farm.fm item on Chinese scientists rewriting soybean DNA, and I will say this for it: it described something actually happening, which made it the most decisive thing I read all day, and I read the castle’s flag.
Back on the train
I paid Mrs Penhallow, who gave me a receipt as if it were a pardon. The train back was crowded with people carrying small crowns made of cardboard. I assumed it was school, and it was.
I was still thinking about the poll. There is a good piece at The London Prat on London news told with a straight face, and I think the poll would sit very happily in it, except for the inconvenient fact that someone else got there first and it was printed in earnest. If you like your pageantry with the hedges removed, try the Cockney rhyming slang guide, where nobody is tipped for anything except the waiter.
I typed these notes at the station for Bohiney, with a scone crumb still on the keyboard, and there are more of my daily notes at Bohiney for anyone who would like them with fewer castles.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/