The Bad, The Worse and The Queen

Seems like Her Madge and I have more in common than I could have ever imagined this Jubilee. We both managed to spend our Royal Bank Holiday Monday visiting our very nearest and dearest in hospital. Liz: visiting Phil the Greek and his dodgy bladder. Me: visiting Little Mum and her increasingly dodgy hips and knees. But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. It also gave both me and Queenie the chance to avoid an enormous musical travesty, otherwise known as The Diamond Jubilee Concert.

"I told Gary Barlow I wanted Devo or Shellac. Or The Smiths reforming."

And we almost got away with it. Her Top Royalness was forced to show her mug at the dying embers and probably endure more pain than her hubby trying to pass The Royal Wee. Me? I was just helping settle Little Mum down for the evening, when I heard some dreadful wailing coming from the corner of the Ward 5. "Listen to that poor soul", I commiserated, thinking one of the old dears was in a frightful amount of pain.

Until I realised that what I could hear was some twat murdering an awful pop tune on a telly round the corner of the bed curtain. I'm told The Black Eyed Pea person is in the UK to judge our musical hopefuls as they belt out tunes on some TV singing competition. Now, that's actually funny, because Will.I.Am. can obviously not sing for fucking toffee. Further investigation revealed that he was duetting with some bird who insisted on shrieking painfully flat. I am reliably informed by a nice staff nurse that this is a creature called Jessie J, also a judge on aforementioned sing-for-your-15-mins-of-fame-fest. Quite honestly, I'd rather listen to hospital radio. Dreadful.

Two for the Tower, ma'am.

After leaving Little Mum to get some shuteye after her tiring day, I came back to my Sis's house to enjoy the rest of the concert. On telly? Watching it? Don't be ridiculous. You know I don't watch The Television. No, that nice Tim Jonze at The Guardian live-blogged the event, revealing each astonishing happening in minute-by-minute detail. Between him (and the superlatively funny comments of some of The Great British Public) I learned that neither Cliff Richard nor Elton John were in possession of their own teeth or hair, both old musical Queens wearing pink and hamming it up. Grace Jones (Gaga-With-Balls) sang Slave To The Rhythm whilst hula-hooping (I thought I might have accidentally swallowed a load of Little Mum's morphine when I read this, but it is TRUE). But my favourite insta-post was this, which I screengrabbed:

8.13pm Was Her Most Regal Rock 'n' Rollness watching Savages at The Old Blue Last??

(Postscript: this was the only Jubilee similarity between Liz II and me. Day One of Diamondfest had revealed no parallels. Not having to give a stuff about the constitution or any of that silliness meant I could spend my Sunday curled up, with an enormous bar of Cadburys, drinking tea and watching lovely old B&W films.  Queenie, the poor 86 year old love, was forced to spend her Sunday floating about on the Thames on one of the wettest, shittiest days of the year. Gawd bless 'er.)